URF (Ultra Rapid Fire) is a recurring featured game mode on Summoner's Rift where every champion gets 300 ability haste, no mana or energy cost on abilities, bonus movement and attack speed, and an attack speed cap of 10, producing short, frantic matches. ARURF (All Random URF) is the all-random version: you get a random champion instead of picking one, and it has been Riot's default form of the mode since 2016. URF is a rotating limited-time mode, not a permanent queue, and as of patch V26.11 it is not currently live (the rotating modes in V26.11 are ARAM, ARAM: Mayhem, and Arena). The rest of this guide covers the full ruleset, the ARURF-versus-URF difference, why the mode is limited-time, and the full return history since 2014.
What Is URF (Ultra Rapid Fire)?
URF is a Classic-mode variant played on Summoner's Rift in standard 5v5 format. The defining feature is the global buff: every champion casts abilities almost for free and almost on cooldown, so games turn into a constant exchange of spells rather than the measured trading of a normal match. The wiki lists the draft type as "All Random (ARURF) or Blind pick," meaning the mode ships in two forms depending on the run.
The mode debuted on April Fools' Day in 2014. The name "Ultra Rapid Fire" was likely chosen because its initials spell Urf, Riot's April Fools manatee mascot. That overlap causes a common search mix-up: the character page that ranks for "urf lol" is Urf the Manatee, the mascot, not the game mode. The 2014 event was scheduled to end on April 7 but was extended to April 13 after the positive reception.
How URF Works: The Full Ruleset
The values below reflect the URF ruleset as documented on the wiki (labeled "Updated: ARURF 2025"). Because the mode is not currently live, treat these as the mode's standing ruleset rather than live-server values.
The global buff
Every champion automatically starts with the Awesome Buff of Awesomely Awesome Buffing:
- Mana and energy consumption reduced by 100%. Abilities cost nothing to cast.
- Health costs reduced by 50% for abilities that cost health.
- +300 ability haste, summoner spell haste, and item haste. This is the cooldown reduction that makes URF feel "rapid fire," and haste from other sources stacks on top of it.
- +25% tenacity.
- 60 bonus movement speed.
- Bonus attack speed is multiplied by 1.5 for melee champions and 2 for ranged champions, and the attack speed cap is raised to 10 (the normal cap is 2.5).
- 90 bonus experience every 30 seconds.
- Critical strikes deal 25% additional damage.
- Mana champions gain bonus health equal to 35% of bonus mana, plus bonus health regeneration scaling off bonus mana regeneration.
Special rules
- Champion kill base gold is reduced to 200, since fights happen constantly.
- Heal Embargo: direct healing is only 50% effective at the start of the game, increasing by 1% every 30 seconds, up to 100% effectiveness at 25 minutes.
- Shield Overload: the strength of non-ultimate shields is reduced by 30%.
- Catapult of Champions: each team has a cannon outside the fountain that an allied champion can launch from, with displacement immunity, to a target location. On impact it deals 120 to 460 magic damage (based on level) and knocks enemies airborne.
- Passive minion gold: nearby minion deaths award gold even without a last hit. Melee minions are worth 35, caster minions 25, siege minions 80 to 90 (based on game time), and super minions 90.
- Level cap raised to 30.
- Surrender: a team can surrender unanimously at 8 minutes, or surrender normally at 10 minutes.
- Objective timers are pulled forward: turret plating disintegrates at 8:00 (instead of 14:00), Baron Nashor first spawns at 14:00, and Dragon first spawns at 4:00.
- Summoner spells: Teleport is disabled, and Smite's charge rate is changed to 120 seconds.
Sudden Death
URF forces a finish so games cannot stall out:
- 35:00: Overcharged begins. Turrets lose 35% of their total armor and magic resistance per minute.
- 37:00: Sudden Death warning announcement.
- 40:00: every targetable structure loses 3.3% of its maximum health every 2 seconds until a Nexus falls.
ARURF vs URF: What's the Difference?
The difference is entirely in champion select. The buffs, the map, and the rules are identical between the two.
- URF (pick URF) lets you choose your champion in a Blind Pick lobby, with some champions disabled for balance. This was the original form, used for the April events in 2014, 2015, and 2016, and again for the 2019 anniversary run.
- ARURF (All Random URF) assigns you a random champion and gives you a reroll bench, the same rolling system ARAM uses. ARURF debuted in September 2016 and has been Riot's default form of the mode ever since; the wiki's buff section is literally labeled "ARURF 2025."
The practical reason Riot leans on randomization is that pick-URF had a "first-pick the broken champion" problem. With near-zero cooldowns and free abilities, a handful of champions are dramatically stronger than the rest, so a pick lobby collapses into the same few picks every game. Randomization spreads the chaos around, which is why ARURF, not pick-URF, is what rotates back most often. For more on how the all-random rolling and reroll bench work, see our guide to ARAM.
Here is how URF and ARURF stack up against a normal Summoner's Rift game:
| URF | ARURF | Normal SR | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Map | Summoner's Rift | Summoner's Rift | Summoner's Rift |
| Team size | 5v5 | 5v5 | 5v5 |
| Champion select | Blind pick, some champions disabled | All random with a reroll bench | Full draft with bans |
| Cooldowns | +300 ability haste (near-zero) | +300 ability haste (near-zero) | Normal |
| Mana/Energy | Free (100% cost reduction) | Free (100% cost reduction) | Normal |
| Attack speed cap | 10 | 10 | 2.5 |
| Designed pacing | Frantic | Frantic | Standard |
| Availability | Rotating, limited-time | Rotating, limited-time (default form) | Permanent |
Why URF Is Limited-Time, Not Permanent
URF began as an April Fools' joke and has always been a featured, rotating mode rather than a permanent queue like Swiftplay or ARAM. The mode is listed among Riot's current rotating featured game modes, which means it appears for a limited window and then leaves. For the full picture of how URF fits alongside the permanent and rotating queues, see our overview of League of Legends game modes.
The honest answer to "why did they get rid of URF" is that it works too well. The wiki notes that ARURF was around 20 to 25% of hours played by the end of the last long run. When a quarter of all play time funnels into one limited mode, it cannibalizes every other queue, including ranked. Riot's stated approach has been to improve and innovate a mode before re-releasing it rather than leave it on permanently, and they have kept URF on Summoner's Rift rather than the Howling Abyss because players preferred it there. Keeping URF scarce is what keeps it fun: a permanent URF would slowly stop feeling special, and the surrounding modes would empty out.
URF Return History: Every Major Appearance Since 2014
Here is the full return timeline, drawn from the wiki's patch history. Exact day-level dates are not recorded for every mid-cycle run, so some windows are approximate.
| Window | Variant | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| April 2014 | Pick URF | First-ever run, an April Fools' event extended from April 7 to April 13. |
| April 2015 | Pick URF | Returned with added finishers. |
| April 2016 | Pick URF | Standard pick-URF run. |
| September 2016 | ARURF | First All Random URF; introduced the reroll bench. |
| December 2017 | Snow Battle ARURF | Limited champion-pool variant. |
| May to June 2018 | ARURF | Standard ARURF run. |
| January to February 2019 | Pick URF | Lunar Revel run with the Golden Spatula Club; first pick-URF in over four years. |
| October to November 2019 | Pick URF | 10th Anniversary run with all champions available. |
| 2020 to 2025 | Recurring (mostly ARURF) | Roughly yearly runs, clustered around January and spring, with ongoing balance patches whenever the mode rotates back. |
The pattern is consistent. URF or ARURF tends to return once or twice a year, clustered around the January and Lunar Revel window and the spring and April Fools' window, with occasional anniversary runs in October. Every appearance is limited-time, usually one to four weeks. It has never been a permanent queue.
Is URF Coming Back? (Current Status)
As of patch V26.11, URF and ARURF are not live. The rotating modes available in V26.11 are ARAM, ARAM Mayhem, and Arena. URF is a rotating featured mode, so it cycles back rather than staying on permanently.
Based on the rotation history above, the realistic expectation is that URF returns roughly once or twice a year, most often in the January and spring windows. There is no confirmed 2026 return date, so the best signal is Riot's official patch previews and PBE datamines rather than any fan countdown.
One point of confusion worth clearing up: patch V26.07 (April 1, 2026) ran an April Fools' "Chaos on the Rift" event on a non-ranked Summoner's Rift, with gimmicks like Dearest Karthus, Shiny Minions, and a Lucky Urf Statue. That event was removed at its conclusion and was not the standard URF or ARURF queue, so seeing URF-flavored content in April 2026 did not mean the real mode was live. Note also that Wild Rift runs its own ARURF on a separate client; that is not the same as the PC mode.
Best Champions for ARURF
You do not pick your champion in ARURF, but understanding which archetypes the buff favors explains why some games feel one-sided. The 300 ability haste and free abilities reward champions whose power is normally gated by cooldowns or mana:
- Control and burst mages who normally wait on cooldowns can chain abilities almost without pause, so their damage output multiplies the most.
- Spammable poke and skillshot champions turn into a wall of constant projectiles.
- Sustained casters who rely on repeated ability uses scale far better than they do in a normal game.
- Pure auto-attackers gain less proportionally, because the attack speed cap of 10 applies to everyone, so the ceiling is shared rather than exclusive.
This is archetype reasoning, not a live tier list. Because the mode is not always live and the disabled-champion list changes per run, a dedicated tier-list tool is a better source for the specific best picks in any given URF run. If you are simply looking for fast, chaotic games to fill the time, our roundup of games like League of Legends covers the wider field.
