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Riot shipped patch 13.04 on August 18, 2026, launching Act 5 of the V26 season. The biggest change for your ranked grind is not an agent nerf — it is the map rotation. Abyss is back in Competitive and Breeze has rotated out. Everything is listed in the official patch notes from Riot Games.
What actually changed
Balance-wise this is a deliberately light patch: no agent nerfs or buffs, only bug fixes. The map pool, however, moved — and that is what will reshape your agent pool for the next few weeks.
- Abyss ⇒ IN (Competitive and Deathmatch queues)
- Breeze ⇒ OUT (Competitive and Deathmatch queues)
The Act 5 ranked map pool
Seven maps make up the competitive rotation as of August 18. This is also the pool that anchors the tail end of the pro competitive season.
- Haven
- Ascent
- Split
- Sunset
- Lotus
- Summit
- Abyss
Why Abyss forces you to relearn habits
Abyss is the most unusual map in the game and its return will catch out anyone who has not touched it in months. Three things to re-internalise right away:
- No ceiling: smokes and airborne utility do not behave the way they do elsewhere, and jump spots are far more permissive.
- You can fall off the map: the edges are lethal, which makes displacement plays (Fade, Neon, Yoru) and entry pushes far more punishing.
- Long angles, fast rotations: controlling sightlines with smokes is worth more here than on any other map in the pool.
Best agents on Abyss
Based on aggregated community stats (metabot.gg, goaching.gg), the top of the board on Abyss is stable. Figures below are indicative and shift with each patch:
- Neon (Duelist) — ~54,6 % win rate
- Clove (Controller) — ~54,9 % win rate
- Iso (Duelist) — ~53,5 % win rate
- Astra (Controller) — the best solo controller thanks to wide smokes and strong post-plant utility
- Cypher (Sentinel) — tripwires and camera are the most reliable sentinel utility on this map
Patch 13.04 bug fixes
No balance changes, but four annoying bugs were squashed:
- Cypher — Spycam (E) : the minimap icon was rotated incorrectly
- Viper — Snake Bite (C) : the equip animation displayed incorrectly from an enemy point of view
- Deadlock — GravNet (E) : visual effects could disappear after a disconnect and reconnect
- Clove — Meddle (Q) / Ruse (E) : rapidly swapping between the two abilities could freeze and disconnect the player
- Cosmetics (PC): transforming melees (Kuronami 2.0, Nocturnum) would not transform during inspect
Premier: Stage V26A5
Premier (PC only) opens a new stage on a shortened calendar:
- Matches start: August 18, 2026
- Length: five weeks of matches instead of seven
- Playoff qualification: Premier Score of at least 450
- Playoffs: September 20 (Contender and Invite: round one on the 19th, finals on the 20th)
What comes next
Riot explicitly teased September news in the patch notes: a new Dev Update is on the horizon, along with other content reveals. No official Act 5 end date was given in these notes; we will update this article as soon as Riot confirms one.
A map rotation is the best moment of the Act to climb: half your lobby is playing Abyss blind. If you want to cash in on that without grinding every night, ElevateBoost offers Valorant boosting and coaching from Immortal and Radiant players. A clean placement early in the Act is often worth several divisions across the rest of the grind — see the Valorant offers.
