ARAM Mayhem -- Season 16
ARAM Mayhem: The Complete Guide to Not Inting on the Howling Abyss
Best augments, all 9 augment sets, the full progression track, and which champions turn this mode into a clown fiesta. Updated for Patch 26.4.
ARAM Mayhem is the best thing Riot has added to League of Legends in years, and I will die on that hill.
Regular ARAM was already the "I don't want to think too hard" mode. You get a random champion, you fight on one lane, you buy items, someone eventually wins. It was fine. It was comfort food. But Mayhem takes that formula and injects it with whatever they put in Singed's trail, because now you're drafting augments that can double your ultimate cooldown, make your snowball deal 100% bonus damage, or literally let you bounce on enemies as the Poro King.
If you've played TFT's augment system or Arena mode, you already get the concept. But ARAM Mayhem has its own meta, its own broken combos, and its own set of "how is this balanced?" moments that make it worth learning properly.
So here's the full breakdown: how augments work, which ones are broken, the set system from Patch 26.3, the full progression track, and which champions abuse this mode the hardest.
How ARAM Mayhem Works
The core is still ARAM. Random champion, one lane, Howling Abyss. But now there's an augment draft system layered on top, and it changes everything.
Here's how it works:
- Level 1: You pick your first augment before the game starts. Everyone gets a choice of 3 augments from the Silver tier.
- Level 7: Second augment. You pick this one after you die and respawn. The tier pool expands to include Gold augments.
- Level 11: Third augment. Same deal, die and pick. Prismatic augments enter the pool.
- Level 15: Fourth and final augment. Full pool available.
The catch? You can only pick augments when you're dead. If you're playing Soraka and somehow haven't died by level 11, you're sitting on fewer augments than the Yasuo who's been running it down since minute 3. Dying is literally part of the strategy.
Key detail: You get 4 augments per game maximum. Since augment sets need 2-4 matching augments to activate, every pick matters. Don't just grab whatever looks flashy -- think about synergy.
Augments come in three tiers:
- Silver -- Stat buffs and utility. Think extra range, movement speed, or basic on-hit effects. Solid but not game-warping.
- Gold -- The backbone. Cooldown economy, sustain, keystones (yes, actual rune keystones), and on-hit effects that keep your DPS online.
- Prismatic -- The "did that just happen?" tier. Ultimate resets, massive range boosts, burn effects that melt entire teams. One good Prismatic can carry a game.
Best Augments in ARAM Mayhem (Patch 26.4 Tier List)
Not all augments are created equal. Some are busted on any champion, some are niche picks that pop off on the right roll, and some are traps that sound cool but do absolutely nothing. Here's what's actually good.
Best Prismatic Augments
Biggest Snowball Ever
Gain 100 Ability Haste on Snowball. Your Snowball becomes BIG, passing through minions, slowing by 20% for 2s, knocking up for 0.75s, and dealing (200-350 +60% AP +100% bonus AD) magic damage.
The single best augment in the mode. Turns Snowball from a gap-closer into a nuke. Engage tanks like Leona, Amumu, and Nautilus become unkillable freight trains. Even on mages, the 100 AH on Snowball alone is absurd.Scopiest Weapons
Gain 250 attack range if melee, or 150 if ranged.
Sounds simple. Is broken. Caitlyn and Senna can hit turrets without taking aggro. Melee champs like Yasuo or Yone suddenly have the range of an ADC. This augment warps the entire game around positioning.Ultimate Revolution
Refresh your ultimate after casting it. 75s cooldown, resets on death.
Double Amumu ult. Double Malphite ult. Double Mordekaiser ult (isolate two people in one fight). The cooldown resets when you die, which in ARAM means it's basically always up. Disgusting on any champion with a fight-winning R.Infernal Conduit
Your abilities apply an infinitely stacking burn, dealing magic damage per second for 3s. All burn effects lower your basic ability cooldowns by 0.08s per tick.
Brand, Lillia, and Cassiopeia become walking war crimes. The burn stacks infinitely, so extended teamfights just melt everyone. The CDR from burn ticks means you're casting faster the more people you hit.Jeweled Gauntlet
Gain (25% +4.5% AP) crit chance. Your abilities can critically strike for 145% total damage.
Turns any mage into a crit machine. Veigar with 1000 AP and Jeweled Gauntlet is doing math that shouldn't be legal. Avoid on ADCs who already build crit -- it's wasted value.Best Gold Augments
From Beginning to End
Gain the Dark Harvest and First Strike keystone runes.
ARAM Mayhem strips all runes. Getting two keystones back -- especially Dark Harvest in a mode where everyone is constantly fighting -- is massive. Works on literally every champion.Soul Siphon
Your critical strikes heal you for 12% of the damage dealt. Gain 25% critical strike chance.
Yasuo and Yone become unkillable. Pair with Jeweled Gauntlet on mages for spell vamp through crits. The sustain in extended ARAM fights is unreal.It's Critical
Grants 50% critical strike chance.
Raw stats, no conditions. Any auto-attacker instantly spikes. Combine with Soul Siphon and you're healing for absurd amounts while dealing double damage.Best Silver Augments
Scoped Weapon
Gain 100 attack range if melee, or 50 if ranged.
The Silver version of Scopiest Weapons. Less range, but still a meaningful power boost for any auto-attacker. Safe early pick that's never bad.Leg Day
Gain bonus movement speed.
Movement speed is king in ARAM. Dodging skillshots, chasing kills, getting back to fights faster. Boring but effective on everyone.Heavy Hitter
Your first attack against a champion deals bonus damage.
Assassins and burst mages love this. One extra chunk of damage on the opener can be the difference between a kill and them flashing away with 50 HP.All 9 Augment Sets Explained
Patch 26.3 introduced Augment Sets — themed collections of augments that give bonus effects when you stack 2-4 from the same set. This is where the real strategy kicked in. Instead of just picking the "best" augment each round, now you're thinking about set completion.
Most games you'll get 4 augments total. Completing a 2-piece set is realistic. A 3-piece is lucky. A 4-piece is "screenshot this and post it on Reddit" territory.
Here's every set, ranked by how consistently they win games.
S-Tier Sets
Snowday
(2): +50 Ability Haste on Snowball, snowballs deal 30% more damage
(3): +100 AH on Snowball, +50% damage
(4): +150 AH on Snowball, +100% damage
Augments: Biggest Snowball, Golden Snowball, Snowball Upgrade, Pinball Snowball, Snowball Roulette
The best set in the game. Snowball is already the most important summoner spell in ARAM, and this set turns it into a primary damage ability. Even the 2-piece is worth building around. At 4-piece, your snowball literally one-shots squishies.
Make it Rain
(2): +25% gold from augments and kills
(3): +50% gold
(4): +100% gold
Augments: Goldrend, Heads Up Cupcake!, Donation, Red Envelope, From Beginning to End, Upgrade: Immolate, Upgrade: Collector
Gold acceleration in ARAM is disgusting. You're already fighting nonstop, so more gold per kill means you hit item spikes way before the enemy team. The 2-piece alone can put you a full item ahead by mid-game.
Stackasaurus Rex
(2): Gain 50% more stacks
(3): Gain 100% more stacks
(4): Gain 200% more stacks
Augments: Infinite Recursion, Master of Duality, Tap Dancer, Soul Eater, Quest: Steal Your Heart, Phenomenal Evil, Shrink Engine, Hubris, Slap Around
If you rolled Veigar, Senna, Smolder, or Nasus, this set is an auto-win condition. Veigar with 200% bonus stacks hits 1500 AP by 20 minutes. Senna becomes a sniper with infinite range. The scaling is genuinely unfair.
A-Tier Sets
Firecracker
(2): Missiles bounce 2 times, dealing 40% of original damage
(4): 3 bounces, dealing 80% of original damage
Augments: Fan the Hammer, Magic Missile, Critical Missile, Light'em Up, Typhoon, Twin Fire
Insane damage ceiling on champions with missile-based abilities. Miss Fortune, Ezreal, and Lux become AoE monsters. The bounces in a clumped ARAM fight hit everyone. Draft-dependent though -- useless on melee champs.
Wee Woo Wee Woo
(2): +40% Speed, +25% Heal and Shield Power
(3): +50% Speed, +35% HSP
(4): +60% Speed, +45% HSP
Augments: Windspeaker's Blessing, I'm a Baby Kitty Where is Mama, Upgrade: Mikael's Blessing, All For You, Critical Healing, Sonata, First Aid Kit
Turns enchanters into raid bosses. Soraka, Sona, Janna, and Lulu with this set make their team literally unkillable. The speed boost also helps with positioning. Weaker if your team has no carry to protect.
Archmage
(2): Refund 40% of a random ability's cooldown when you cast a spell
Augments: Overflow, Mind to Matter, Buff Buddy, Juiced, Ocean Soul
Ability spam on steroids. Any mage or ability-spamming bruiser loves this. Cassiopeia, Ryze, and Ezreal get the most value since they're already casting constantly. The random refund can feel inconsistent, but over a full fight it averages out to a massive DPS increase.
B-Tier Sets
Fully Automated
(2): Reduce Autocast cooldowns by 30%
(3): Autocast cooldown scales with Ability Haste
Augments: Prom Queen, Quantum Computing, Ok Boomerang, Sonata, Divine Intervention, Self Destruct, Frost Wraith, Firefox
Can be game-warping when the autocast augments actually fit your champion. But "autocast" augments are a specific subset, and if you don't roll ones that synergize with your kit, the set bonus does nothing. High variance.
High Roller
(2): Minions have 18% chance to drop a Stat Anvil on death
(3): +50% chance for Gold/Prismatic Anvils
(4): +50% chance for Gold/Prismatic Anvils
Augments: Transmute Chaos, Pandora's Box, Stats on Stats on Stats, Transmute Prismatic, Stats on Stats, Stats, Transmute Gold
Stat Anvils are free stats from killing minions. The problem is it's slow and indirect -- you're gambling on RNG drops instead of getting immediate combat power. Strong in long games, but ARAM Mayhem games are usually decided before this set pays off.
C-Tier Sets
Deathknell
(2): Reduce death timer by 40%
Augments: Clown College, Train of the Dead, Self Destruct, Dive Bomber
The "die to win" set. Reduced death timers mean you're back in the fight faster, and some augments in this set deal damage when you die. Sounds fun in theory, but most comps can't afford to play around intentional deaths. Niche at best.
The Progression Track (All 19 Levels)
Patch 26.3 added a progression track that unlocks new augments and cosmetics as you play. Riot says it's designed to be quick, so you shouldn't feel behind even if you start late. Here's every reward:
Patch 26.4 change: Level 4 was changed from +300 Starting Gold to a Golden Reroll. This is a nerf to early game consistency but a buff to augment quality -- you now have a chance to upgrade a Silver augment into a Gold or Prismatic one. Worth the trade.
Which Champions Are Broken in ARAM Mayhem?
The augment system doesn't buff everyone equally. Some champions have kits that synergize so well with specific augments that they become straight-up unfair. Here's who you want to roll (and who to dodge if you see them on the enemy team).
S-Tier Champions
Veigar -- Phenomenal Evil stacking + Stackasaurus Rex set = 1500+ AP by 20 minutes. His cage is already the best ability in ARAM, and with augment-boosted damage, one W deletes anyone. If you roll Veigar and see stacking augments, you've won.
Senna -- Mist stacking with Stackasaurus Rex makes her range infinite. Add Scopiest Weapons and she's hitting people from her own fountain. Not even exaggerating that much.
Amumu -- Ultimate Revolution gives him two ults per fight. Biggest Snowball Ever turns his engage into a nuke. He was already A-tier in regular ARAM; in Mayhem he's a menace.
Sona -- Wee Woo Wee Woo set was basically designed for her. Her auras already heal and shield constantly, and with 45% bonus Heal and Shield Power, her team just doesn't die. Add Ultimate Revolution for double Crescendo and it's over.
A-Tier Champions
Brand -- Infernal Conduit on a champion who already applies burn is redundant in the best way. Double burn, CDR from ticks, and his passive spreading it to the whole team. Teamfights become a health bar melting simulator.
Smolder -- Another stacking champion that abuses Stackasaurus Rex. His Q stacks faster, his execute threshold comes online earlier, and late-game Smolder in Mayhem is borderline unkillable.
Miss Fortune -- Firecracker set makes her R bounce missiles into the entire enemy team. Her ult was already the best teamfight ability in ARAM; now it hits people who aren't even in the cone.
Lux -- Long range + Jeweled Gauntlet = abilities that crit for 145% damage from a screen away. Her E poke becomes lethal, and her ult with crit can one-shot squishies through shields.
Champions to Avoid
Yuumi -- You need to die to pick augments. Yuumi doesn't die. You'll be sitting on 1-2 augments while everyone else has 4. The math doesn't work.
Udyr -- His kit doesn't synergize with any augment set particularly well. He's a stat-check champion in a mode that rewards ability interactions.
Trundle -- Same problem as Udyr. He wants to right-click people, but the augment system rewards ability-heavy kits with cooldown interactions and spell effects.
ARAM Mayhem: The Full Timeline
ARAM Mayhem didn't launch looking like this. It's been through a few iterations, and honestly the early version was mid compared to what we have now.
Original Launch (Patch 25.21, October 2025)
Riot introduced ARAM Mayhem as a limited-time mode alongside the Arena comeback. The initial version had around 60 augments across three tiers (Silver, Gold, Prismatic) but no augment sets and no progression track. It was basically "ARAM but you get random power-ups." Players loved the chaos but complained about augment diversity -- tanks and enchanters had far fewer useful options than damage dealers.
The Big Update (Patch 26.3, February 4, 2026)
This is when Mayhem became a real mode. Riot added:
- 45 new augments, specifically targeting underserved classes (tanks, enchanters, bruisers)
- 9 Augment Sets -- themed collections that reward stacking augments from the same family
- Progression Track -- 19 levels of rewards including exclusive augments, emotes, icons, and a Poro King banner
- Item upgrades and active summoner effects as new augment categories
- More Prismatic augments to increase the ceiling for big plays
The augment set system changed everything. Before 26.3, you just picked the strongest individual augment each round. Now there's actual draft strategy -- do you take the slightly weaker augment because it completes your Snowday 2-piece? That decision-making layer is what separates Mayhem from "ARAM with random buffs."
Patch 26.4 Balance Pass (February 19, 2026)
Riot followed up with targeted nerfs to overperforming augments and system tweaks:
- Poro Blaster, Devil on Your Shoulder, and Vampirism all nerfed
- Level 4 progression reward changed from +300 Starting Gold to a Golden Reroll
- Augment hover delay reduced for faster draft decisions
- Health Drain mechanics adjusted
- Multiple bug fixes including Infernal Conduit CDR being way higher than intended with multiple enemies, Marksmage having a lower ratio than intended, and Ultimate Revolution not refreshing after cooldown
- ARAM Ionia Cup -- a Clash-style tournament on the Howling Abyss ran February 21-22
The Infernal Conduit fix was the biggest one. Before the patch, Brand with Infernal Conduit was getting his abilities back in under a second during teamfights because the CDR per tick was bugged to be multiplicative instead of additive. It was hilarious but completely broken.
How to Actually Win at ARAM Mayhem
Knowing the augments is step one. Here's what actually separates the people who win from the people who just pick whatever glows the brightest.
1. Draft for Sets, Not Individual Power
This is the biggest mistake new Mayhem players make. They see a Prismatic augment and grab it because "Prismatic = good." But a 2-piece Snowday set bonus (50 AH on Snowball + 30% more damage) is often worth more than a random Prismatic that doesn't synergize with anything.
Before you pick, check what sets your existing augments belong to. If you're one augment away from completing a set, that's almost always the correct pick.
2. Die on Purpose (Sometimes)
You can only pick augments when you're dead. If you're level 11 and still haven't died, you're behind on augments. Don't int obviously, but if a fight is lost and you're the last one alive with 200 HP, don't flash away. Take the death, grab your augment, and come back stronger.
This is especially true at level 7 and 11, where the augment tier pool expands. Dying at level 7 to access Gold augments is almost always worth it.
3. Reroll Smart
You get a limited number of rerolls per game. Don't waste them on your first augment (Silver tier, low impact). Save rerolls for level 11+ when Prismatic augments are in the pool. One good reroll at level 15 can turn a mediocre game into a stomp.
If you've unlocked the Golden Reroll from the progression track (Level 13), you have a chance to upgrade the tier of an augment when you reroll. This makes late-game rerolls even more valuable.
4. Play Around Your Augments, Not Your Champion
Got Scopiest Weapons on Garen? Congratulations, you're now a ranged champion. Play like one. Got Infernal Conduit on Lulu? You're not an enchanter anymore, you're a DoT mage. The augments can completely redefine how your champion should be played.
The players who adapt their playstyle to their augments win more than the players who try to force their champion's "normal" playstyle regardless of what they drafted.
5. Actually Talk to Your Team
I know, I know. Nobody does this. But if your Sona has the Wee Woo Wee Woo 3-piece, play around her. Group up, take fights near her, and let the healing carry. If your Veigar has Stackasaurus Rex, peel for him and let him scale. ARAM Mayhem rewards teams that play around their strongest augment holder, not teams where everyone does their own thing.
ARAM Mayhem vs Regular ARAM: Which One?
Want to turn your brain off and vibe? Regular ARAM.
Want the same chaos but with actual decisions, power spikes that feel earned, and moments where you one-shot someone with a snowball? Mayhem. Every time.
Mayhem games tend to be slightly longer (the augment power spikes create more back-and-forth) but way more memorable. You'll never forget the game where your Amumu got Ultimate Revolution + Biggest Snowball Ever and single-handedly won 3 teamfights in a row.
The mode also rewards game knowledge more than regular ARAM. Knowing which augments are strong, which sets to aim for, and which champions abuse the system gives you a real edge. In regular ARAM, the champion roll is 90% of the outcome. In Mayhem, a bad champion with great augments can carry harder than a great champion with bad augments.
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FAQ
What is ARAM Mayhem in League of Legends?
ARAM Mayhem is a variant of classic ARAM that adds a tiered augment draft system. You pick power-ups at levels 1, 7, 11, and 15 that can completely change how your champion plays. Patch 26.3 added Augment Sets that reward stacking augments from the same themed collection, plus a 19-level progression track with exclusive augments and cosmetics.
When do you pick augments in ARAM Mayhem?
First augment at level 1 (before the game starts). After that, you pick at levels 7, 11, and 15 -- but only when you die and respawn. You can't pick augments while alive after the first one, which means dying is actually part of the strategy.
What are the best augments in ARAM Mayhem?
Prismatic tier: Biggest Snowball Ever, Scopiest Weapons, Ultimate Revolution, Infernal Conduit, and Jeweled Gauntlet. Gold tier: From Beginning to End and Soul Siphon. The best augment sets are Snowday, Make it Rain, and Stackasaurus Rex. Check our full tier list above for detailed breakdowns.
What are Augment Sets in ARAM Mayhem?
Themed collections of augments introduced in Patch 26.3. Collect 2-4 from the same set to activate bonus effects. There are 9 sets: Snowday, Make it Rain, Stackasaurus Rex, Firecracker, Wee Woo Wee Woo, Archmage, Fully Automated, High Roller, and Deathknell. Full set breakdown here.
Which champions are best in ARAM Mayhem?
Stacking champions (Veigar, Senna, Smolder) are S-tier because Stackasaurus Rex is broken. Engage tanks like Amumu abuse Ultimate Revolution and Snowday. Enchanters like Sona dominate with Wee Woo Wee Woo. Avoid Yuumi -- she doesn't die, which means she can't pick augments.
Is ARAM Mayhem permanent?
Riot hasn't announced an end date as of Patch 26.4. The mode launched in Patch 25.21 and got a massive update in 26.3 with sets and a progression track, which suggests they're treating it as a long-term addition. But Riot being Riot, nothing is guaranteed.
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