League Classic launches with a starting roster of 60 champions, all using their pre-rework kits, drawn from the mode's Season 3 foundation with additions cut off around 2013. The mode goes live on July 29, 2026. This is the full list, grouped by class, plus the champions reported for future waves and the notable names missing at launch. For what the mode actually is, see our League of Legends Classic guide.

Full League Classic Champion List (60)

These are the 60 champions in the League Classic starting roster, including all of the original 40 launch champions. Each plays with its older gameplay kit, so champions that have had a full rework since (Sion, Warwick, and Fiddlesticks among them) differ significantly from their live versions. Class reflects each champion's general archetype.

The three names dataminers were unsure about before the reveal (Corki, Kassadin, and Sion) are all confirmed in the starting 60. For when each of these champions first released, see our champions by release date list.

Champions Coming in Future Waves

The starting 60 are not the full plan. Riot's Meddler confirmed the launch build "aren't all the champs that will ever be in Classic," just the first wave, and Riot's July 14 dev blog reaffirmed that "more champions are coming" from the same era. Riot has not published an official future-wave list, but eight champions have been reported through leaks and dev comments:

• Akali
• Caitlyn
• Fiora
• Graves
• Irelia
• LeBlanc
• Mordekaiser
• Urgot

Urgot is a notable one: Meddler called old Urgot the kit he is personally most excited to play, but he is reported for a later wave rather than the launch roster.

Notable Champions Missing at Launch

Because new-champion releases are cut off around 2013, anyone released after that is absent, which is most of the modern roster. Among older champions, the names players have flagged as missing from the starting 60 are Mordekaiser, Galio, and Udyr. Mordekaiser is one of the eight reported for a future wave; Galio and Udyr are on neither that list nor the starting roster, so their status is simply unknown.

What Era Are the Classic Kits From?

League Classic is not frozen to a single patch. Riot built it on a Season 3 foundation and pulled in elements from across the first four seasons, with champion releases stopping around 2013. That is why the roster looks like an early-to-mid LoL lineup rather than any one historical patch. For the full breakdown of the mode's era, items, runes, and systems, see the League Classic guide.

Will More Champions Be Added?

Yes. Beyond the eight reported future champions, Meddler said the 2013 cutoff is a target rather than a hard rule and that it "will depend on what people who play Classic want." Riot has also said it will update the mode over time, so the roster should keep growing after the July 29 launch. To see how League Classic fits alongside every current queue, see our guide to all League of Legends game modes.

What's the Difference Between the Original 40 and Original 17 Champions?

The "original 40" means League's first 40 released champions, available at the game's October 2009 launch and all included in the Classic starting roster. The "original 17" is a separate milestone: the 17 champions playable when League of Legends entered closed beta in April 2009. Neither figure is the Classic roster size, which is 60.

To unlock or lock your camera in League of Legends, press Y (the default Toggle Camera Lock key), or click the small camera icon next to the minimap. That single key flips between a locked camera that follows your champion and a free camera you move yourself. The rest of this guide covers where to change it in Settings, what the three camera lock modes actually do, whether you should play locked or unlocked, and how to fix a camera that gets stuck.

How to Unlock or Lock Your Camera

There are two ways to toggle your camera lock in-game:

• Press Y — the default Toggle Camera Lock hotkey. Tap it to switch between locked and unlocked.
• Click the camera icon next to the minimap in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

When the camera is locked, it stays centered on your champion and follows you around the map. When it's unlocked (also called free camera), it stays where you put it, and you move it yourself by pushing your mouse to the edge of the screen, using the arrow keys, or holding the middle mouse button to drag.

One thing that trips people up: the camera resets to locked at the start of every game and after some UI events. If you prefer unlocked, you'll need to press Y once each game, or change your default in Settings so it starts the way you want.

Where to Change Camera Settings

Two separate settings control your camera, and they live in different places:

• The Y keybind lives under Settings → Hotkeys → Camera Control, where the Toggle Camera Lock action is listed. You can rebind it to any key here.
• The camera behavior options (default mode, lock mode, speed) live under the Camera settings section.

To open Settings, press Esc in a game or click the gear icon. Under the Camera section you'll find:

• Default Camera Mode — set this to Locked or Free so every game starts the way you like, instead of toggling with Y each time.
• Camera Lock Mode — controls how the camera sits relative to your champion while locked (explained below).
• Camera move speed — separate sliders for mouse (edge panning) and keyboard (arrow keys).
• Move camera on revive — snaps the camera back to your champion when you respawn.

The 3 Camera Lock Modes Explained

When your camera is locked, the Camera Lock Mode setting decides exactly where it sits. Most players never touch this, but it changes how much of the map ahead of you is visible. Here's what each one does:

Fixed Offset and Per-Side Offset both keep you glued to the center of the action, which is the whole point of a locked camera. Semi-Locked is worth trying if you want a little breathing room without committing to a fully unlocked camera.

Should You Play Locked or Unlocked?

This is the real question behind most "unlock camera" searches. Both are viable, and it comes down to habit and role.

Locked camera is easier to learn. Your champion is always centered, so your mechanics (clicking abilities, dodging skillshots, kiting) are more comfortable because everything happens in the same part of the screen. The trade-off is tunnel vision: you only see what's around you, so you rely more on the minimap for map awareness.

Unlocked camera gives you more information. You can look at objectives, scout other lanes, and track ganks without moving your champion. Nearly all high-level players use unlocked (or semi-locked) camera for this reason. The downside is a steeper learning curve, since you have to move the camera and your champion at the same time.

If you want to switch to unlocked, ease into it. Play with a semi-locked camera first, or tap the Center Camera key (hold Spacebar by default) to snap back to your champion whenever you lose track of it during a fight. Combine unlocked camera with good vision and map awareness and it becomes a real advantage. It also pairs naturally with the newer WASD movement scheme if you're experimenting with control styles.

Fixing a Camera That Won't Unlock or Is Stuck

Sometimes the Y key seems to do nothing, or the camera locks onto a teammate and won't come back. Try these in order:

1. Press Y again — it's a toggle, so a stray keypress can flip you back to the state you didn't want.
2. Check your keybind — go to Settings → Hotkeys → Camera Control and confirm Toggle Camera Lock is still bound to Y (or whatever you set). A reset or a new patch can occasionally clear a binding.
3. Release the Select Ally keys — holding F2 through F5 follows an ally's camera; if one is stuck down or bound oddly, your camera will trail that ally instead of you.
4. Drag the minimap while tapping Y — the long-standing "camera stuck" bug can often be broken by clicking a spot on the minimap and toggling the lock key at the same time.
5. Reset hotkeys to default — if nothing works, use the reset option in the Hotkeys menu, then rebind Toggle Camera Lock. This clears a corrupted keybind config.

Adjusting Camera Speed and Edge Panning

If your unlocked camera feels sluggish or twitchy, tune it under the Camera settings:

• Camera move speed (Mouse) controls how fast the view pans when you push your cursor to the edge of the screen (edge panning).
• Camera move speed (Keyboard) controls the arrow-key panning speed.
• Enable smooth camera adds acceleration so movement feels less abrupt. Turn it off if you want instant, constant-speed panning.

Faster camera speed helps you scan the map quickly on an unlocked setup; slower speed makes fine adjustments easier. There's no single correct value, so nudge it a notch at a time until it feels natural.

FAQ

What is the camera lock hotkey in League of Legends?

The default key is Y, listed as Toggle Camera Lock under Settings → Hotkeys → Camera Control. You can rebind it to any key you like.

Can I remap the camera key?

Yes. Open Settings → Hotkeys → Camera Control, click the Toggle Camera Lock binding, and press the key you want to use.

How do I make my camera start unlocked every game?

Set Default Camera Mode to Free in the Camera settings section. Your camera will begin each game unlocked instead of locked.

Does ARAM use the same camera controls?

Yes. Camera lock, the Y hotkey, and the lock modes work the same across Summoner's Rift, ARAM, and other PC game modes. (Wild Rift on mobile has its own separate camera system.)

Smurfing in gaming means a high-skill player creates a new or low-ranked account to play against weaker opponents — either to dominate beginners, play with lower-ranked friends, or avoid recognition.

Note: this is unrelated to financial smurfing — a money-laundering technique where large cash amounts are broken into smaller deposits to stay under bank reporting thresholds. Same word, completely different context.

Where the Term "Smurfing" Came From

The term dates to mid-1996 in Warcraft II. Two experienced players — Geoff "Shlonglor" Frazier and Greg "Warp" Boyko — were well-known enough that opponents would dodge queue rather than face them. Their solution: create alternate accounts named PapaSmurf (Shlonglor) and Smurfette (Warp), named after the Belgian cartoon.

Playing under those names, they could actually get games. Shlonglor documented this in a first-person write-up from March 1996 — the earliest known primary source for the term. Within a few months, "smurfing" had spread through the Warcraft II community as shorthand for any skilled player on a disguised alt account.

It wasn't about dominating beginners. The original motivation was anonymity — they just wanted to play without people dodging. That detail matters for the debate over whether smurfing is always bad.

Why Players Smurf

A 2024 academic study from Ohio State University (Monge & Matthews, New Media & Society) found that 69% of surveyed players admitted to smurfing at least sometimes, and 94% believed other players do it. The motivations aren't uniform:

• Playing with lower-ranked friends — queuing on a main account against Silver players when you're Diamond tanks their MMR. An alt evens it out.
• Practicing a new champion or role — without risking ranked standing on your main.
• Escaping a stuck MMR bracket — some players believe a fresh account will climb faster than a main with a losing history.
• Anonymity — streamers and pro players use alts to avoid stream sniping, targeted dodges, or harassment.
• Lower-stakes games — when mentally tired or on tilt, some players want games that don't feel like they matter.

The same study found that players judge smurfing on a blame spectrum. Playing with friends? Most people don't fault it. Stomping new players for easy wins? High blame. The behavior is the same; the intent determines how it's received.

Is Smurfing Allowed? Rules by Game

The short answer: creating a personal alt account isn't banned in most games. What gets you penalized is the behavior — boosting, buying accounts, deliberately tanking MMR, or carrying paid boosters.

The Debate: Cheating, Illegal, or Just Controversial?

Three questions come up repeatedly, and they're often conflated:

Is smurfing illegal? No — at least not in any jurisdiction. Gaming smurfing isn't a legal offense. (Financial smurfing — splitting bank deposits to dodge the $10,000 Currency Transaction Report threshold — is a federal crime under 31 USC 5324. That's a different thing entirely.)

Is smurfing cheating? Depends on the game. Creating a personal alt isn't cheating in most titles. Using it to boost another player for money, deliberately lose to manipulate MMR, or play on a purchased account violates Terms of Service in every major competitive game.

Is smurfing wrong? This is where the community debate lives. The harm is real: new players matched against a Diamond player on a Bronze account get stomped in their placements, which Riot cites as a primary driver of new player churn. That's why the 2025 enforcement crackdown happened. But smurfing to play with a lower-ranked friend — without boosting, without tanking MMR intentionally — sits in a different moral category. The OSU study found both gamers and non-gamers judge it by motivation, not by the act itself.

Smurfing in League of Legends

LoL has gone through a notable shift in the last two years. Riot's official support article on smurfing (last edited December 2021) still says Riot "won't proactively remove smurfs in most cases." That language is now outdated.

Starting in 2025, Riot moved to active enforcement:

• Patch 25.13: A dedicated "Rank Manipulation" report category was added in-game.
• Patch 25.18 (September 9, 2025): Escalating bans for rank manipulation went live — first offense: 3-day ban; second: 14-day; third: permanent, plus LP/MMR reversion and loss of ranked rewards.
• Patch 25.23 (November 19, 2025): Penalty linking — if any account you own is penalized, all your linked accounts share that penalty.
• True Skill 2 (TS2): Riot's updated MMR system places high-skill players into correctly-skilled games roughly three times faster than the old system. The separate "smurf queue" that was briefly tested has been removed; TS2 replaced it.

Clash has its own rule: playing in a Clash tournament on an account ranked more than two divisions below your highest-ranked account is defined as smurfing. Penalties include reward removal and a ban from future Clash tournaments.

The bottom line for LoL: having an alt account isn't against the rules. Using it to manipulate rank — by boosting, hitchhiking in boosted lobbies, or buying botted accounts — is now actively enforced with escalating bans.

If you're trying to understand how your rank is calculated in the first place, see our guide to League of Legends ranks and how placements work.

FAQ

Can you get banned for smurfing in League of Legends?

Creating an alt account isn't bannable. Using it for rank manipulation — boosting, hitchhiking in boosted lobbies, buying botted accounts — triggers escalating bans (3-day, 14-day, then permanent) as of Patch 25.18. Penalty linking (Patch 25.23) means a ban on one account applies to all your accounts.

What's the difference between a smurf account and a secondary account?

Functionally the same thing. The distinction is behavior: an alt you use to play with friends or practice isn't penalized. An alt you use to manipulate rank is. Riot enforces on what you do with the account, not whether it exists.

Is smurf queue still a thing in LoL?

No. Riot tested a separate smurf queue but removed it. The current system is True Skill 2 (TS2), which detects high-skill players on fresh accounts and accelerates their MMR correction — placing them into appropriately-skilled games roughly three times faster than before.

What does "smurfing" mean in banking?

In finance, smurfing (also called structuring) means breaking up a large cash transaction into smaller deposits below the $10,000 Currency Transaction Report threshold to avoid mandatory bank reporting under the Bank Secrecy Act. It's a federal crime under 31 USC 5324. Completely unrelated to gaming.

The LoL Battle Pass is worth buying if you will actually finish it: the premium pass costs 1,650 RP, and the two skins on the track that have direct store equivalents are worth roughly 2,300 to 2,700 RP on their own, before the Prestige skin, Mythic Essence, and loot. If you will not reach the later milestones, or you would never buy the skins it contains, the math flips and you should keep your RP. Here is the full breakdown by price, contents, and player type.

What the Battle Pass Costs and Contains

Each Act (six weeks) has its own pass, and a season contains two Acts, so a year is roughly six passes. Buying every premium pass at full price runs about 9,900 RP per year, which is around $79 at current NA RP prices.

The premium track includes everything on the free track. The specific skins rotate every Act, so check the pass tab for the current lineup before buying; the structure above has been stable since the 2025 rework.

The RP Math

Against the 1,650 RP price, the premium-exclusive rewards convert approximately like this:

Two honesty notes on that table. Riot does not sell Mythic Essence or Prestige skins for RP, so their "value" is an inference from Mythic Shop pricing, not an official conversion; and chest/orb value is an average over random drops. But even counting only the two RP-purchasable skins, the pass returns more than it costs, which is the same conclusion the community consistently reaches. The catch is the next section.

Is It Worth It for Casual Players?

Only if you will finish the track, and that is a real constraint: the full pass takes about 24,000 BXP, and rewards you never reach are worth exactly zero. The big-ticket skins sit deep in the track, so a player who gets halfway captured much less than half the value. Before buying, check our breakdown of how long the battle pass takes to level against your actual weekly hours; missions do most of the work, but they still require playing consistently across the six weeks.

Three mitigations if you are borderline: you can buy the premium pass late in the Act (progress is shared between tracks, so BXP you earned as a free player unlocks premium rewards retroactively); you get a ~24-hour grace window after the Act ends to claim earned rewards; and you can buy skipped milestones at 95 RP each, though at that point the value math erodes fast.

Is It Worth It for Regular and Heavy Players?

If you play most days, complete the pass comfortably, and like the current Act's skins, the pass is one of the better RP-to-cosmetics deals Riot sells. The 25 Mythic Essence per Act also compounds: buying and finishing every pass in a year yields 150 ME, enough for a Mythic Shop Prestige skin on top of everything else.

Two caveats. Each Act requires its own purchase, with no subscription or carryover. And the pricier 2,650 and 3,650 RP bundles mostly add milestone skips and exclusive chromas; they are convenience purchases, not better value per RP.

BXP, MXP, and Other Confusions

BXP (Battle Pass XP) is what fills the pass track; you earn it from missions, matchmade games, and keeping positive Honor standing. MXP (Mayhem XP) is unrelated: it is the separate progression currency for the ARAM: Mayhem game mode's own 32-level reward track. Earning MXP does nothing for your battle pass. For the mission values and fastest BXP-per-hour routes, see the battle pass leveling guide.

One last disambiguation for searchers arriving from other games: League's battle pass has no daily-login value drip like Genshin Impact's Welkin Moon. It is a flat purchase against a fixed six-week reward track, so the decision is purely whether you will finish it and want what is inside.

Ultimate Spellbook is not live right now. The rotating game mode last ran from September 25 to November 5, 2024 (patches V14.19 to V14.21), and as of patch V26.13 Riot has not announced a return. Ultimate Spellbook replaces one of your summoner spells with a borrowed ultimate from another champion, so a Garen can carry Malphite's Unstoppable Force and a support can roam with Nocturne's Paranoia. The ruleset below reflects the mode's most recent (2024) version.

Ultimate Spellbook Return History

The mode has had four runs in five years, and it usually comes back reworked rather than reheated. Here is every appearance, drawn from Riot's patch notes and the wiki's patch history.

There was no run in 2025, and no 2026 return has been announced. The pattern is loose compared to a mode like URF: two runs in 2021, one in 2022, a two-year gap, then the 2024 relaunch timed around Worlds. When it does return, expect another mechanics pass rather than the exact 2024 version.

How Ultimate Spellbook Works

Ultimate Spellbook is standard 5v5 Summoner's Rift with one twist: one of your summoner spell slots is replaced by an "Ult-ernate Summoner Spell," a borrowed ultimate from another champion.

Picking your borrowed ultimate

• At the start of the match you get 30 seconds to pick 1 of 4 offered ultimates. If you don't confirm, the first option is auto-selected.
• Your own champion's ultimate is never offered, and the borrowed ult costs no resource and works before level 6.
• The borrowed ult starts on a 131-second initial cooldown (211 seconds if you have Attack-Smite).
• Junglers keep their Smite: their slot becomes a combined Placeholder and Attack-Smite loadout instead.
• One champion-specific quirk: if someone takes Sylas's Hijack as their borrowed ult, it steals the target's borrowed ultimate, not their real one.

Rerolls and swap bonuses

The reroll system was added in the 2024 relaunch. Starting at 8:00, and every 6 minutes after that, you can reroll your ultimate while dead or standing in the fountain. Your current ult is always offered again alongside three alternatives, so you can keep what you have. Swapping is rewarded: each swap grants a permanent stacking bonus of 300 max health (or the mana equivalent) plus 5 to 35 adaptive force, armor, and magic resistance depending on level, up to 4 swaps total.

Objective ult refreshes

Killing Baron Nashor or the Elder Dragon, or completing a Dragon Soul, grants your team an Ulternate Summoner Charge: the next cast of each player's borrowed ultimate refreshes its cooldown 3 seconds after use. Objective fights are therefore double swings, since the winning team gets a second round of borrowed ults.

Attack-Smite

Attack-Smite gives jungle items a passive that executes epic monsters and buff camps (Blue Sentinel, Red Brambleback, Rift Scuttler) below a health threshold of 600, 900, or 1,200 depending on your jungle pet's evolution stage. This is a different mechanic from the 2021 version, which dealt bonus true damage instead of executing, so guides written for the original run are out of date here.

Ultimate Spellbook vs. Unsealed Spellbook (Not the Same Thing)

Ultimate Spellbook the game mode is frequently confused with Unsealed Spellbook, a keystone rune in the Inspiration tree. The rune lets you swap one of your summoner spells for a different one while out of combat, with the first swap unlocking at 6:00. It exists in normal games year-round and has nothing to do with borrowed ultimates. Inside the Ultimate Spellbook mode, the rune is actually disabled and replaced with First Strike, so the two never appear together.

Best Ultimates to Borrow

There is no maintained win-rate tier list for a mode that isn't live, but the picks that dominated the 2024 run cluster around a few themes. Dodge.gg's mode guide rates Nocturne's Paranoia (a global engage on any champion), Karthus's Requiem (global execute pressure), Cho'Gath's Feast (a stacking true-damage execute), Kayle's Divine Judgment (2.5 seconds of invulnerability for you or an ally), Ekko's Chronobreak (escape, healing, and burst in one button), and Lux's Final Spark (long-range poke) as its top borrows.

Riot's own mode tuning backs up part of that read: the wiki's mode-specific changes show Cho'Gath's Feast has a deliberately reduced chance to appear in the offered pool, which is as close as the mode gets to an official "this one is too strong" flag. The general rule: borrowed ults that add a global threat, an execute, or an invulnerability window to a kit that normally has none are worth more than a second damage button.

Will Ultimate Spellbook Come Back?

Probably, but on Riot's schedule, and history says the gap can be long. The mode skipped 2023 and 2025 entirely, and each return has shipped with a rework, so Riot appears to treat it as a project to revisit rather than a fixture in the rotation like URF. There is no confirmed return date; the reliable signals are the official patch notes and the in-client game mode screen, not fan countdowns. For what is actually playable right now, see our overview of League of Legends game modes.

One for All is not live right now. The rotating game mode's last confirmed run started March 20, 2024 (patch 14.6), which means it has been off-rotation for over two years as of patch V26.13, its longest drought since the mode's 2018 revival. One for All puts all five players on each team on the same champion: your team votes on one pick, the enemy team votes on theirs, and the result is 5v5 Summoner's Rift with ten copies of two champions. This guide covers every return since 2013, how the vote system works, the shared-ability quirks that make the mode weird, and which champions are worth voting for.

One for All Return History

Nobody on page one of Google keeps a complete list of One for All's runs, partly because the wiki's own changelog stops in 2022. Here is the full confirmed history, cross-checked against Riot's patch notes.

There was no confirmed run in 2023 or 2025. Riot said in early 2023 that One for All was planned for later that year, but no patch notes show it actually going live, and the 2025 rotation slots went to ARAM Mayhem, Arena, Brawl, and Doom Bots instead. If you see a tier list dated to one of those windows, it is a stale listicle, not evidence of a run.

Mirror Mode, the 2014 variant, deserves its own line: it ran on the ARAM map, Howling Abyss, and both teams played the same champion, so all ten players were mirror copies. It has never been repeated.

How One for All Works

One for All is standard 5v5 Summoner's Rift in everything except champion select, which uses a system called Vote Pick:

• Each player can ban one champion, for up to 10 team bans.
• Each player then votes for a champion from the team's shared pool (owned plus free rotation).
• A 4-out-of-5 vote locks the pick automatically. Since the 2020 version, a 3-vote majority no longer auto-wins: if no 4-vote consensus forms, the game picks randomly from the voted champions, weighted by vote count, so the 2-vote minority still has a chance.

Riot also re-tunes the mode every time it goes live, applying per-champion damage-dealt and damage-taken modifiers so that the champions who break the format hardest get reined in. Those numbers change per run, so treat any specific modifier you find online as historical rather than current.

Shared Ability Quirks

The reason One for All produces clips is that many abilities were never designed to coexist with four copies of themselves. These interactions are all documented on the wiki:

• Zilean: a second friendly Zilean can re-apply Time Bomb to an already-marked target, instantly detonating the first bomb. Five Zileans can chain-detonate.
• Syndra: Dark Spheres are shared objects. Any Syndra can throw any sphere, and Unleashed Power pulls in up to 4 friendly spheres regardless of who placed them.
• Thresh: one enemy death near multiple Thresh players spawns multiple souls, one per nearby Thresh, and any Thresh can collect them.
• Akali: Twilight Shroud stealths every friendly Akali standing inside it, not just the caster.
• Vayne: Silver Bolts stacks apply across all friendly Vaynes, but switching targets wipes all stacks, including teammates'.
• Yuumi: multiple Yuumis can attach to the same ally at once.
• Draven: any allied Draven can catch any Spinning Axe, including ones he didn't throw.
• Fiddlesticks: the fear immunity window from Terrify is shared across all friendly Fiddlesticks.

Best Champions for One for All

Win-rate tier lists for One for All go stale the moment the mode rotates out, so the durable way to think about picks is by archetype. Four patterns hold up across every run:

• Chainable crowd control. Five Yasuos can pass a single knock-up down the line, each casting Last Breath off the same airborne target. Five Renektons can chain their W stun with almost no gap. Any CC that a teammate's copy can extend is worth more than raw damage.
• Stacking map denial. Five Teemos blanket chokepoints and jungle paths in Noxious Traps, and the coverage scales non-linearly with each extra Teemo.
• Repeatable displacement. Five Blitzcrank Rocket Grabs mean an enemy can be chain-hooked across the map, with each hook interrupting the escape from the last.
• Shared-object synergy. The quirks above make Zilean, Syndra, and Thresh structurally stronger in One for All than their solo-queue versions, because their kits literally feed each other.

Will One for All Come Back?

There is no schedule. Historical gaps range from five months to the four-plus years between the 2013 debut and the 2018 return, and Riot has skipped announced plans before (the promised 2023 run never shipped). The reliable signals are the official patch notes and the in-client game mode screen. One useful disambiguation: Wild Rift, the mobile game, runs its own separate One for All on its own calendar, so a Wild Rift announcement does not mean the PC mode is back.

For what is currently playable, see our overview of League of Legends game modes; for the other famous "when does it come back" mode, see our URF guide.

To see how much money you have spent on League of Legends in 2026, you have to submit a support ticket to Riot: the old self-serve "Show Me the Money" lookup tool no longer exists. There are two free ways to get the answer, and both start at Riot's support site. The support ticket gets you the total; the full account data request gets you an itemized export of every transaction you have ever made. Here is exactly how to do both, and what the number you get back actually counts.

Can You Still Check Your LoL Spending?

For years, Riot ran a web page that showed your lifetime spend after logging in. That tool is gone, and most guides you will find still point to it. Riot's current official support article on the topic (updated June 2026) contains no self-serve lookup at all: the entire instruction is to submit a Player Support ticket. So if you have been hunting for a login page that shows the number, stop; it no longer exists. The ticket takes about two minutes to file.

Method 1: Ask via Support Ticket (Fastest)

This is Riot's official current method, straight from their support article:

1. Go to the Riot Games Support ticket submission page (support.riotgames.com).
2. Under Product, select League of Legends.
3. Under Category, select Account Management, Data Requests, or Deletion.
4. Select the platform you play on (PC, Xbox, or PlayStation).
5. Under Please Select your Inquiry, choose Formal Personal Data Request.
6. In the second inquiry field, choose "I want to know how much money I've spent with Riot Games."
7. Fill in the subject and description, then submit.

A support agent replies with your total. Riot does not publish a response-time target, so expect anywhere from a day to a week or two depending on queue load.

Method 2: Request Your Full Transaction History (Most Detailed)

If you want the receipts rather than a single number, file a Formal Personal Data Request through Riot's "Requesting Your Account Data" flow instead (same ticket category as above). Three things to know:

• It takes up to 30 days to process, and the download is delivered as a zipped file via a unique link in your ticket that itself expires after 30 days.
• It covers everything: all store transactions and all monetary purchases for League, plus login history, penalty history, recent chat logs, and the same data for any other Riot games on the account (Valorant, Wild Rift, Legends of Runeterra).
• Don't touch your credentials while it processes. Changing your email or resetting your password automatically cancels the request.

This is the same ticket category Riot uses for account deletion, so if you are checking your total as step one of quitting, the paperwork lives in one place; see our guide to deleting a League account.

What the Number Actually Counts

Riot's records distinguish monetary purchases (real money in) from store transactions (things acquired in the shop, including with earned currencies). The spending answer reflects real-money purchases. Gifts are handled as their own category in Riot's systems (they are listed separately in the refund policy and are non-refundable), and community reporting consistently says gifted skins, Blue Essence purchases, and promotional items do not show up in your total. Riot has never published an exact exclusion list, so treat your ticket answer as "money you paid Riot," not "value of everything on the account."

Regions and Currency

The total comes back in the currency you actually paid in: Riot's refund policy states refunds are issued "for the same amount and currency you used to make the initial purchase," and your transaction records work the same way. An EUW account that paid in euros gets a euro figure, not a USD conversion. Two caveats: accounts that have transferred regions may find older purchases fragmented across the transfer (Riot's systems do not merge everything across servers), and Korea-registered accounts use a separate Korea-specific data request process.

Checking Valorant Spending (Same Process)

The exact same ticket flow covers every Riot title: in step 2, choose Valorant (or Wild Rift, or Legends of Runeterra) as the Product instead. A full data request returns transactions for all Riot games on the account in one export, so if you want the cross-game damage report, one request does it.

Making Sense of the Number

For context when the number lands: $10.99 currently buys 1,380 RP in NA, so a lifetime total of, say, $550 is roughly 69,000 RP, or about fifty 1,350-RP skins. For the full RP-to-money breakdown across bundle sizes and regions, see our Riot Points price guide.

There are 22 Victorious skins in League of Legends, one for every ranked season or split since Season 1 in 2011. The newest is Victorious Rengar, the Season 2 2026 reward, officially confirmed by Riot and shipping with patch 26.14. You earn the current season's skin by winning 15 Ranked games and reaching Honor Level 3 before the season closes; every earlier skin is locked to the season it rewarded and cannot be obtained today. Below is the full chronological list, the current unlock rules, and what determines which chromas you get.

How to Get a Victorious Skin (2026 Rules)

Two requirements, and rank is not one of them:

1. Win 15 Ranked games during the season. Solo/Duo and Flex wins count together, so you can mix queues.
2. Be at Honor Level 3 or higher when the season ends. Players below Honor 3 or with penalties are ineligible regardless of wins.

Any rank from Iron up gets the base skin. Your peak rank for the season decides the chromas stacked on top: there are nine chroma tiers, one per ranked tier from Bronze through Challenger, and you receive the chroma for your tier plus all tiers below it.

It was not always this open. Through 2024, the base skin required reaching Gold or higher (80 Split Points at Gold+, or a 1,000-SP grind for players below Gold). Riot switched to the 15-wins system with Season 1 2025 specifically so the reward was no longer gated to the top slice of the ladder.

If you are grinding out the 15 wins, better champion select decisions are the cheapest win-rate gain available: LoLTheory calculates win rates for your matchup in real time during champion select.

All Victorious Skins in Order (Full List)

A few structural notes explain the numbering. From 2011 through 2022 there was one Victorious skin per year. 2023 moved to two splits, 2024 to three, and since 2025 Riot has run three named seasons per year, each with its own skin.

The chroma system has its own history: Graves (2017) was the first Victorious skin with chromas at all, back when they were split by queue type, and Lucian (2020) was the first with the rank-tier chromas used today.

How Many Victorious Skins Are There?

22 as of Season 2 2026, and the count now grows by three per year, one per season. Every recipient so far is a different champion, so the line doubles as a roster of 22 unique champions, and a repeat pick would be a first in the skin line's history.

Can You Still Get Old Victorious Skins?

No. Victorious skins are achievement-limited: each one is awarded only for playing ranked during its own season, and once the season closes the window shuts permanently. Unlike Legacy skins, which rotate back into the store, Riot treats Victorious skins as a mark of when you earned them and has never re-released or sold one. If you missed a season, the only version of that reward you can still influence is the current one.

What Is the Rarest Victorious Skin?

Riot does not publish ownership numbers, so nobody can give you an exact answer. In practice the earliest skins are the rarest: Victorious Jarvan IV (2011) and Victorious Janna (2012) were earned when the playerbase was a fraction of today's and the reward required Gold or higher, a bar most accounts never cleared. Accounts that hold them and still play are scarce enough that the skins function as veteran badges. They sit comfortably alongside the entries in our list of the rarest skins in League.

Earn All Three in a Year: the Victorious Skin Border

Since the move to three seasons per year, Riot adds a completion incentive: players who earn the Victorious skin in all three seasons of the same year receive a Victorious Skin Border reflecting the highest tier they finished at during that year. For 2026 that means Braum, Rengar, and the still-unannounced Season 3 skin.

What's the Next Victorious Skin?

Riot reveals each season's Victorious skin in the weeks before the season closes, so the answer changes three times a year. For the current season's skin, the confirmed end date, and the reward deadline, see our living guide to the current LoL season, which is updated every cycle.

Fearless Draft is a pick/ban format used in professional League of Legends where champions are permanently removed from a best-of series once they have been picked: play a champion in game 1 and it cannot be picked again for the rest of the series, whether that is a Bo3 or a Bo5. It has been the standard across all tier-1 pro leagues since 2025 and is confirmed to continue through the 2026 season, including Worlds. This guide explains how the format layers on top of normal tournament bans, the difference between Full and Soft Fearless, and exactly how fast the champion pool shrinks over a Bo5.

How Fearless Draft Works

Fearless Draft is an extra restriction on top of standard Tournament Draft, not a replacement for it. Every game in a pro series still runs the normal draft introduced back in 2017: two ban phases totaling 10 bans per game (5 per team) and 10 picks (5 per team). Fearless adds one rule across the series: champions that were picked in an earlier game are locked out of later games.

The detail most explanations miss: the lockout applies to picks only. Bans do not carry over. A champion banned in game 1 but never played can be picked in game 2; a champion picked in game 1 is gone for the rest of the series regardless of what happens to it later.

Full vs. Soft Fearless: What's the Difference

There are two standard variants, and the difference is who the lockout applies to:

• Full Fearless (also called Hard Fearless): once a champion is picked by either team, neither team can pick it for the remainder of the series. One pick kills the champion for everyone.
• Soft Fearless: a champion is only locked for the team that picked it. The opposing team can still pick it once, after which it is dead for them too. Every champion can appear at most twice in a series, once per team.

The practical difference shows up in counter-drafting. Under Soft Fearless, showing a powerful champion hands your opponent the option to use it against you next game. Under Full Fearless, playing a champion is also a way of denying it: teams sometimes pick a meta champion partly to burn it out of the series.

How the Champion Pool Shrinks Across a Bo5

Under Full Fearless, each completed game removes 10 more champions (both teams' picks) from the series pool. Over a full five-game series:

By game 5, 40 champions are permanently unavailable out of the 173 in the game, and each team must still work around that game's 10 fresh bans on top. That is why game 5s produce picks you never see in games 1 and 2: roughly a quarter of the roster, including nearly the entire meta, is gone. Champion pool depth stops being a nice-to-have for pro players and becomes the job.

Under Soft Fearless the total pool shrinks at the same rate, but each team's personal lockout grows by only 5 per game (its own picks), so a team's realistic options shrink slower because it can still raid the opponent's used champions once.

Is Fearless Draft Permanent? Confirmed Through 2026

Yes, for the foreseeable future. The adoption timeline:

• 2018: the concept debuts as "Global Ban-Pick" in Honor of Kings' KPL, a mobile MOBA league.
• 2022: first League of Legends use, in China's second-tier LDL (Summer Split).
• 2024: spreads to second-tier leagues in the West and Korea (NACL, LCK Challengers).
• Split 1 2025: Riot rolls Fearless out across every tier-1 league.
• March 16, 2025: after First Stand, Riot announces Fearless continues for the rest of 2025, including global events.
• 2026: Riot's season-start announcement confirms Fearless continues, headlining a Bo5-heavy First Stand 2026 built to showcase it.

One 2026 change sometimes confused with Fearless: First Selection, a new rule where the higher seed chooses either side of the map or draft priority. That is a separate draft rule, not part of Fearless.

Which Leagues and Tournaments Use It

Since 2025, Fearless Draft is used in every tier-1 regional league (LCK, LPL, LEC, LTA, LCP), at MSI and First Stand, and at Worlds. It applies to Bo3 and Bo5 series only: single games, like the Worlds Swiss stage's Bo1s, draft normally because there is no series for picks to carry across. Worlds 2025 was the first World Championship played under Fearless rules, and Worlds 2026 will be the second.

On the Full-versus-Soft question, Riot's official announcements describe the both-teams lockout, which is Full Fearless, and that matches how tier-1 drafts have played out since 2025. Riot has never formally named the variant in its posts, and some leagues experimented with Soft Fearless before the 2025 standardization (China's LPL among them), so treat league-by-league histories you find on fan sites with some caution.

Can You Play Fearless Draft in the Client?

No. There is no Fearless option in ranked, normals, or custom lobbies; the client has no memory of picks between games, so the format exists only in Riot's pro-play draft tooling. Teams and communities that want it for scrims use third-party draft sites (Drafter.lol, DraftCore, fearlessdraft.net) that track the series lockouts manually and then set up each game as a regular custom.

Your own ranked drafts are single games, but the drafting skill Fearless rewards, knowing which champions are strong in which matchup rather than one-tricking, transfers directly. LoLTheory calculates win rates for every champion in your matchup in real time during champion select, which is the closest thing to a pro team's draft prep for a solo queue player.

The League of Legends World Championship (Worlds) is the annual global tournament where 19 teams from every major region compete for the Summoner's Cup, and Worlds 2026 runs October 15 to November 14 across three US venues: Los Angeles, Allen (Texas), and Brooklyn. The tournament has three stages: a 4-team Play-In, a 16-team Swiss stage, and an 8-team single-elimination Knockout bracket.

Worlds 2026 Dates, Venues, and Tickets

Note the venue spread: the Play-In runs in a ~300-seat studio, which makes it the most intimate way to attend Worlds, while the Final fills an NBA arena. Tickets: the Fan First presale (for fans who registered in June) opens July 22 at 8 AM PDT, and general admission goes on sale July 24 at 8 AM PDT, first come, first served, on the official lolesports ticket page. Pricing has not been announced yet.

How Teams Qualify for Worlds

19 teams qualify through their regional leagues' summer playoffs plus two MSI-based bonus slots:

The exact 2026 team list is not locked yet; regional qualification runs through the summer splits. The two MSI slots are why mid-season results matter beyond the trophy: winning MSI banks your organization a direct Worlds seed, and the second-best region at MSI earns an extra slot for its league.

The Three Stages: Play-In, Swiss, and Knockout

Play-In (4 teams, double elimination)

The four lowest-seeded qualifiers play a double-elimination bracket, all matches best-of-5. Only one team survives to join the main event, which makes the Play-In a brutal ratio: three of the four teams travel to LA and go home before the tournament proper begins.

Swiss stage (16 teams, five rounds)

The 15 direct qualifiers plus the Play-In winner enter a Swiss-system stage, the format Worlds has used since 2024:

• Each round pairs teams with the same record (1-0 vs 1-0, 1-1 vs 1-1, and so on), with matchups drawn after each round.
• No rematches: two teams cannot meet twice in the Swiss stage.
• 3 wins advance to the Knockout stage; 3 losses eliminate.
• Matches where a team can qualify or be eliminated are best-of-3; all other rounds are best-of-1.

The Swiss format's appeal is that every game matters and there are no dead group-stage matches: by round 3, every series is either a qualification or an elimination for someone.

Knockout (8 teams, single elimination)

The eight Swiss survivors are drawn into a single-elimination bracket, all matches best-of-5: quarterfinals, semifinals, and the Grand Final. There is no bronze match; losing semifinalists tie for third.

Fearless Draft at Worlds

Since 2025, Worlds uses Fearless Draft in all best-of-3 and best-of-5 series: a champion picked by either team in an earlier game of the series is unavailable to both teams for the rest of it, so a Bo5 that goes the distance removes 40 champions from the pool by game 5. Swiss best-of-1s draft normally, since there is no series for picks to carry across. Worlds 2025 was the first Fearless Worlds; 2026 is confirmed to continue the format. For the Full-versus-Soft variants and the round-by-round math, see our Fearless Draft explainer.

Prize Pool and the Summoner's Cup

The 2025 prize pool was $5,000,000; the 2026 figure has not been announced yet (Riot typically confirms it closer to the event). The winners lift the Summoner's Cup, redesigned by Tiffany & Co. in 2022: roughly 44 pounds and 27 inches of sterling silver that took about 277 hours to craft.

The record to beat belongs to T1: six Worlds titles (2013, 2015, 2016, 2023, 2024, 2025), including the first three-peat in Worlds history from 2023 to 2025. They enter 2026 as three-time defending champions, though not unbeaten in finals; DRX famously took them down in the 2022 final.

How to Watch Worlds 2026

Every match streams free on Twitch (twitch.tv/riotgames), YouTube (LoL Esports), and lolesports.com, which also hosts the schedule, standings, and viewing drops. Matches run on a US schedule this year. That means friendlier hours for NA viewers and late nights for Europe and Korea. If you want the season context behind who qualifies, our guide to the current LoL season covers how the ranked and competitive calendars line up.

True damage ignores both armor and magic resistance and lands in full. A 400 true damage hit deals 400 whether the target has 0 resistances or 300 armor. This is the rarest of the three damage types in League of Legends, and the only one you cannot itemize against. There is no "true resist" stat. The counters are not items but health, shields, and positioning. How to play against it below.

True Damage vs. Armor vs. Magic Resist

League has three damage types. The first two are reduced by a resistance stat. The third is not.

Does armor reduce true damage? No. Armor reduces physical damage only. Magic resistance reduces magic damage only. True damage skips both formulas entirely and applies its raw number. Flat penetration, percent penetration, and flat resistance reduction (Black Cleaver, Void Staff, Nasus E) are all irrelevant to true damage because there is no resistance in the calculation to penetrate or reduce.

A worked comparison makes the gap concrete. Say an ability deals 400 raw damage and the target has 100 armor and 100 magic resistance:

100 armor cuts physical damage in half and 100 MR cuts magic damage in half (the math is in the armor guide and MR guide). True damage ignores both, so the same number lands at full value. This is why even a small amount of true damage on an ability is disproportionately valuable: it is damage no defensive item can shrink.

What Does Reduce True Damage?

True damage cannot be mitigated by any resistance, but it is not unstoppable. Four things still affect it.

Shields do absorb true damage. A normal shield (Locket, Lulu shield, Riven passive) soaks true damage at full value just like any other damage. If a shield has 200 health remaining and a 400 true damage hit lands, the shield eats 200 and 200 true damage carries through. This makes shields the most reliable active counter to a true-damage burst.

Invulnerability blocks it entirely. Effects that make you take no damage (Zhonya's Hourglass stasis, Tryndamere's Undying Rage, Kayle ultimate) block true damage along with everything else. There is no exception for true damage.

Health works against flat true damage. Health does not reduce true damage per hit, but it dilutes flat sources. Ignite deals a fixed amount over its duration regardless of resistances. Against a 1,200 HP target that fixed amount is a large chunk; against a 3,000 HP target the same number is a much smaller share of the bar. Percentage-based true damage (Vayne's Silver Bolts) scales with the target's max health, so stacking HP does not dilute it the way it dilutes flat sources.

Champions and Abilities That Deal True Damage

True damage is uncommon, so the champions who have it built into their kit get a real edge against tanks. The table below lists confirmed sources from base champion abilities. Each entry was verified on the champion's own ability page.

This is a representative list of the most common true-damage carries, not the complete roster. Many other champions deal true damage on specific recasts, on monsters only, or against already-executing targets (Amumu, Darius bleed aside, Master Yi, Kog'Maw's death passive, K'Sante in his ultimate, and more). The pattern that matters for the table above: true damage clusters on anti-tank duelists (Vayne, Fiora) and on execute ultimates (Cho'Gath, Darius, Garen). Both designs reward a defender who builds health rather than resistances.

Runes, Items, and Summoner Spells

Champions are not the only source. Several runes, items, and summoner spells deal true damage and are available to any champion who takes them.

One common misconception worth correcting: Conqueror does not deal true damage. It is an adaptive force and healing rune; its bonus damage matches your AD or AP scaling and is mitigated by the matching resistance. If you are choosing a rune specifically for resistance-ignoring damage, Cheap Shot and First Strike are the true-damage options, not Conqueror.

Why True Damage Is So Strong

The strength of true damage is not its raw number, which is usually modest. It is that the number never shrinks. Every other damage type loses value as the enemy itemizes. A 400 physical hit becomes 200 against 100 armor and 133 against 200 armor. A 400 true hit stays 400 at every armor value on the map.

This makes true damage scale inversely with the rest of the game. It is weakest in the early game when nobody has resistances anyway (true and physical do the same thing against a 30-armor target) and strongest in the late game against a tank who has spent three items on armor and MR. That is exactly when a Vayne or a Cho'Gath becomes a problem: the more durable the frontline gets, the larger the share of total effective damage their true damage represents.

How to Play Against True Damage

You cannot itemize against true damage. There is no stat to buy. The counters are health, shields, and positioning.

Build Health, Not Resistances, vs. True-Damage Carries

Against a percent-health true-damage champion like Vayne, stacking armor is wasted gold for that specific threat (her W ignores it) and HP is the only stat that helps, by raising the absolute number her percentage is taken from. You will still want armor against her basic physical damage, but do not expect resistances to do anything about the Silver Bolts portion. Against flat true damage like Ignite, raw health is the dilution: the more max HP you carry, the smaller the fixed burn is as a fraction of your bar. Knowing how much of the enemy team's output is true versus physical or magic tells you when resistances are wasted gold: LoLTheory's in-game item overlay breaks down each enemy's physical, magic, and true damage in real time.

Use Shields and Invulnerability on the Burst

Shields are the one item-based answer that works. A well-timed Locket, Lulu shield, or a personal shield item absorbs true damage at full value. Zhonya's Hourglass and other invulnerability effects block it outright. If you know a true-damage execute is coming (Cho'Gath Feast, Garen ultimate), the stasis or a shield bought you the window to deny it.

Range and Positioning Are the Real Counter

The most reliable counter to true damage is not taking the hit. Most true-damage carries are short-range duelists who need sustained contact to ramp their damage: Vayne needs three autos for one Silver Bolts proc, Twitch needs to stack Deadly Venom, Fiora needs to chase Vitals. Disengaging resets all of that. The strategic answer mirrors the answer to lethality assassins: deny the isolated fight, peel the carry off your frontline, and force the engagement on your terms rather than theirs. Range beats true damage because range denies the damage entirely. Damage that never lands needs no mitigation.

League of Legends Classic is Riot Games' featured game mode that recreates older versions of LoL, bringing back pre-rework champion kits, the original rune and mastery system, the old user interface, legacy items like Heart of Gold and Deathfire Grasp, and the old Summoner's Rift map visuals. Riot teased the mode on June 26, 2026, revealed it at the MSI 2026 Finals on July 11, and detailed its systems in a July 14 dev blog. League Classic launches on July 29, 2026.

What Is League of Legends Classic?

League Classic is a Featured Game Mode inside the live League of Legends client, not a separate server or standalone download. It sits in the same rotating category as Arena and URF and will appear in the in-client mode picker when it goes live.

Riot announced the mode through a comedic video titled "200 Years of Experience | Dev Update," starring Executive Producer Paul "Pabro" Bellezza and League Studio head Andrei "Meddler" van Roon. The two run through references to Season 1 gameplay, Season 2 jungle pathing, Heart of Gold, the 40-champion beta roster, and old visual styles for champions like Lux and Graves. The video ends with Riot landing on the name "League Classic" after rejecting alternatives including "Clash of Fates" and "Your Favorite League." The mode's internal development codename was Jade.

What Returns: Champions, Items, and Systems

The July 11 reveal confirmed the core of the mode, and Riot's July 14 dev blog spelled out the systems that had previously only been datamined. Meddler confirmed the single most important detail on Reddit: "yes, we're doing old gameplay kits." The dev blog confirmed the older gameplay kits, the older user interface (Champion Select plus the rune and mastery pages), the Season 3-based era, and the launch roster.

The systems Riot has now confirmed for the mode:

• Old champion kits — pre-rework versions of every champion in the mode's roster
• Old user interface — the legacy Champion Select and rune and mastery pages
• Original Rune system and masteries — the pre-2017 rune pages and mastery talent trees, not current Runes Reforged; you set them up before you queue, and mastery pages fully unlock at Classic Level 4
• Influence Points (IP) — the old currency returns alongside Blue Essence, earned through play and the Classic Pass
• Classic Level progression — a separate leveling track inside the mode, independent of your live account, that unlocks runes, masteries, and currency as you play
• Separate shop — with classic items, including Heart of Gold, Deathfire Grasp, Frozen Mallet, and Atma's Impaler
• Original Summoner's Rift map visuals — the old map look, separate from any live-game visual updates
• Classic Pass — a seasonal battle pass with free and paid tracks, rewarding IP, Blue Essence, rune pages, and cosmetics including Classic Skin Tokens and a new Portraits type
• The Council — a community voting system that lets players vote on future champions, skins, and changes for the mode, with voting power growing at Classic Levels 5, 15, and 25; Riot keeps final say over balance and pre-filters what is eligible to vote on
• Its own queues — a single PvP draft queue, Co-Op vs. AI, and custom games at launch, with no Ranked queue initially (a Summoner's Journey ladder fills that role)
• Modern quality-of-life — matchmaking and performance improvements, modern pings, spell buffering, and optional WASD movement layered over the old feel

The Classic Champion Roster

League Classic launches with a starting roster of 60 champions, including all of the original 40 launch champions, each playing with its pre-rework kit. Eight more champions have been reported for future waves through leaks and dev comments rather than an official list: Akali, Caitlyn, Fiora, Graves, Irelia, LeBlanc, Mordekaiser, and Urgot. Notable names missing from the launch roster include Galio and Udyr. For the complete list grouped by class, plus the future waves and exclusions, see our full League Classic champion list.

Meddler singled out one champion he is personally most excited to revisit: "Old Urgot's actually the kit I'm most excited to play personally, I like new Urgot as well, but old Urgot mid against people who usually had no clue what he did was a lot of fun." Urgot is not in the launch 60, though; he arrives in a later wave.

What Era Will League Classic Be?

League Classic is not frozen to a single patch. Riot built it on a Season 3 foundation and pulled in elements from across the first four seasons of the game. As Riot's FeralPony put it, "we've included elements from the first 4 seasons... we tried our best to get the best combination of nostalgia, uniqueness, and gameplay." New champion releases are cut off around 2013, which is why the roster reads like an early-to-mid LoL lineup rather than any one historical patch.

The mode began internally as a "Thunderdome" project aimed at recreating Season 3 gameplay, and one of its developers, Norak, previously built Chronoshift, a fan project that recreated older League before he was hired at Riot.

League Classic Release Date

League Classic launches on July 29, 2026 with Patch 26.15, revealed at the MSI 2026 Finals on July 11 and detailed in a July 14 dev blog.

Because League Classic is a Featured Game Mode, it does not require a separate client download, and it does not touch your main account or rank. It appears in the in-client mode picker, the same place Arena and URF show up. How you queue in and progress once you are there is covered next.

How to Play League Classic

League Classic runs inside the live League of Legends client, so there is nothing extra to download or install. If you already have League, getting into a game is a short checklist:

1. Select League Classic from the in-client mode picker once it is live, the same place Arena and URF appear.
2. Build a rune page and mastery page on the pre-game screen. Classic uses the old pre-2017 system described above, so you set these up before you queue rather than in champion select.
3. Queue for a single PvP draft game, Co-Op vs. AI, or a custom. There is no Ranked queue at launch; the Summoner's Journey ladder, running from Salt up through to Legend, handles competitive progression instead.

Your Classic Level climbs as you play, separate from your live account, unlocking runes, masteries, and currency (Influence Points and Blue Essence) along the way. The mode is expected to be testable on the Public Beta Environment (PBE) ahead of the July 29 launch, where players get early hands-on time with patches before they hit live servers.

League Classic vs WoW Classic: What's Different

The WoW Classic comparison has appeared in nearly every article covering this announcement. It is a useful shorthand for "an officially sanctioned recreation of an older version of the game," but three practical differences matter for understanding what League Classic actually is:

League Classic is best understood as a featured mode with its own self-contained progression that Riot plans to keep updating, not a permanent parallel game on a separate server. For how it fits alongside every other current queue, see all League of Legends game modes compared.

League Classic FAQ

Is League Classic a separate game or a game mode?

It is a Featured Game Mode inside the standard League of Legends client, not a separate game or standalone server. No separate download is required.

Is there a separate League Classic server?

No. League Classic runs on the same servers as every other queue. You pick it from the in-client mode picker alongside Arena and URF, not through a separate login or download.

Will League Classic be free?

League of Legends is free to play and League Classic is accessible through the same client at no extra cost. Riot has confirmed a seasonal Classic Pass with free and paid tracks, rewarding currency, rune pages, and cosmetics like Classic Skin Tokens and Portraits, but you do not have to pay anything to play the mode itself.

What champions will be in League Classic?

League Classic launches with 60 champions, including all of the original 40, each using its pre-rework kit. Eight more (Akali, Caitlyn, Fiora, Graves, Irelia, LeBlanc, Mordekaiser, and Urgot) have been reported for future waves through leaks and dev comments. See the full League Classic champion list for every name grouped by class.

When does League Classic launch?

League Classic launches on July 29, 2026. Riot revealed the full details at the MSI 2026 Finals on July 11, 2026.

Ranked 5s is League of Legends' full-premade ranked queue: you queue as a group of exactly five, play tournament draft, earn an individual rank on a separate LP ladder, and fight other five-stacks on Summoner's Rift. It launched June 26, 2026 and runs through September 6, 2026 across 15 regions, available every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 8 PM to 1 AM local server time. No fixed team roster is required — you can assemble a different five each session — and there are no rank restrictions on who can queue together.

Ranked 5s Schedule: Dates, Days, and Times

The queue is active during a five-hour window every weekend. Outside these hours, ranked 5s does not appear in the client.

The 8 PM start time is confirmed in Patch 26.13 notes. Some third-party sites have published a 9 PM start, which appears to be a regional misread — Riot's own patch notes and dev blog consistently cite 8 PM. During inactive hours on weekdays, the queue does not show up in the play menu at all.

Ranked 5s vs Flex Queue: What Is Actually Different

Ranked 5s is not Flex Queue. Both let you queue as a premade group and award individual ranks, but the format, availability, and draft are meaningfully different.

The practical difference that matters most for competitive groups: Ranked 5s guarantees you are playing against another full five-stack (when matchmaking allows), whereas Flex often pairs premade fours or fives against mixed-party lobbies. The tournament draft format also changes champion select dynamics significantly — see the next section.

Tournament Draft: The Full Pick and Ban Sequence

Ranked 5s uses Tournament Draft, the same champion select format used in professional play and Clash. It differs from standard ranked draft in that bans happen in two separate phases, giving both teams a chance to react to early picks before banning again. The full sequence is:

• Ban Phase 1: Blue team bans first, teams alternate for 3 bans each (6 bans total). Bans are visible to both sides immediately.
• Pick Phase 1: Blue picks 1 champion → Red picks 2 → Blue picks 2 → Red picks 1 (6 picks total, snake order).
• Ban Phase 2: Red team bans first this time, teams alternate for 2 bans each (4 bans total).
• Pick Phase 2: Red picks 1 → Blue picks 2 → Red picks 1 (4 picks total).
• Swap window: A 60-second grace period where teammates can swap champions with each other before the game locks in.

Total: 10 bans and 10 picks, same as standard ranked. The difference is the mid-draft ban phase. Because teams can see several picks before the second round of bans, Ban Phase 2 is often used to deny counters or protect carries who were just picked — a layer of strategy that standard ranked draft does not have. If your group has a go-to composition, you should agree before champion select which picks to protect in Phase 2. Because Ranked 5s is full-premade tournament draft, a champion select tool helps here more than in solo queue: LoLTheory scores your team composition and suggests bans in real time as picks lock in across both phases.

How to Queue Up

1. Open the League of Legends client during the active window (Friday–Sunday, 8 PM–1 AM local server time).
2. Invite four friends to your lobby — you need exactly five total.
3. In the play mode selector, Ranked 5s will appear as an available queue. Select it.
4. Queue into matchmaking. The client pairs your five-stack against another five-stack when one is available at a similar skill level.

You do not need to register a fixed roster. Different groups of five can queue together each session, and players can participate in Ranked 5s separately from any other premade arrangement they have in Flex or Clash.

Ranked 5s Ranks and Rewards

Ranked 5s uses a separate LP pool from both Solo/Duo and Flex. A win or loss in Ranked 5s does not affect your Solo/Duo rank or your Flex rank. Each player earns their own individual rank based on how their team performs — the rank reflects your personal record in this queue, not a shared team rating.

Two rewards are available for this season run (June 26 – September 6, 2026):

• Participation icon: Awarded to any player who plays in the queue, regardless of rank or win rate.
• Ranked 5s banner: Reflects your peak rank in this queue. Only players who reach Gold or above earn one.

These are in addition to, and separate from, your standard end-of-season ranked rewards in Solo/Duo and Flex. Playing Ranked 5s exclusively does not put your main ranked rewards at risk, and your Solo/Duo rank does not appear or move during Ranked 5s games. For a refresher on how LoL ranks and LP work in general, see our League of Legends ranks guide.

Riot applies the same anti-boosting and anti-smurfing detection used in Flex Queue to Ranked 5s matches, including monitoring for account-control patterns and coordinated boosting schemes.

Will Ranked 5s Come Back After September 6?

Riot has framed this season run explicitly as an experiment. The dev blog published alongside the launch states: "This isn't set in stone." Whether Ranked 5s returns after September 6, 2026, extends its current run, or gets modified depends on player participation and feedback from this window.

The reason Riot is cautious: the original Ranked 5s (removed years ago) suffered from thin matchmaking pools outside high-rank play, leading to long queue times and poor match quality for everyone else. The weekend-only, fixed-hour approach this time is a direct response to that problem — concentrating players into a smaller time window to keep the pool dense enough to match five-stacks against each other.

If Riot does extend or permanently add the queue, the biggest likely change is expanding the available hours. The current 8 PM–1 AM window draws complaints from players with earlier schedules. Watch the Riot dev blog and patch notes in September for the official decision.

Ranked 5s FAQ

Does Ranked 5s affect my Solo/Duo rank or MMR?

No. Ranked 5s runs on a fully separate LP pool. Your Solo/Duo rank and MMR are unaffected by results in Ranked 5s, and vice versa. The same applies to Flex — Flex LP and Ranked 5s LP are tracked independently.

Can I queue with friends of any rank?

Yes. Ranked 5s has no rank restrictions. A Challenger player can queue with a Bronze player in the same premade. Matchmaking uses balancing mechanisms to account for skill gaps when forming opposing teams, but your own group has no rank cap or floor for eligibility.

What if I cannot get five friends together?

You cannot queue as fewer than five. Ranked 5s requires a full premade to enter the queue. If you have four or fewer players, your options are Flex Queue (which accepts solo through full premade), Normal Draft, or ARAM. You can also join someone else's Ranked 5s lobby if they need a fifth.

Is Ranked 5s the same as Flex Queue?

No. Both are ranked modes with individual LP, but Ranked 5s requires exactly five premade players, uses Tournament Draft, and is only available on weekends during fixed hours. Flex accepts any party size (solo through five), uses standard ranked draft, and is always available. The LP pools are also separate — winning in one does not affect the other. For the full mode overview, see the League of Legends game modes hub.

League of Legends is currently in Season 2 of 2026, themed "Pandemonium". The season started April 29, 2026 and ends July 22, 2026, so that is your deadline to lock in this season's Ranked rewards. The Season 2 Victorious skin is officially Victorious Rengar, confirmed by Riot and shipping with patch 26.14. The skin is earned the usual way: winning 15 Ranked games and reaching Honor Level 3.

This article covers what's happening in the current season, the full 2025-2026 schedule, end-date timing, and how the LoL ranked year is structured. The January annual reset is a different boundary than the April or August season transitions and is covered separately below.

Last updated: July 4, 2026. Next review: mid-July 2026. The Season 2 end date (July 22, 2026) and the Season 2 Victorious skin (Rengar, patch 26.14) are both confirmed; the next open items are Season 3's start date and theme.

What's New in LoL Season 2 2026 (Pandemonium)

Pandemonium launched with patch 26.09 and brought a heavier-than-usual changeset for a mid-year season. The notable items:

• Victorious Rengar confirmed. Riot officially announced Victorious Rengar as the Season 2 skin, shipping with patch 26.14. Earn it by winning 15 Ranked games during the season (Solo/Duo and Flex combined) and being at Honor Level 3 or higher when the season closes. Season 1's Victorious Braum was a separate skin, already granted on patch 26.09.
• New starting items. Patch 26.09 introduced changes to the starting item pool.
• New Keystone runes. Riot added new keystones with the season launch. Check patch 26.09 notes for the full list and tree assignments.
• Arena mode overhaul. Augment pool, round structure, and Cameo champion rotations were updated.
• WASD controls in ranked. The opt-in WASD movement scheme is now allowed in ranked queues.
• Apex tier hard reset. Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger accounts reset to Master 0 LP at the start of Season 2. This was a one-time correction for matchmaking configuration errors during Season 1, not a recurring pattern. Riot is reconciling Season 2 rewards with Season 3 results, so if a player finishes Season 3 in a higher tier than Season 2, the higher tier counts for both seasons' rewards.
• Ranked 5s returns (mid-season). A weekend-only experimental queue for full five-player premades using tournament draft (the pick/ban format from pro play). It runs Friday through Sunday, 9 PM to 1 AM local server time, from June 26 to September 6, 2026. Participation grants an icon; peaking at Gold or higher adds a banner. Riot is framing it as an experiment, not a permanent queue.

For the full list of 2026 ranked system changes that landed earlier in the year (Aegis of Valor, Climb Indicator, Flex MMR alignment, dodge penalty changes), see how the current LoL ranked tier and LP system works in 2026.

Full LoL Season Schedule (2025-2026)

Riot now runs three numbered "seasons" per annual cycle, each lasting about 11 to 15 weeks. Every season has its own theme, gameplay changes, and exclusive Victorious skin.

2026 Season Schedule

2025 Season Schedule

The pattern is steady: Season 1 in January, Season 2 in late April, Season 3 in late August, and the annual reset in early January of the following year. There are short gaps (sometimes a few days, sometimes a couple of weeks) between Season 3 ending and the new annual cycle's Season 1 starting, used for the soft reset, rewards distribution, and the new year's patch.

When Does Season 2 End? Dates and Reward Deadline

Season 2 ends on July 22, 2026 at 23:59:59 local server time. This is the confirmed end date for Pandemonium, anchored on its Act II event window, which closes the same day. Make sure your 15 Ranked wins and Honor Level 3 are locked in before that cutoff, since the Victorious skin window shuts when the season closes.

The "23:59:59 local server time" detail matters because the cutoff is regional, so a player in NA reaches the deadline several hours after a player in KR. Apex tier players have a separate cutoff at 23:45 local time, 15 minutes early, set so leaderboard standings can lock in before the deadline.

Riot's pattern across both 2025 and 2026 has been to confirm the exact season end date in the patch notes a few weeks before it happens. The Season 1 end (April 28, 2026) was confirmed in patch 26.08 notes on April 15, about two weeks prior. Expect the same for Season 2: a confirmation in a late-June or early-July patch.

How to Earn the Victorious Skin and Other Ranked Rewards

The end-of-season reward most players are chasing is the Victorious skin, which becomes one of the rarest skins in League once the season closes and the window shuts permanently. (Every skin in the line, from Jarvan IV in 2011 onward, is in our full Victorious skins list.) To earn it, you need to meet two requirements:

1. Win 15 Ranked games during the season. Wins in Solo/Duo and Flex count together, so you can mix queues.
2. Reach Honor Level 3 or higher by the end of the season. Players sitting below Honor 3, or with negative Honor status, are ineligible regardless of rank or win count.

This system was introduced in Season 1, 2025. Before then, the Victorious skin required reaching Gold rank, which excluded the bulk of the player base. The current system gives the base skin to anyone willing to play. Rank only determines which chromas you get on top of the base skin.

Chromas by Tier

Players who earn all three Victorious skins in a single annual cycle (for 2026 that's Braum from Season 1, the Season 2 skin, and the Season 3 skin) also receive a Victorious Skin Border reflecting their highest finishing tier across the full year.

Other rewards land at season end on top of the skin: a ranked profile icon and emote based on your tier, a Ranked Regalia crest visible in lobby and loading screens, and a loading screen border showing your current rank in queue. Players who reach Honor Level 5 by the end of the annual cycle (so the end of Season 3) also earn the exclusive Three Honors skinline.

When Rewards Actually Arrive

Rewards don't drop the instant the season ends. They roll out within the patch that follows the season close, which is also the patch that launches the next season. Season 1, 2026 rewards were granted within patch 26.09, the same patch that started Season 2 on April 29. Expect the same cadence for Season 2.

Why You Didn't Get Your Rewards

If the patch has dropped and you don't have your skin, the usual reasons are:

• You didn't reach Honor 3. Check your Honor level in the client. Honor 3 isn't automatic, it takes a couple weeks of clean behavior with regular play. See our guide to the Honor system for how to climb it back.
• You didn't hit 15 ranked wins. Co-Op, Normals, ARAM, and Quickplay do not count. Solo/Duo and Flex do, combined.
• Your account was actioned during the season. Chat restrictions, low-priority queue, or 14-day bans drop you below the eligibility threshold.
• You played on a different account. Wins don't transfer across accounts or regions, even if you have a transfer in progress.

If you meet the criteria and still don't have your skin two patches after season end, submit a ticket to Riot Support with the specific season and your account ID.

Season vs Split: Why the Names Are Confusing

If you played before 2024 and just came back, the vocabulary changed under you. Here's the short version:

• Pre-2024: One numbered "Season" per calendar year (Season 1 in 2010 through Season 14 in 2024). Each season was divided into "Splits," each with its own ranked soft reset.
• 2024 onward: The annual cycle stayed about a year long, but Riot now calls each of the three intra-year segments a numbered "Season" with its own theme. The old splits are gone as a concept. The annual ranked reset only happens once, in January.

So "Season 15" in old guides means all of 2025. "Season 1, 2025" in new Riot comms means the first thematic season of 2025 (January through mid-April). The community still uses both. "S16" usually means the 2026 annual cycle as a whole, while Riot's official patch notes call it "Season 1, 2026," "Season 2, 2026," and so on. They're describing the same time period at different resolutions.

The bigger practical change: splits used to reset rank, thematic seasons don't. The 2025 Ranked Update killed the intra-year resets. Rank now resets only at the annual boundary in January, and the 15-wins-for-skin mission resets at each thematic season start.

For one-line definitions of related terms (LP, MMR, decay, Victorious), see our LoL terminology guide.

What Resets When a New LoL Season Starts

It depends which boundary you mean. The two boundaries behave very differently.

The annual reset is the heavier one. Even Master+ players cap at Emerald I after placements, and you'll grind back up through the same ranks you cleared the year before. See the full LoL provisional placement flow for how the 5-game window works (no LP loss during placements, elevated LP gains, rank hidden until game 5).

The within-year transition is much lighter. Your rank persists. You queue into Season 2 at the same tier you finished Season 1. Only the 15-win mission resets, so you can earn the new Victorious skin from a clean slate.

Historical LoL Season Dates (Season 1 to 2024)

The single-numbered season era ran from 2010 through 2024. These dates are fixed history; they're useful for "when did season X end" lookups and for context on how the format evolved.

Two transitions worth noting: Season 7 started in December 2016 because Riot pulled the schedule earlier that year, and Season 13 (2023) was the first to extend into the following January, the format that became the new normal through Season 14. 2025 onward switched to the three-thematic-seasons-per-year structure described above.

FAQ

How long does a LoL season last?

Each thematic season runs about 11 to 15 weeks. The full annual cycle (three thematic seasons combined) is about 12 months, with the new cycle starting in early January.

What is the Victorious skin for Season 2, 2026?

Riot has not officially revealed it as of July 4, 2026. Datamines and leaks point to Victorious Rengar, but treat that as unconfirmed until Riot announces it, which usually happens a few weeks before the season ends. With Season 2 closing July 22, an official reveal should land shortly. Season 1's skin was Victorious Braum, granted on patch 26.09.

What is the Victorious skin for Season 3, 2026?

Not announced as of July 4, 2026. Riot typically reveals a Victorious skin about four to six weeks before its season ends, so the Season 3 skin won't be confirmed until closer to that season's close, likely in autumn 2026.

Is "LoL Season 16" the same as Season 1, 2026?

"Season 16" or "S16" is community shorthand for the 2026 annual cycle as a whole, which contains Seasons 1, 2, and 3. Riot's official wording is "Season 1, 2026," "Season 2, 2026," and "Season 3, 2026." Both refer to the same 12-month period at different resolutions.

Do Quickplay or Co-Op wins count toward the 15-win Victorious requirement?

No. Only Solo/Duo and Flex Ranked wins count, combined. Quickplay, Co-Op vs AI, Normals, and ARAM do not contribute.

I'm at Honor 2 with the season ending soon. Can I still get the skin?

Possibly. Honor reaches Level 3 in roughly two weeks of clean play with regular games, faster if you accumulate honors from teammates. Avoid chat-restrictable behavior and don't take any 14-day actions. If you're still at Honor 2 in the final week of the season, the math is tight but not impossible. See our Honor system guide for the recovery path.

League of Legends has three kinds of game mode: permanent queues you can play any time (Ranked, Normal, Swiftplay, ARAM, and Co-Op vs AI), rotating featured modes that come and go (Arena, URF/ARURF, and ARAM Mayhem), and Teamfight Tactics, which is really a separate game inside the same client. Ranked 5s is also live now: a weekend-only premade 5v5 ranked queue running through September 6, 2026. League Classic, a recreation of older LoL with 60 pre-rework champions and classic items, launches July 29, 2026. This guide compares every mode at a glance, then explains what each one is and who it is for.

All LoL Game Modes Compared

Here is every mode you can currently queue for, plus the rotating ones that cycle in and out. "Pacing" is how fast a typical game feels, not a hard match length.

Permanent Game Modes

These five are always in the client. They are the backbone of LoL and cover everything from competitive climbing to a quick casual game.

Ranked Solo/Duo and Flex

Ranked is competitive 5v5 on Summoner's Rift with full draft and bans, and it is the only mode that awards LP and a rank. Solo/Duo is the ladder most players care about (you queue alone or with one friend); Flex is the same format for premade groups of up to five. Both use their own separate matchmaking ratings. If you are new to the ladder, start with our guide to the League of Legends ranks and how to read your hidden matchmaking rating.

Normal Draft

Normal Draft is the unranked version of the full Summoner's Rift experience: the same draft, bans, and 30-plus-minute strategic arc as Ranked, but with no LP on the line. It is the standard place to learn a new role or champion under real draft conditions without the stress of your rank. It runs on its own normal matchmaking rating, separate from your ranked MMR.

Swiftplay

Swiftplay is the permanent casual Summoner's Rift queue that replaced Quickplay and Blind Pick. You start at level 3 with 1,400 gold, objective timers are accelerated, and a Sudden Death system caps games well under the length of a normal match. You pre-pick your role and champion before queuing, so lobbies fill fast. It is the fastest way to play a full Summoner's Rift game when you do not want a 35-minute commitment. Full details in our what is Swiftplay guide.

ARAM

ARAM (All Random All Mid) is the permanent one-lane 5v5 on the Howling Abyss, now rotating across three maps. Everyone gets a random champion, there is no recall, and the whole game is teamfighting down a single lane. Games run about 20 minutes, which makes it the most popular casual mode in League. It has its own separate ARAM MMR and a full reward ecosystem. See our what is ARAM guide, which is the hub for the rest of the ARAM cluster.

Co-Op vs AI

Co-Op vs AI is a team of players against computer-controlled bots on Summoner's Rift, available at Intro, Beginner, and Intermediate difficulty. It is the lowest-stress way to learn a champion's combos, test a build, or complete missions without facing real opponents. This is the actual "bot mode," and it is the source of the common "is ARAM bots?" confusion: matchmade ARAM is player-versus-player, while Co-Op vs AI is the one with bots.

Ranked 5s (Weekend-Only, June 26–September 6, 2026)

Ranked 5s is a full-premade 5v5 ranked queue that runs every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 8 PM to 1 AM local server time. It requires exactly five players (no partial groups) but does not require a fixed roster, so you can assemble a different five each session. There are no rank restrictions on who can queue together. Champion select uses Tournament Draft (the same format as professional play and Clash), and results earn LP on a ladder that is entirely separate from Solo/Duo and Flex. Players who reach Gold or above earn a unique banner; everyone who plays earns a participation icon. Full rules and the pick-and-ban sequence are in our Ranked 5s guide.

Rotating and Featured Modes

Featured modes are limited-time queues that cycle in and out of the client. They are where Riot experiments with rules that would be too chaotic to leave on permanently. Three are in active rotation in 2026.

Arena

Arena is the 2v2v2v2 mode: eight teams of two fight a round-robin bracket on small battlefields ringed by a shrinking Ring of Fire, picking permanent augments and buying items between rounds. There are no lanes, no jungle, and no objectives, just paired combat and build-crafting. It runs on a parallel Fame progression rather than LP, and it is currently live in its fifth run. Full ruleset in our what is Arena guide.

URF and ARURF

URF (Ultra Rapid Fire) gives every champion near-zero cooldowns, free abilities, and bonus attack and movement speed, producing short, frantic games. ARURF is the all-random version Riot rotates back most often. URF is limited-time, returning roughly once or twice a year, usually around the January and spring windows. It is not live in the current patch. Our URF guide covers the full ruleset and the complete return history.

ARAM Mayhem

ARAM Mayhem is a rotating variant of ARAM that keeps the all-random format but swaps your runes for Arena-style augments, adds mode-exclusive items and summoner spells, and layers on a 32-level reward track. It is live alongside Arena in the current rotation. See our ARAM Mayhem guide for how the augments and progression work.

Past Rotating Modes

Riot has run many other featured modes over the years that cycle back occasionally. Nexus Blitz is a fast, event-packed map with mini-games and a roaming boss. One for All puts five copies of the same champion on each team. Ultimate Spellbook lets you swap your ultimate for a famous champion's. Doom Bots is a co-op PvE mode against buffed, ability-spamming bots. None of these are permanent, so they appear only when Riot brings them back into the rotation.

League Classic

League Classic is Riot's featured game mode that recreates older versions of LoL, bringing back pre-rework champion kits, the original rune and mastery system, Influence Points, and classic items like Heart of Gold and Deathfire Grasp on the old Summoner's Rift map. Riot revealed it at the MSI 2026 Finals on July 11, 2026 and detailed it further in a July 14 dev blog, and it launches July 29, 2026 with a starting roster of 60 champions. At launch it runs a single PvP draft queue, Co-Op vs AI, and customs with no Ranked queue; a Summoner's Journey ladder handles competitive progression. See our League Classic guide and the full champion list.

Teamfight Tactics (A Separate Game)

Teamfight Tactics (TFT) shares the League client but is its own game: an 8-player auto-battler where you buy and position champions on a board and let them fight automatically, rather than controlling one champion. It has its own ranked ladder, its own currency, and its own balance cycle. If someone calls TFT a "LoL game mode," that is the practical truth (it is in the same launcher), but it plays nothing like the MOBA.

Which Mode Should You Play?

• Want to climb with a full five-stack? Ranked 5s is the dedicated premade ranked queue — available Friday–Sunday, 8 PM–1 AM, through September 6, 2026.
• Want to climb solo or in a duo? Ranked Solo/Duo is the mode that moves your main rank.
• Learning a champion or role? Normal Draft for real draft conditions, or Co-Op vs AI for zero pressure.
• Short on time? Swiftplay for a full Summoner's Rift game, or ARAM for a 20-minute teamfight.
• Want chaos? Whatever featured mode is live: Arena, URF, or ARAM Mayhem.
• Want a break from the MOBA entirely? Teamfight Tactics, or one of the games like League of Legends if you want to leave the client.

The lineup changes a few times a year as featured modes rotate, so the fastest way to see what is playable today is the mode picker in the client. For the permanent modes, the guides above go deeper on each one.