New champions joins the RIFT in Classic mode

Patch 26.18 added five champions to League Classic. None of them are new, and none of them play the way you know them.

Each one runs a historical version of its kit, taken from a specific window of years. Three of those versions were removed from League permanently, because Riot decided they could not be balanced without losing what made them work in the first place.

Here is what came back, and what each version actually does.

Poppy, 2010 to 2015

The most consequential of the five.

Diplomatic Immunity made Poppy immune to every enemy except a single champion she selected. Not reduced damage, not a damage cap. Four opponents could not interact with her at all while she fought the fifth.

Her passive compounds it: any single hit above 10% of her maximum health has its damage halved. Burst does not work on her the way it works on anyone else.

Riot's own explanation for removing it was that nerfing the ability would have stripped out the thing that made it distinctive, so they took it out entirely and rebuilt the champion around a different ultimate. This version has not been playable since 2015.

Fiora, 2012 to 2015

Blade Waltz made Fiora untargetable while she dashed between nearby enemies, striking each one, and left her wherever the chain ended.

Untargetable is the operative word. Once it started there was no stun, no flash and no reliable window to stop it.

The rest of the kit supports that: she heals from damaging enemies, and Riposte parries an incoming attack outright. Modern Fiora rewards precision, hitting vitals on a single target over a longer fight. This version is built around one decisive button.

Galio, 2010 to 2017

Riot describes this Galio as one part mage, one part AP bruiser, one part tank and one part support, which is a fair summary of why he was eventually reworked. He never settled into a role.

Runic Skin converts his magic resist into ability power. Building defensively against an AP team made him hit harder, so the counter to magic damage was to stack resistance and then win the damage trade anyway.

His ultimate, Idol of Durand, taunts surrounding enemies while reducing the damage he takes during the channel.

Shyvana, 2011 to 2013

The oldest kit of the five, and the one furthest from its modern counterpart.

Her passive has basic attacks enhance her abilities, so the pattern is to weave attacks between casts rather than to unload a combo. The ultimate transforms her into dragon form, granting defensive stats and dealing area damage as she flies.

The theme survived the rework. Almost none of the mechanics did.

Xin Zhao, 2012 to 2017

The simplest of the batch, and Riot's own description is accurate: straightforward right-click-until-they-are-dead gameplay.

Three Talon Strike reduces his cooldowns as he lands hits, and the knockup is intact. There are no conditions to set up and no windows to hit. He commits and keeps going.

The first Council vote passed everything

Classic runs a player vote called the Council. The first one closed on September 2, and each option needed more than 50% to pass independently, so voters could approve all of them rather than pick between them.

All of them passed.

Three removed items came back in a single vote. Zz'Rot Portal is the notable one: Riot removed it from live League after years of failing to find a version of it that both worked and was tolerable to play against.

The jungle timer result says the most about what Classic's audience wants. Timers are a modern convenience that did not exist in the era Classic recreates, and players voted for them anyway. The takeaway is that people want the old game, not the old interface. That is worth watching, because it shapes what the next vote is likely to offer.

The rest of the Classic changes

Anivia was nerfed, with reductions to both her Q missile speed and her stun duration.

Gangplank, Heimerdinger, Kayle, Malzahar, Nasus and Warwick were adjusted, either buffs for underperforming or fixes for mechanics that were not behaving as intended.

Chromas were consolidated. Classic skin chromas are now unified with their base skins, and anyone who owned only a chroma received the base skin at no cost.

Why the roster addition matters

Classic launched in July with 60 champions, and the most common complaint was that the pool felt thin. Five additions is not a large number, but three of them are kits that exist nowhere else in League.

They are also not balanced against each other, which is the format working as intended rather than a problem to be fixed. Classic is not positioned as a competitive mode, and the Council vote suggests Riot is comfortable letting players steer it.

If the roster was your reason for not playing, this is the patch that addresses it.

Frequently asked questions

Play the games, skip the losing streak

Classic games still cost you the same evening whether they go well or not, and a roster with three removed ultimates in it is not a forgiving place to learn.

Our boosters cover Classic along with every other normal mode, so you can bank the games, levels and rewards without grinding through the bad nights: normal game boosting.

Patch 26.18 went live on September 9, 2026.