League of Legends Classic Ends With Patch 26.21 Update
Riot Games is shutting down League of Legends Classic in January 2027. The final update adds new champions and imposes regional queue restrictions before the mode closes.
League of Legends Classic will be shut down on January 6, 2027. The closure follows just six months of operation, with the final season beginning with Patch 26.21 on October 21, 2026. The update adds Mordekaiser, Yorick, Hecarim, and Lucian to the Classic roster while restricting the in-game store to Champions, Runes, and Rune Pages only.
This batch continues the accelerated release of vintage champions. Patch 26.20 previously added Irelia, Karma, Quinn, Aatrox, and Caitlyn. More champions are planned for every patch through 26.23, with at least seven more scheduled. The next set includes Volibear, Urgot, and Udyr, who were the top three picks in the latest Classic Council poll. League of Legends Classic promised to roll out 'new' old champions at a faster clip than in the original era.
Regional queue restrictions begin
Starting with Patch 26.21, matchmaking access is being severely curtailed in nine regions. These servers will shift to set matchmaking windows instead of offering queues at all hours. The affected regions are Korea, LAN, LAS, Taiwan, Vietnam, Turkey, Southeast Asia, Russia, and Oceania.
For Oceania players, the new schedule is specific. From Monday to Friday, the Classic queue will run from 4 PM to 12 AM server time. Weekend hours extend from 10 AM Saturday to 1 AM Sunday server time. After Patch 26.21, players in these regions have less than a week of open-all-hours Classic left. Japan and MENA servers will drop to custom games only. Classic custom games remain available at all times in every region.
Timeline to closure and player impact
The mode will remain available until the January 2027 end date. Riot plans to issue refunds for Classic-specific content that will become obsolete. According to player support documentation, most refunds will be issued as Riot Points (RP) by November 30, 2026. The Act II Classic Battle Pass will still ship with Patch 26.21, but it will feature a free track only, with no premium tier.
Riot confirmed the end of Classic's first run, acknowledging that player retention proved insufficient. A Riot spokesperson stated, 'We’ve seen a lot of players have fun revisiting the olden days with Classic. At this point though, most have gone back to other parts of League.' Smaller player pools have created longer queues and wider gaps in matchmaking ratings in some regions. The mode was an attempt to capitalise on nostalgia, stripping away most champions and kits introduced since 2013 and reverting to an older version of Summoner's Rift.
Alex Chu, the esports veteran known as Xpecial, commented on the challenge. "Classic was never going to be a huge success at launch, because everyone has a different version of classic," he said. He noted that while he loved the specific version, many players started later and saw it merely as an old game. He speculated that the future could involve a player-voted version with experimental rules that would not suit the main game.
Riot has stated its goal is to bring Classic back later, likely as an adjusted event mode. No date for a potential return has been given. League of Legends Classic will close for good on January 6, 2027, after which Riot may bring it back as an adjusted event mode.
