Riot Games wants you back in 2013. At the MSI 2026 Finals, the studio fully revealed League of Legends Classic, a throwback mode that rebuilds the MOBA's early era and hands the balance knobs to the players. It launches on July 29 alongside Patch 26.15, and unlike World of Warcraft's frozen Classic servers, this one is designed to keep changing.
What Happened
According to Riot's own promo page, League Classic recreates "the early days of the 5v5 MOBA that defined the genre," leaning heavily on Season 3 (2013). That means the old Summoner's Rift, the old rune and quintessence system, the three-tree mastery pages, and long-dead summoner spells like Rally and Revive. Riot is even leaning into the broken builds of the era, name-checking AP Master Yi, stunlock Sion and Deathfire Grasp mages in its marketing.
The mode runs inside the existing Riot Client with no separate download, and it opens with 60 champions, reportedly the original 40 from 2009 plus a handful of newer additions, with more to be rolled out gradually. Riot's Meddler pointed to reworked champions like Graves and Urgot returning with their lost kits, and floated Caitlyn and Irelia as future examples, per AltChar.
The RuneScape Angle
The headline feature is what Riot is doing after launch. Rather than locking the mode to a single ancient patch, the community will vote on how it evolves, a system PC Gamer directly compared to Old School RuneScape's polling. It is the part most likely to keep Classic alive past the first wave of nostalgia, and also the part most likely to descend into arguments about what "classic" is supposed to mean.
AP Yi, Deathfire Grasp, stunlock Sion, it's all here.
Our Take
Call it what it is: this is not a faithful restoration of any one patch. Multiple outlets describe a curated "greatest hits" blend, complete with modern art, ward trinkets and base gates that never existed in Season 3. Reddit's r/LeagueClassic is already picking at the seams, from the era mashup to a new health-bar graphic that players reckon looks worse than the original. It is Frankenstein's monster wearing a nostalgia coat.
The bigger question is monetisation. Talk of a separate battle pass, shop and token system is circulating, but that comes from datamining reported by the League wiki, not an official Riot statement, so treat it with caution. Riot has a strong commercial incentive to sell you your own past twice, and a mode that evolves forever is a mode that can keep selling. Worth watching once the promised dev blog lands and the first community vote actually happens.
