It’s almost time for Season 2 of League of Legends‘ 2025 slate, with LoL patch 25.09 ready to deliver the goods. Spirit Blossom vibes are returning, with the Rift getting a beautiful makeover and a new themed battle pass arriving. But in the gameplay department, things are getting a real shakeup, especially now that the reworked version of Atakhan is ready to be unleashed.
That’s right, Atakhan – who previously had two forms that could spawn in a League of Legends match – has been overhauled to now appear as one, ominous Thornbound form. The monster will still spawn as it did previously in the MOBA, appearing on the side of the Rift where there’s been the most PvP battling. However, in Season 2, the team that slays him will receive “an immediate Bloody Petal bonus as well as all remaining Bloody Roses left on the map, and purify them into Spirit Petals.” Spirit Petals grant 25% increased XP and Adaptive Force. On top of all these Petals, a team-wide buff called Spiritual Purification will be applied that lasts for the rest of the match. Spiritual Purification blesses the area around a Takedown and any enemies caught in this area will be temporarily slowed and damaged.
As has been on the cards for a couple of weeks now, patch 25.09 is also going to be a big deal for support and jungle players. The jungler will be auto-assigned Smite and only one Smite will be allowed per team, and support players will now automatically be given World Atlas as their starting item. Riot says it’s doing this in an effort to combat trolling or costly pre-match mistakes, and says that it “shouldn’t impact gameplay” due to how essential Smite and World Atlas are. Due to this change, Riot is now permitting you to swap roles during the champion select phase.
Elsewhere, the Bounty system has had a shakeup, making it more of a tool for losing teams to get back into the game rather than something that can cause dissatisfying snowballing. Changes arrive in the Void pit too, with spawn timers, rewards, and damage outputs being adjusted across Void Grubs and the Rift Herald. Season 2 also sees upgrades to Riot’s griefing detection system roll out, which should hopefully reduce the amount of frustrating interactions with problematic teammates.
As far as individual champion balancing is concerned, those receiving buffs include Ashe, K’Sante, and Orianna, with the likes of Gwen, Kalista, and Yorick getting hit with nerfs. The graphic below gives a brief overview of the major winners and losers. Or you can go and check out every single change arriving with the big Season 2 update over at the official patch notes.
LoL patch 25.09 and Season 2 will drop on Wednesday, April 30.
As you head into the new season, be sure to keep our LoL tier list close by to keep track of the big swings in the meta. Our LoL skins sale guide will also let you know about any juicy discounts in the store.
You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.
