League of Legends Patch 26.7 support nerfs and April Fools chaos

Season 16 -- Act 2 / April Fools

Patch 26.7: The Support Reckoning

Q: When did LoL Patch 26.7 go live?

Patch 26.7 went live on April 1, 2026. It's the April Fools patch with temporary chaos features in non-ranked Summoner's Rift and ARAM.

Q: Which champions are buffed in Patch 26.7?

Cassiopeia (base mana up, E damage up), Kalista (Rend AD scaling per stack increased), and Rell (E movespeed up, R damage up). Rell got the biggest buffs with improved engage speed and teamfight damage.

Q: Which champions are nerfed in Patch 26.7?

Karma (R+E shield reduced), Nami (W bounce modifier nerfed), Graves (base AD down), Ornn (Brittle proc damage down), Singed (R bonus stats down), and Veigar (R cooldown increased at early ranks).

Q: What happened to the support farming penalty?

It's completely removed. Supports can now farm minions freely without any gold reduction penalty. The mechanic was originally added to prevent multiple support items on one team, but that's been impossible for a while. Riot decided the restriction was no longer needed.

Q: What changed with Shyvana in Patch 26.7?

Shyvana's fury system was reworked. Ultimate Haste no longer gives passive fury regeneration per second. Instead, it amplifies all fury generation by 1% per point of Ultimate Haste. This makes the stat feel more like regular Ability Haste and rewards active gameplay over passive waiting.

Q: What are the April Fools features in Patch 26.7?

Non-ranked Summoner's Rift has temporary chaos features including random Karthus ults on death, shiny minions dropping gold coins, GP5 items, item rarity tiers with stat bonuses, hats on takedowns, and disguised minions. ARAM has muscular Poros, rainbow healthbars, and party items. All active until Patch 26.8.

Live on April 1, 2026. Karma and Nami nerfed after dominating high-Elo support. Rell gets real buffs. Support farming penalty completely removed. Cassiopeia and Kalista buffed. Graves, Ornn, Singed, and Veigar nerfed. Shyvana fury system reworked. April Fools chaos everywhere. Full LP compensation for griefed games.

This is the support patch. Riot finally went after the two champions that have been quietly running high-Elo bot lane for months -- Karma and Nami -- while giving Rell actual reasons to exist again. The farming penalty removal is the real headline though. That mechanic has been annoying support players since it was introduced, and now it's just... gone.

The rest of the patch is cleanup. Graves lost 2 base AD, Ornn's Brittle got trimmed, Singed ult stats went down, and Veigar's R cooldown got hit at early ranks to curb his bot lane snowballing. Cassiopeia and Kalista both got meaningful buffs. Shyvana's fury system got reworked again -- Riot is still tuning her post-VGU.

Oh, and it's April Fools. Random Karthus ults on death, shiny minions dropping gold coins, items rolling rarity tiers, and hats for kills. Normal Summoner's Rift is unhinged right now.

The Buffs

Three champions getting power. Cassiopeia is the mid lane love, Kalista gets her spear stacking rewarded harder, and Rell finally gets the engage tools she's been missing.

Buffed

Cassiopeia

Base mana: 450 → 480 | E bonus magic damage: 20/43/66/89/112 → 20/45/70/95/120

Second patch in a row Cass gets love. She still hasn't found her footing in the new season, so Riot is giving her more mana to trade with and better E scaling when she lands poison. +30 base mana means she can actually fight at level 3 without going OOM. The E buff is +8 at max rank on poisoned targets -- that adds up fast when you're machine-gunning Twin Fangs in extended trades. Mid lane Cass players, your time is coming.

Kalista

KalistaRend stacking buff

E bonus damage per additional stack AD scaling: 20/25/30/35/40% AD → 20/27.5/35/42.5/50% AD

Kalista players have been waiting for this one. The Rend scaling buff makes her stacking pattern way more rewarding in the mid-to-late game. At max rank, each additional spear now scales with 50% AD instead of 40% -- that's a 25% increase on the per-stack bonus. If you can get 6-7 spears in before ripping, the damage difference is real. She's still Kalista (mechanically demanding, needs a good support), but the payoff for playing her well just went up.

Rell

RellEngage support buff

E movespeed: 10-25% → 15-30% | R damage: 120/200/280 → 150/250/350

Rell has been invisible in both solo queue and pro play. These are real buffs. The E movespeed going from 10-25% to 15-30% makes her engage patterns significantly more reliable -- she can actually close the gap now instead of getting kited out. And the R damage buff is massive at rank 2 and 3. Going from 280 to 350 at max rank gives her genuine teamfight threat. Riot wants engage supports to compete with the Karma/Nami enchanter meta, and this is how they're doing it.

The Nerfs

Six nerfs this patch. The support duo of Karma and Nami are the headliners, but Graves, Ornn, Singed, and Veigar are all getting checked too.

Nerfed

Karma

Karma26.6 WR: ~53.2% supp

R+E shield: 50/100/150/200 (+45% AP) → 45/85/125/165 (+45% AP)

The biggest support nerf in the patch. Karma's Mantra + Inspire shield has been the only ability worth empowering, and her enchanter builds have been massively outperforming her mage builds. Riot is cutting the shield values hard -- losing 35 base shield at max rank is a lot for a champion whose entire identity revolves around keeping her team alive. The goal is to bring her Mantra options closer to equilibrium so R+Q and R+W feel like real choices again. She'll still be playable, but the "press R+E and win teamfight" era is getting reined in.

Nami

Nami26.6 WR: ~53.5% supp

W bounce modifier: -10% (+10% per 100 AP) → -20% (+15% per 100 AP)

Nami's W self-cast has been too efficient -- she bounces damage to enemies while healing herself, getting high value from both effects in a single cast. The bounce modifier going from -10% to -20% base means each bounce loses more effectiveness when AP is low. Early game, this is a real hit to her lane dominance. Late game with higher AP, the increased scaling (+15% per 100 AP vs +10%) partially offsets it. Riot wants her to be more intentional about whether she's going for the heal or the damage, not both for free.

Graves

Graves26.6 WR: ~52.8% jg

Base AD: 68 → 66

Graves has been everywhere since his True Grit buffs. Players are still chasing those high-roll crits to great results, and his early clear and skirmishing have been too consistent. -2 base AD doesn't sound like much, but it compounds across every auto, every pellet, every jungle camp. His first clear gets slower, his level 3 skirmishes get weaker, and his crit autos lose a bit of punch. Riot specifically said they're "keeping an eye on his 4-digit autos" -- so if crit Graves stays dominant, expect more nerfs.

Ornn

Ornn26.6 WR: ~53.0% top

Brittle proc damage: 10-18% max HP → 9-17% max HP

Ornn has been a standout tank across all skill levels, helped by the new top lane role quest accelerating his access to Masterworks. Riot thinks his CC and durability are fine but his personal damage threat is too high, especially against other tanks. Losing 1% max HP damage at both ends of the scaling means his Brittle procs deal noticeably less in extended trades. Against a 3000 HP target, that's 30 less damage per proc. Not game-breaking, but it adds up over a lane phase.

Singed

Singed26.6 WR: ~53.4% top

R bonus stats: 25/60/95 → 25/55/85

Singed has been quietly winning this season. Free teleport, experience, Protoplasm, homeguards, weaker grubs -- the list of things that benefit him is long. Riot's hitting his ult stats at ranks 2 and 3 instead of making his early game worse. -5 at rank 2 and -10 at rank 3 means he's less of a stat-check monster in mid-game teamfights. He needs to rely more on his gold income and less on free stats from R.

Veigar

VeigarBot lane targeted

R cooldown: 100/80/60s → 120/90/60s

This one is specifically aimed at bot lane Veigar. He's been at the threshold of overpowered down there for a while, and his play rate finally crossed the line. The interesting thing Riot pointed out: bot Veigar is actually more of a snowball champion than mid Veigar, where his winrate climbs steadily over game time. So they're blunting his early-mid spike with +20s cooldown at rank 1 and +10s at rank 2. Mid Veigar doesn't rely on R as heavily in the early game, so this mostly hits the bot lane variant. Max rank is unchanged at 60s.

Shyvana Adjustment

Still tuning her post-VGU. This is the third patch in a row with Shyvana changes.

Adjusted

Shyvana

ShyvanaFury system rework

Ultimate Haste: passive 0.015 fury/sec → amplifies all fury gen by 1% per 1 Ult Haste

This is a mechanical rework of how Shyvana's fury interacts with Ultimate Haste. Previously, Ult Haste gave her passive fury regeneration per second. Now it amplifies ALL fury generation by 1% per point of Ult Haste. The idea is to make Ult Haste feel more like regular Ability Haste does for normal abilities -- it rewards you for building it, but through amplification rather than passive regen. This also means her fury generation is more tied to what she's doing in the game (fighting, clearing) rather than just standing around waiting. Riot also micropatched a Sylas interaction where he was double-dipping on her on-hit damage when stealing her Q.

Quick take: Shyvana is still in active tuning mode. Riot said they're evaluating whether top lane Shyvana can be supported without hurting jungle satisfaction, and they're exploring changes to improve passive satisfaction, reduce MMR skew, and create more counterplay around her E. Expect more adjustments in 26.8.

System Changes

Two system changes, and the support farming penalty removal is the biggest one.

System

Support Farming Penalty: Removed

This is the one. After loosening the penalty in 26.6, Riot has now completely removed the gold reduction that kicked in when support players killed too many minions. The mechanic was originally added when it was possible to run multiple support items on one team, but that's been impossible for a while now. Riot's exact words: "this extra restriction is unwarranted."

This means supports can catch waves, cover lanes, and farm when their ADC backs without getting punished. Mage supports like Brand, Zyra, and Xerath benefit the most since their abilities naturally hit minions during trades. Riot says they'll monitor whether this changes bot lane dynamics around who farms waves, but they don't expect much to shift.

Quick take: This has been a long time coming. The penalty was a relic of a meta that doesn't exist anymore. Every support player has had games where they accidentally took CS while covering lane and got punished for it. That's done. The only question is whether farming supports (Senna, Brand) start taking too much bot lane income, but Riot seems confident the tradeoff is self-correcting since taking farm slows your carry's quest progression.

Ranked: Full LP Compensation for Griefed Games

When disruptive behavior like AFKing or trolling is detected in a match, affected players now get full LP refunds instead of partial ones. This is a quality-of-life change that's been requested forever. If someone ints your game and gets flagged, you get all your LP back, not just a fraction of it.

Autofill Matchmaking: Global Rollout

The autofill and secondary role matching improvements from 26.5 are now live in all regions. The system tries to match autofill jungle vs autofill jungle, for example, so neither team gets a massive role gap. Riot says they've seen "very positive results and significant improvements on better in-lane matchups."

April Fools: Chaos on the Rift

Riot went all-in on April Fools this year. Non-ranked Summoner's Rift has a bunch of temporary chaos features:

Random Karthus ult on death (chance to trigger a Karthus R onto the enemy team when you die)
Shiny minions and monsters that drop gold coins either team can pick up
GP5 items are back, building into the Lucky Urf Statue
Completed items can randomly roll Uncommon, Rare, Mythic, or Legendary rarity with stat bonuses
Hats on takedown
Disguised minions and monsters

ARAM got its own treatment too -- muscular Poros that attack you if you hoard Poro Snax, rainbow healthbars, turrets that flash Mastery emotes on kills, and a Party Favor item that starts dance parties.

The "Swain's Hot Chicken" rewards program lets you earn icons, emotes, and pass XP for free until 26.8. And there's a Hextech Fan Bundle for 250 RP if you want to flex the "I <3 Hextech Chests" title.

New Skins

Six new skins dropping April 1: Fried Chicken King Swain, Bubble Bash Blitzcrank, Pug Trainer Sejuani, Choncc Kench, Surprise Party Vex, and Prestige Money Miser Mordekaiser.

Demacia Rising also gets its final content update with Chapters 7 and 8, Jarvan IV and Quinn as playable characters, new settlements, and new research options. Active until Patch 26.9.

Patch 26.7 Winners and Losers

Winners

Rell -- Real engage buffs. +5% movespeed on E and +70 damage on R at max rank. She can actually reach people and threaten them now.
Kalista -- 25% more AD scaling per Rend stack at max rank. If you can stack spears, the payoff is significantly better.
Cassiopeia -- Second buff in a row. More mana, more E damage. Extended mid lane trades just got more rewarding.
All supports -- Farming penalty gone. Catch waves freely. No more getting punished for covering lane.
Ranked players -- Full LP compensation for griefed games instead of partial. Finally.
Engage supports -- Rell buffs + Karma/Nami nerfs = the enchanter stranglehold on high-Elo support is loosening.

Losers

Karma -- R+E shield gutted. -35 base shield at max rank. The "press Mantra+Inspire and win" strategy takes a real hit.
Nami -- W bounce modifier doubled in the negative direction at base. Early lane dominance nerfed hard.
Graves -- -2 base AD affects every auto, every pellet, every camp. Early clear and skirmishing both weaker.
Ornn -- Brittle proc damage down across the board. Less personal threat, especially against tanks.
Bot lane Veigar -- R cooldown +20s at rank 1. His early snowball pattern in bot lane just got a lot harder to execute.
Singed -- Ult stats nerfed at ranks 2 and 3. Less of a free stat-check in mid-game fights.

What This Means for Your Climb

The support meta is shifting. If you've been abusing Karma or Nami in ranked, the nerfs are real -- especially Karma's shield. Rell is worth picking up if you like engage supports. She's been bad for a while, but these buffs give her actual tools to compete.

Kalista is the sleeper pick. The Rend scaling buff is the kind of change that doesn't look huge on paper but makes a real difference in extended fights. If you have a duo partner who plays engage supports (especially the newly buffed Rell), Kalista + Rell could be a strong combo this patch.

Graves mains shouldn't panic -- -2 base AD is noticeable but not devastating. He's still Graves. But if you were on the fence between Graves and another jungler, the gap just got smaller.

The farming penalty removal is going to feel great for every support player. No more anxiety about accidentally taking CS. Just play the game.

Once 26.7 settles, check our tier list -- it updates with live data every patch cycle so you can see exactly who's climbing and who's falling.

New patch, new meta

Test the 26.7 changes risk-free on a smurf before committing LP on your main.

Browse LoL Smurfs

FAQ

When did LoL Patch 26.7 go live?

Patch 26.7 went live on April 1, 2026. It's the April Fools patch with temporary chaos features in non-ranked Summoner's Rift and ARAM.

Which champions are buffed in Patch 26.7?

Cassiopeia (base mana up, E damage up), Kalista (Rend AD scaling per stack increased), and Rell (E movespeed up, R damage up). Rell got the biggest buffs with improved engage speed and teamfight damage.

Which champions are nerfed in Patch 26.7?

Karma (R+E shield reduced), Nami (W bounce modifier nerfed), Graves (base AD down), Ornn (Brittle proc damage down), Singed (R bonus stats down), and Veigar (R cooldown increased at early ranks).

What happened to the support farming penalty?

It's completely removed. Supports can now farm minions freely without any gold reduction penalty. The mechanic was originally added to prevent multiple support items on one team, but that's been impossible for a while. Riot decided the restriction was no longer needed.

What changed with Shyvana in Patch 26.7?

Shyvana's fury system was reworked. Ultimate Haste no longer gives passive fury regeneration per second. Instead, it amplifies all fury generation by 1% per point of Ultimate Haste. This makes the stat feel more like regular Ability Haste and rewards active gameplay over passive waiting.

What are the April Fools features in Patch 26.7?

Non-ranked Summoner's Rift has temporary chaos features including random Karthus ults on death, shiny minions dropping gold coins, GP5 items, item rarity tiers with stat bonuses, hats on takedowns, and disguised minions. ARAM has muscular Poros, rainbow healthbars, and party items. All active until Patch 26.8.

LoL Patch 26.7 Notes: All Buffs, Nerfs, and Changes (2026)