Is the Support role in *League of Legends* finally getting a rework? But we may have to wait until 2027.

What caught my eye the most wasn’t the fact that “support needs changes” itself, but that Riot explicitly pointed out a direction this time: not just patching things up by adding a new champion, but making changes at the system and mechanics level. This way of thinking actually feels a lot like how indie games iterate—when the core gameplay loop doesn’t feel right, you don’t just keep piling content on top of it.

According to Riot Games’ latest comments, League of Legends will fully rework the support role in its major 2027 update, “League Next.” When it comes to this, it’s not hard to understand the frustration support players have built up over the years. Since Milio launched in March 2023, the developers have released nine new champions in total, and even if you count the already confirmed but not yet released Loke, there still hasn’t been a single support among them.

What stings even more is that Riot has already stated this year that only one new champion will be released, which means the support role could be facing a full four-year drought without a new champion by the time 2027 arrives. For a core role that has long been responsible for engaging fights, protecting carries, controlling vision, and setting the pace, that sense of absence is going to be especially obvious. You can think of it like a pixel-art indie game that keeps updating its bosses but hasn’t touched the most important movement feel for four years—of course players are going to get anxious.

In response to community dissatisfaction, Riot senior vice president Andrei “Meddler” van Roon said on Reddit that he mains support himself and can also feel how frustrating it is to go so long without a new champion. He also mentioned that he’s excited about some system changes in “League Next” designed from a support perspective, though he can’t go into much detail yet. At the very least, this says one thing clearly: the developers know there’s a problem—they’re not pretending not to see it.

What’s interesting is that “League Next” isn’t just a support-focused patch, but a large-scale overhaul of League of Legends as a whole. What’s currently known includes addressing the long-standing disconnect between the client and in-game experience, upgrading the Hextech engine, updating the Summoner’s Rift map, and also adjusting the rune system, other modes and maps, the overall art direction, and the new player experience. It doesn’t sound like adding another coat of paint—it sounds more like tearing an old house down to its load-bearing walls and renovating from there, even carrying a bit of that “League of Legends 2” vibe players like to talk about.

But unfortunately, that promise is still a long way off. Riot has not yet revealed specific details, and more information is expected to come sometime between MSI 2026 and the World Championship. In other words, support players will probably still have to keep working within the current ecosystem for the near future, waiting for a version of the game that hasn’t fully taken shape yet.

Looking at the trend, this rework may not be bad news at all. Compared with simply stuffing another new face into the support pool, fixing the system first may do more to solve the role’s long-standing problems of “not feeling rewarding enough” and “having an unstable sense of presence.” Great game feel, like in Celeste, never comes from just adding one more themed level—it comes from polishing the fundamental actions until they feel exactly right. If the support role can truly smooth out key elements like vision control, roaming, economy, and team feedback, that would be far more valuable than simply releasing a new champion.

My view is simple: the direction is right this time, but the timing is far too late. For veteran support players, it makes more sense to place their hopes on “system rebuilding” rather than waiting for some savior-like new champion. If Riot really can turn support into a role with more agency and more thoughtful design by 2027, then maybe this wait will feel acceptable; but if it ends up being nothing more than minor tweaks, that would be a real shame.