League of Legends enters a thrilling new era with the launch of Season 15, also known as Season 1 of 2025, starting January 8, 2025. Riot Games has unveiled extensive changes that promise to reshape the Summoner's Rift experience, implementing new objectives, rewards systems, and gameplay mechanics that will fundamentally change how players approach each match.
Here’s everything you need to know about the changes and updates Riot Games has introduced for League of Legends Season 15.
New League of Legends Season 15 Structure
In 2025, League of Legends introduces a new competitive calendar, dividing the year into three major seasons, each with two acts. This change creates distinct competitive periods, offering better clarity and pacing. Once Seasons 1, 2, and 3 of 2025 conclude, the cycle will reset in 2026. This streamlined format ensures consistent competitive milestones throughout the year.
Noxian Theme and Visual Overhaul
League of Legends Season 15 is kicking off in 2025, featuring a distinctive Noxian theme that transforms the Summoner's Rift experience. Players will encounter a visually enhanced environment that showcases Noxian architecture and aesthetics throughout the map. The update includes Noxian-themed turrets featuring black and red Hextech-inspired designs, stylized shopkeepers, and Noxian-themed minions that appear to have emerged from the Immortal Bastion itself.
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New Jungle Monster: Atakhan
Atakhan, Bringer of Ruin represents a revolutionary addition to Summoner's Rift in LoL Season 15. This powerful jungle monster appears in the river near either the top or bottom lane at the 20-minute mark, with its spawn location determined by early game activity patterns.
At the 14-minute mark, the demon's arrival is signaled by noticeable changes in the environment, as solid walls suddenly appear to mark its territory. These walls mark Atakhan's spawn location and allow teams to strategically prepare for the upcoming objective. The spawn location of Atakhan is determined by comparing champion damage and kill amount between the top and bottom lanes during the first 14 minutes of the game.
Atakhan's two forms, Ruinous and Voracious, emerge based on the overall game intensity. In high-action matches, Ruinous Atakhan appears, offering the team that killed him a permanent 25% increase to all epic monster rewards, including rewards for previously killed monsters too.
Additionally, Ruinous Atakhan spawns Blood Roses around its pit, and these new plants drop petals that grant a permanent stacking Adaptive Force bonus ranging from 0.33 to 1, along with 25 experience points for the entire team. The bonus has the potential to scale up to 100% based on the collecting player's KDA. These plants can also appear before the 20-minute mark, spawning naturally around champion death locations or near Atakhan's spawn location.
Conversely, in lower-action games, Voracious Atakhan manifests, providing different but equally impactful rewards. Teams that defeat this form receive a temporary one-time death mitigation effect lasting 150 seconds, functioning similarly to Guardian Angel but with the added benefit of a base teleport. Furthermore, they gain a permanent 40 gold bonus from champion takedowns, incentivizing more aggressive play in otherwise passive games.
To accommodate this new objective, other major jungle timings have been adjusted: Rift Herald now appears at 16 minutes, while Baron Nashor's spawn time has been moved to 25 minutes. These changes aim to maintain game length while creating space for meaningful mid-game strategic decisions around this new objective. Atakhan thus catalyzes dynamic gameplay, allowing players to actively influence their match's narrative through strategic choices and team coordination.
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Feats of Strength System
The Feats of Strength system in League of Legends Season 15 replaces the traditional gold bonuses from First Blood and First Tower takedowns while introducing Monster Slaying as a third competitive objective, which requires teams to secure three Epic Monster claims to complete.
The system rewards teams for securing two out of three possible Feats: First Blood, First Tower, and Monster Slaying. Upon achieving this milestone, all team members receive free upgrades to their Tier 2 boots, transforming them into Triumphant versions with enhanced stats. Triumphant Berserker's Greaves provide a 5% increase in attack speed, while Triumphant Sorcerer's Shoes grant 4 bonus magic penetration and other boots receive +5 to their stats. These upgrades apply automatically to existing boots and are available immediately when purchasing new Tier 2 boots.
As the game progresses, the team that claimed the Feats can further enhance their footwear through Tier 3 upgrades, provided they have completed at least two legendary items. These powerful upgrades cost 750 gold and offer significant tactical advantages. For instance, Gunmetal Greaves provide additional attack speed and grant a movement speed boost after attacking champions, while Spellslinger's Shoes offer both flat and percentage magic penetration.
Special consideration has been given to Cassiopeia, who receives an enhanced version of her Serpentine Grace passive instead of boot upgrades, increasing her per-level movement speed from 4 to 6.
This system encourages coordinated team play in the early game, reduces excessive early-game snowballing from individual gold advantages, and provides players with meaningful choices for boot customization that can significantly impact their playstyle and effectiveness throughout the match.
New Items and Runes Changes
The League of Legends Season 15 rune system has made a major overhaul, bringing significant changes to enhance gameplay diversity and strategic depth. The runes Ghost Poro, Zombie Ward, Eyeball Collection, and Nullifying Orb, have been removed, and instead of them The following Runes have been added Deep Ward, Sixth Sense, Grisly Mementos and Axiom Arcanist.
The introduction of Deep Ward revolutionizes vision control, granting extended duration and additional health to Stealth Wards placed in enemy jungle territories, with enhanced benefits for river placement after level 11.
Vision control gets another boost through the Sixth Sense rune, which automatically pings nearby untracked wards within a 900-unit radius and reveals them for 10 seconds post-level 11, operating on separate cooldowns for melee (300 seconds) and ranged champions (360 seconds).
For players focused on champion takedowns, the new Grisly Mementos rune offers 4 trinket Ability Haste per takedown, adapting to 2 Summoner Ability Haste in ARAM, with a cap of 50.
The most impactful addition might be Axiom Arcanist, which amplifies ultimate ability effectiveness by providing a 14% increase to damage, healing, and shielding (reduced to 9% for AoE damage abilities), while also offering a 7% cooldown refund on the remaining ultimate cooldown after champion takedowns.
Additionally, the itemization system in LoL’s Season 15 sees a significant evolution with the introduction of Bloodletter's Curse, a new item specifically designed to address the needs of AP bruisers. This item offers a balanced combination of offensive and defensive statistics, including 60 ability power, 350 health, and 15 ability haste. It has a unique passive ability called Vile Decay, which can reduce enemy magic resistance by up to 30% through ability damage, applied in 5% increments over 6 seconds. This fills a crucial gap in the AP bruiser itemization, benefiting champions like Mordekaiser and Gwen, while also providing utility to traditional mages like Brand.
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Teleport Mechanics Overhaul
The Teleport summoner spell has undergone significant changes to create more balanced early-game interactions. Instead of instant transportation, champions now visually travel across the map at varying speeds depending on whether they're using standard or Unleashed Teleport.
The initial channel duration has been reduced to 3 seconds, but the total travel duration can extend up to 8 seconds based on distance. Unleashed Teleport provides significantly faster travel speed and grants a longer movement speed boost upon arrival. Additionally, early game Teleport can now target wards and minions again, as the longer travel time provides more counterplay opportunities.
New Nexus Turret Respawn System
In a groundbreaking change for League of Legends Season 15, Nexus turrets will now respawn 3 minutes after being destroyed, fundamentally altering the dynamics of late-game strategy. This mechanic, similar to the existing inhibitor respawn system, allows teams that lose their Nexus turrets early to have crucial opportunities for comeback scenarios and significantly reduces the effectiveness of backdoor strategies.
Also, the three-minute respawn window creates a new strategic layer where teams can more confidently contest major objectives like Baron or Elder Dragon without the constant pressure of defending an exposed Nexus.
This change reflects Riot's commitment to creating more engaging late-game scenarios and reducing situations where games feel unwinnable after losing Nexus turrets, ultimately leading to more dynamic and competitive matches.Lane Minion and Turret Adjustments
The League of Legends Season 15 brings substantial changes to minion and turret mechanics to improve early game laning phase. Minion waves now clear more quickly due to adjusted health and damage values, while turrets have received enhanced power through increased heat damage and duration.
The Fortification damage reduction on top and mid-lane turrets has been reduced from 85% to 50%, allowing for more effective tower taking while maintaining protection against early dives. These changes aim to create more balanced laning phases and reduce scenarios where disadvantaged lanes have no viable options for recovery.
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Introduction of Swiftplay
The new League of Legends Season 15 introduces a game mode called Swiftplay, designed to offer faster-paced matches while preserving the core League of Legends experience.This mode will initially replace Quickplay in select regions where Normal Draft is available, including North America, Europe, Brazil, and several other major regions.
Swiftplay aims to provide a more condensed version of the traditional Summoner's Rift experience, allowing players to experience their champion's full potential within a shorter timeframe while maintaining the same skill tests and strategic depth that makes League of Legends engaging.
League of Legends Ranked Season Updates
League of Legends Season 1 of the 2025 ranked season will start on January 9, 2025, at 12 PM local server time worldwide. This season brings a significant change: there will only be one ranked reset for the entire year instead of multiple splits. In League of Legends Season 15, players can earn Victorious skins by winning 15 ranked games in Solo/Duo queue, Flex queue, or a combination of both.
To enhance the gaming experience, a dedicated mission tracker will be introduced, allowing players to monitor their progress toward rewards. These rewards will be distributed at the end of the season. Additionally, players will continue to have access to the ranked queue during the season cooldown period, although progress made during this time won’t count toward seasonal achievements.
As of the launch of Patch 25.S1.1, the APEX Duo MMR restriction is temporarily lifted, but it will be reinstated with patch 25.S1.2. The Shard transfer service will also be temporarily suspended until after the Split 3 2024 rewards are distributed. Finally, the legacy Seasonal Ranked Reward Tracker will be discontinued.
Conclusion
League of Legends Season 15 marks an exciting new chapter, introducing updates that refresh gameplay and strategy on Summoner’s Rift. With additions like the powerful Atakhan, a new competitive calendar, and innovative features like respawning Nexus turrets, Riot Games has created a season packed with fresh challenges and opportunities. Whether you’re a casual player or aiming for the top of the ranked ladder, these updates promise to make every match more engaging and rewarding.
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