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MSI Patch Is Here! League of Legends Patch 26.13 Preview: Kai'Sa Buffs, Senna Nerfs, and More
The official patch of MSI 2026 has been revealed! League of Legends Patch 26.13 will set the stage for some of the best teams from all over the world to clash in South Korea. Though the new update will not flip the script completely before such an important event, it will deliver several important champion changes, particularly in the Jungle and Bot Lane, that may force teams to adapt straightaway.
Let's take a look at some of the biggest changes coming with LoL Patch 26.13 before MSI kicks off on Saturday, June 28.
New ADC Options on the Rise
Three AD carries are receiving buffs with the coming update. These are Kai'Sa, Draven, and Aphelios.
Whenever Kai'Sa is strong, she's always been a preferred pick in pro play thanks to her ability to reposition on the fly and playmaking capabilities. With small buffs to [W] Void Seeker and [R] Killer Instinct coming her way, it will be interesting to see whether players at MSI start to bring Kai'Sa out of the shadows once more.
As for Draven, the champion is getting buffs to the cooldown of his [E] Stand Aside and the damage of his [R] Whirling Death when striking more than one target. Over the course of a long Fearless series, Draven could provide an interesting alternative for teams looking to dominate the Bot Lane early at MSI.
Last but not least, we have Aphelios, who is getting a damage buff to the activate ability (Q) on his Green, Red, Blue, and White weapons.
Overall, none of these buffs will be particularly big or broken, but the fact that Riot is willing to give players a wider array of options to play with before MSI is exactly what we want to see.
Jungle Variety
It seems ADC isn't the only role in which Riot would like to see more variety. Champions like Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao, Pantheon, and Vi have dominated the Jungle in pro play nearly all year long, and it was time to try and do something about that.
In LoL Patch 26.13, Olaf, Poppy, and Qiyana will all be getting monster modifier damage buffs to their Q abilities — essentially their biggest Jungle clear abilities. This should help them keep up with the current meta Junglers, though whether it will be enough to displace them remains unlikely.
Senna Needed a Nerf, But Did She Need to Be Gutted?
Recently, Senna ADC has been dominating nearly all levels of play. Suffice it to say that Senna currently holds a ludicrous 54.42% win rate in Solo Queue across all ranks, the highest in the entire game.
She most certainly needed a nerf, but what she got instead was a boulder to the face. LoL Patch 26.13 will be nerfing Senna's Critical Strike Damage ratio and reducing the spawn rate of her souls for minions and monsters killed by her (a big nerf to her ADC role).
As if that were not enough, Senna's interaction with Statikk Shiv — which could slow down the entire enemy team with a single press of a button — is being removed altogether.
Oh, right, and the patch is also heavily nerfing Doran's Helm, the starter item Senna relied on every single game in order to be more durable than a cannon minion.
Is this the end of ADC Senna? It seems so, at least for the time being.
Imperial Mandate Mid Lane Meta Looms Over MSI
One other important thing of note in the preview of League of Legends Patch 26.13 is the buffs to Imperial Mandate. Meant to be a Support item, we've already seen a few champions who rely on crowd control start to pick up the item in the Mid Lane.
The changes to the item, which is getting a small AP reduction but is getting buffed everywhere else, should only serve to exacerbate the issue. At MSI, it seems possible we may end up seeing Mid Lane players opt for picks like Galio, Lissandra, or Twisted Fate in combination with Imperial Mandate on occasion.
MSI 2026 Starts to Take Shape
This is it, 26.13 will be the official League of Legends patch of MSI 2026. All in all, we should see teams stick to their guns in South Korea given the short amount of prep time that will be handed to them on the new update.
That said, whoever manages to adapt the quickest and find good avenues to exploit on the new patch could land themselves a big advantage in the race for the trophy.
All information about LoL Patch 26.13 was taken from an X (Twitter) post made by Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison, Lead Gameplay Designer for League of Legends. If you'd like to have a look at the complete list of changes, make sure to check out the post!
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Featured image credit: Riot Games
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