/dev: Hextech Chests, Getting Champs & More

We know that some of you are frustrated—even questioning if Riot is still the company you’ve always known. We aspire to put players first, and when our decisions don’t land the way we intended, it can damage your trust.

Recently, we’ve made a number of changes that didn’t hit the mark for everyone. We’ve been listening to your feedback, and it’s clear that there are areas where we need to adjust.

So today, we want to walk through what’s changing, why we’re making these updates, and how we’re working to ensure League is a game that feels rewarding and worth your time.

This post is intended to be paired with the Dev Update video that also came out today, so we recommend checking that out as well.

So, here’s a quick rundown of the changes we’re making, with more information down below.

TL;DR:

• 10 Hextech Chests and Keys—8 on the free Pass, 2 additional with Honor

• Hextech Chests will be replacing the free Battle Pass skin

• Consolidating all Key Fragments into Keys, rounding up leftover fragments

• The Blue Essence cost of all champions will be reduced by 50%

• Delaying Sahn Uzal Mordekaiser Exalted skin while we make improvements

• Increasing the quality of Battle Pass skins going forward

• Adding 25 Mythic Essence to the paid Battle Pass to replace one paid pass skin

• Clash is going back to a monthly cadence

• Your Shop is coming back in Patch 25.06

• The Blue Essence Emporium will return in Patch 25.07

Hextech Chests

It’s clear that for many of you, Hextech Chests weren’t just a way to get stuff, they were an important part of making your time in League feel rewarding. We didn’t fully grasp how much this mattered to you, and that led us to make changes that missed the mark.

As a result, Chests are coming back. Starting in patch 25.05, which is the patch next week, you’ll be able to earn up to ten Chests and Keys per Act. 

Eight of them will be spread out throughout the free Pass instead of the Seasonal skin and the Mystery Epic or Lower Skin, because you've told us you'd prefer Chests. To make room in the UI for the Chests you can earn in the Pass, we’ll also be consolidating some rewards like Blue Essence. We won’t be changing the total amount of BE you earn per Pass, just moving it around a little.

We’re bringing Chests back through the Pass instead of through Champ Mastery because we want to ensure they’re more accessible to a range of playstyles. Whether you play modes with random champion selection or free choice, whether you play a wide variety of champions or just a few, we want to support that.

The other two Chests per act will be earnable through Honor. We’re doing it that way because League is better when you’re surrounded by players who make your experience better. Every match is shaped by the players in it, and we believe the best moments come from great competition, teamwork, and respect for each other. So we want to explore ways to reward and recognize those of you who embody this. In the short term those Honor Chests will be delivered through missions while we’re working on the Honor system.

To be clear, Chests from both the Pass and from Honor will be the exact same Chests as the ones you got through Champ Mastery. The drop rates are as follows:

Ultimately the above changes mean that the max number of chests any player can earn in a year going forward is 60 per year. 

Champion Acquisition

A clear problem for newer players especially is building out your champion roster. For League to continue to thrive long-term, it needs to be more accessible, and lowering champ costs is one way to help achieve that. It’s certainly not the only thing, but we think it’s an important one, and all the recent discussion about Blue Essence and champion shards has really emphasized that it’s something we should change.

So, we’re going to be lowering the Blue Essence cost for all champions by 50% as of patch 25.05.

Skins

We’re going to be delaying Exalted Mordekaiser to take more time to make sure it better delivers on its core fantasy. We’re also taking more time to improve all future Exalted skins, so you likely won’t see one in every Act this year as originally planned.

We’ve also heard that the Seasonal skins on the Paid pass aren’t hitting the mark, so we’ll be making improvements to them moving forward.

For Seasonal pass skins we’re going to be replacing one of the non Prestige ones with 25 Mythic Essence, given we’ve seen clear feedback that there’s both a lack of Mythic Essence on the paid Pass and that we’ve been doing more champions for each seasonal theme than makes sense.

Outside of this, and replacing the free Pass Seasonal skin with Chests, we’re going to lower the overall number of Season skins, even on the Paid pass. This way we can focus more on fewer skins to level up their quality, and the champions we choose weren’t always making sense.

Going forward, you can expect 3 thematic skins per pass, 2 normal skins and 1 Prestige. For Act 2, our plan is that the skins on the paid battle pass will be Prestige Darius, Sion, and Talon.

One last note on Exalted skins. We’ll be making the promotional placement of Exalted skins less intrusive within the client based on your feedback.

Clash

We mentioned in the last Dev Update we’d be running Clash less often. But after hearing your feedback, we realized what we took away was actually really important to some of you. 

For those who love Clash, it can feel like League at its purest—teams coming together, strategizing, and competing in a tournament-like setting. So, we’ll be returning Clash to a monthly schedule. March’s Clash event will be ARURF, then we’ll run a regular SR Clash in April. 

Let us know on socials what sort of mixture of regular SR, ARAM and other rotating game modes you’d like to see throughout the rest of the year.

Blue Essence Emporium and Your Shop

On a smaller note, we want to reaffirm for those of you who’ve been asking, both Your Shop and the Blue Essence Emporium will be coming back soon for their first runs this year. We’re targeting bringing back Your Shop in 25.06 and the Emporium in Patch 25.07.

Now, as we wrap up, we want to be clear: We know getting League to the right place isn’t about just one set of changes. It’s about continually refining and improving the game in ways that make it better. We think today’s updates are an important step, and we’ll keep tracking how these changes feel, talking with all of you about how things are landing, and making adjustments. 

Thank you for sticking with us and hearing us out, and we look forward to working with you to make sure League is the best game it can be. We’ll see you on the Rift.

Full Act 2 Battle Pass Before and After these Changes

TL;DR:

• Added 8 Hextech Chests and Keys

• Free Reward Milestones have been increased from 20 to 24

• Paid Reward Milestones have been decreased from 30 to 26

• Grand Reckoning Alistar and Rell have been removed (including their respective emotes and icons) to accommodate Hextech Chests

• Removed Mystery Epic or Lower Skin

• Added 25 Mythic Essence (paid Pass only)

• Blue and Orange Essence amounts are unchanged

*If left blank, indicates no change made