LoL 2026 season 1 removes Atakhan, adds new turret plates, and more

On Monday, December 1, Riot Games announced the first changes to League of Legends for the 2026 Season 1, including significant gameplay updates.

Besides the introduction of new role quests and adjustments to pro play – including the introduction of duo queue in Masters and above – almost every core mechanic will be adjusted, changed, or reverted.

The goal of the new changes is to make LoL feel faster and more strategic, stepping away from the 2025 meta, which was all about objective stacking and teamfighting.

The new meta is said to focus more on rewarding aggressive pushing, rotations, and turret sieges.

To accomplish all that, Riot revealed a few major changes, including Faelights, new items, monsters’ buffs, stronger turrets, faster minions, and the removal of Atakhan.

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Jungle Changes & Removal of Atakhan

For the next season, Riot Game intend to balance jungle objectives. To accomplish that, Atakhan will be removed from the game, along with Feats of Strength and Blood Roses. Moreover, Baron spawn will revert to 20 minutes.

In the jungle itself, epic monsters will also undergo some changes, which will make them harder and more rewarding to kill, with 15% more health, more magic resistance, and armor. Meanwhile, Dragon Vengance was changed so that consecutive dragon kills reduction per stack was upped from 7% to 15%.

The pets will deal 10% more damage instead of 25%, while Smite’s damage was increased from 600/900/1200 to 600/1000/14000.

Turrets and Minions Get Updated

The idea to make split pushing more rewarding also brought changes to turrets and minions.

The biggest addition is Crystalline Overgrowth, a turret buff that lets turrets gain crystal energy over time. When hit by a champion three times, the energy releases more damage.

The turret plates have also been changed. Tier 1 plates no longer disappear after 14 minutes, while Tier 2 and 3 turrets gain three places each. Gold will now be granted with each place instead of only on tower kills.

Starting next season, the Nexus turrets will respawn at 40% health, creating an easier path to comebacks.

Along with turret adjustments, the minions will now move faster, forcing a more fast-paced game and bigger lane pressure.

The first minion wave will spawn at 30 seconds. After 14 minutes, waves will spawn every 25 seconds, and every 20s after 30 minutes of game time.

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Faelights Enter the Summoner’s Rift

Faelights are one of the most impactful additions to the next LoL season.

Faelights are spots on the Rift, where players can place a ward to gain extra vision and create a 45-second reveal zone around it. Billed as “super ward spots”, Faelights will be introduced to help with split-pushing, opening up a way to get more vision for all players, not just support.

Wards will undergo some changes as well. Red triknets will sweep for longer, while yellow trinkets will have a shorter cooldown.

Scryer’s Blossoms will remain in the game, but with changed spawn locations and a faster respawn rate.

New & Returning Items

Like any new season, LoL 2026 Season 1 will introduce new items. A total of nine will be added to the shop, including older items that will make their return.

As of now, Riot have yet to release a full list of new items, as most are still undergoing testing and are being tweaked. However, it was revealed that these new items will fill in some itemization gaps, namely for AP casters, scaling carries, and bruisers.

The crit damage has also been tweaked, and is now back to 200%, thus restoring the old damage profile.

More information about LoL 2026 Season 1 will become available soon, with the changes set to enter PBE on December 3. The changes will go fully live on January 7.