Riot officially implements a special mechanism for professional LoL from the 2026 season
A few days ago, the LPL community was buzzing as the region announced that from the 2026 season, it would separate the “side selection” and “champion ban” phases. Specifically, if one team has chosen a side (Blue or Red), the other team will have the right to draft first. This regulation was born after evaluations of the significant win rate disparity between the Blue and Red teams. Recently, Riot also officially announced that this mechanism will be widely applied to all professional LoL.
Accordingly, on the evening of January 8, Riot officially named the new mechanism “First Selection” and the 2026 season will be used to test the impact of this mechanism on professional LoL. Previously, Riot had also implemented coach-voice but limited it to the LCK and LCP regions. At the same time, Atakhan will disappear from the new season after a year of shaking up the LoL community.
The 2026 LoL season may be even more unpredictable
In 2025, many surprising results occurred, especially the number of times teams could “turn the tables” in a match they seemed to have lost also increased unexpectedly. The reason is due to the Atakhan mechanism – which was considered a “death zone” for any team approaching it. This is because Atakhan’s attacks reduce the armor and magic resistance of champions, making them easier to take down.
Moving into 2026, with the changes that Riot has implemented, there will likely be even more surprising results. However, teams will need to diversify their strategies, and matches are expected to be even more exciting as the team choosing the Blue side may not necessarily hold a significant advantage over the team prioritizing the ban-pick phase.