Community Questions Riot “Nerf Gumayusi”
In the recent updates that Riot has made for the upcoming 2026 League of Legends season, one seemingly ordinary factor has inadvertently sparked controversy: the “increase in gold and experience points for large jungle monsters, increased movement speed for junglers, and increased damage from Smite to prevent non-jungler players from stealing objectives”. In fact, Riot even used the situation of Gumayusi stealing Baron as an illustration, leading many to joke that this is a “nerf” to the HLE rookie.
After all, everyone knows that the 2025 season is likely one of the years where fans witnessed Gumayusi steal objectives the most in his career. He has used 11 different champions to secure crucial major objectives for T1, from Baron, Atakhan, to Dragon, Rift Herald, and even the Void Beast. At one point, the community referred to him as “T1’s second Smite”.
Therefore, increasing the damage from Smite can be said to assist the junglers but will also limit the objective-stealing moments that have become Gumayusi’s signature highlights. For those who may not know, he is also the AD carry with the most successful objective steals in T1’s history, possibly even in League of Legends history, as calculating the damage to take down jungle monsters has become second nature for Gumayusi.
But Gumayusi’s achievements also point to a “harsh” reality
The fact that an AD carry often has to execute Smite situations also indicates a previous issue for T1: Oner was often absent or unable to Smite for some reason. For a jungler, failing to ensure that he is ready and focused in such crucial situations is a weakness that no one wants to see in Oner.
Currently, Gumayusi has left, and Riot has updated to make the role of the jungler even more important. It’s likely that T1’s success in 2026 will depend heavily on the 2002-born player, as one of the trio02 is no longer there to “fix mistakes” for him.