Most Banned Champions in LoL (February 2026)

If you asked me this question in late 2025, I'd have given you a completely different list. Zaahen, Ambessa, Naafiri, and Mel were terrorizing the solo queue. Aatrox, Sylas, and Jayce got permanent slots in the ban phase.

Fast forward to February 2026, and the landscape has flipped entirely again.

Season 2026 launched with patch 26.01, one of the biggest systemic overhauls League has seen in years. Role Quests changed how every position earns power. Jungle pet scaling got reworked. Tank and AP junglers suddenly joined back at taking epic objectives. And champions who weren't even considered jungle-viable climbed into S-tier overnight.

On top of that, Riot introduced ten new items and brought back classics like Hextech Gunblade and Stormrazor.

Then patch 26.02 hit, specifically targeting those outliers while buffing others who'd fallen behind. The result? A ban list that looks nothing like it did two months ago. Let's break down exactly what happened and why these 10 champions have the highest ban rate right now.

Current ban rate: around 36% (highest in the game)

Here's the twist nobody saw coming: Malphite jungle.

Malphite jungle currently sits at S+ tier with over 50% win rate across 400,000+ analyzed games in the past few patches. His clear is healthy thanks to his W armor scaling, and once he hits level 6, every lane becomes gankable. One Unstoppable Force from the fog of war, and your carry is watching a gray screen.

Riot noticed. In patch 26.02, they specifically nerfed Malphite's jungle performance alongside other off-meta jungle abusers like Jayce and Zed. But the nerfs weren't enough to knock him off the throne. Players still ban him because they remember getting one-shot from 1,500 range too many times.

What's more, Malphite has even shown up in LCK and LPL’s pro play. When a champion historically relegated to "solo queue stomper" status starts appearing in professional matches, you know the meta has shifted.

Back in patch 25.24, Riot acknowledged the problem directly: Zed could clear his jungle, hit level 4, and either invade you or recall for two Long Swords and fight you at Scuttler. His early jungle clear speed crossed the line from "fast" to "game health problem."

They nerfed his jungle clear speed by several seconds in 25.24, and again in 26.02 after he continued dominating high-elo jungle. But here's the thing: mid lane Zed still exists, and he's still terrifying, especially with the new item Bastionbreaker. And he’s difficult for ADCs to deal with in the late game. So, most players would rather ban Zed than pray their mid laner rushes Zhonya's first.

Mel's ban rate tells a story of player frustration more than raw power.

Riot themselves admitted in the patch 25.24 notes that she had "solidified herself as the most frustrating champion to face in League, which is a deeper problem than just numbers."

Her W was the most ridiculous skill design, and her E felt inescapable, according to most players. The lingering zone damage and particle mismatched slightly, causing players to take damage when they thought they'd escaped. Patch 25.24 hit her E damage hard (orb damage down from 60/105/150/195/240 to 60/100/140/180/220, DPS reduced significantly).

Riot also promised "larger work planned for early next year" with more significant changes. We're still waiting on that. In the meantime, Mel remains a ban priority, not because she's statistically broken anymore, but because players have trauma.

Varus received direct buffs in patch 26.02.

Riot explicitly stated that Varus "has been struggling since this season's changes to crit items affected his viability as a bot laner." His Piercing Arrow (Q) got a sizable base damage buff to help him compete in the mid game, making both his lethality and crit builds more viable.

The result? Lethality Varus is back.

When Varus is strong, the bot lane becomes a poke nightmare. You walk up to a cannon minion, and you eat half your HP bar from 1,500 range. His Chain of Corruption sets up easy ganks, and his itemization synergizes beautifully with the new season's marksman items.

The new ADC items Fiendhunter Bolts and Hexoptics C44 got buffed in 26.02 after underperforming at launch. Fiendhunter Bolts now provides 45% attack speed (up from 40%), and its crit damage multiplier increased to 80%. These changes help on-hit Varus scale even harder, while lethality builds still dominate early-mid game poke.

However, here's the sleeper OP nobody talks about enough: Varus top is now the #1 top laner in the game. He's sitting at a 54.81% win rate in Emerald+, ranked first out of 102 top lane champions, with the best players averaging 58% win rates at Grandmaster. This is a direct result of the new top lane role quest system and its level 20 cap.

Diana's always been a solo queue stomper, but the Season 2026 jungle changes pushed her into another tier entirely.

The reworked pet damage scaling in 26.01 was supposed to reduce jungle agency, but it inadvertently made AP junglers with strong AoE clears even more dominant at taking objectives. Diana's clear speed is absurd. She hits level 6 faster than most junglers, and her ult pulls entire teams together.

Patch 26.02 targeted several AP and tank junglers who "really benefitted from being able to kill Epic monsters from increased pet damage, where they otherwise previously lacked DPS to do so." Diana got caught in that adjustment wave, but she's still fast enough to punish any pushed lane the moment she has ult.

Mid Diana, jungle Diana—doesn't matter. She's going to dive your backline and delete someone.

Season 2026's ADC changes included a seventh item slot and base crit damage increased to 200% for most champions. Caitlyn, with her 900 range and headshot mechanics, scales harder than ever.

The new item, Hexoptics C44, was practically designed for her. Built from Pickaxe, Noonquiver, and Long Sword, it provides 50 AD and 25% crit chance with passives that increase damage based on range to target. For a 900-range ADC who specializes in picking off targets from maximum distance? It's a perfect fit. After 26.02 buffed the item's stats, Caitlyn players are incorporating it into their core builds.

But that's not the only reason why she's banned.

The current meta emphasizes bot lane priority for dragons, and Caitlyn almost always has prio. She freezes on you, zones you from CS, and pokes you under your own tower with traps and Q.

The 26.01 crit changes were supposed to be power-neutral for most ADCs, but champions who already dominated lane got even better at translating that lead into late-game carries. People remember the games where a fed Caitlyn three-shots them from outside vision range.

Akali is the eternal "just CC her" champion.

The Season 2026 changes didn't directly buff or nerf her, but the shifting jungle meta means fewer early ganks to punish her weak early game. She gets to scale into her fantasy more consistently now. Plus, the return of Hextech Gunblade, one of League's signature hybrid items that was removed years ago, gives Akali players back their favorite sustain option. Gunblade's AD/AP hybrid stats, spell vamp, lifesteal, and targeted active slow fit her kit perfectly.

Her mobility remains infuriating. She dashes, shrouds, dashes again, executes your carry, then E's back out like nothing happened. Good Akali players are untouchable. Bad Akali players int, but nobody wants to gamble on which one the enemy picked.

She's been nerfed, adjusted, and mini-reworked more times than most players can count. Doesn't matter. The kit is fundamentally frustrating, and that keeps her ban rate high.

Three-second snare. That's the reason.

But Season 2026 gave Morgana indirect buffs through the Rylai’s changes. Her Black Shield completely negates pick comps and engage supports. Her ultimate zones entire teamfights. Landing one Q on a carry late game means they're dead before the binding ends.

There aren’t really new items for her, particularly, but as long as Morgana's kit hasn't changed, players ban her. Because they know if they don't, they'll be spam-pinging their support after getting rooted for what feels like an eternity.

Ekko's kit is fundamentally overloaded, which is why he never truly falls out of meta.

The Season 2026 jungle changes initially hurt AD junglers more than AP ones. Riot's patch 26.02 preview acknowledged this: "AD junglers dropped slightly in effectiveness while tank junglers gain ground." Ekko, as an AP jungle staple, benefited from the chaos.

He has burst, mobility, and a get-out-of-jail-free ultimate that also does massive damage. Playing against Ekko means you can never fully commit to a fight because he can always R and flip the script.

You "kill" him, he ults, suddenly he's full HP, and he might do a massive amount of damage to you at the same moment. That experience hasn't changed in 2026.

Nobody enjoys playing against Shaco. Ever.

His win rate fluctuates. His pick rate varies. But his ban rate stays consistently high because Shaco doesn't play League of Legends; he plays a mental game that happens to take place on Summoner's Rift.

The Season 2026 changes actually made Shaco trickier to deal with. With Faelights (the new vision mechanic) changing how wards work and Homeguard timings adjusted, Shaco's early invade and gank patterns became harder to predict. You can't ward the same spots you used to.

Early game, he's everywhere. Your jungler is tilted because boxes interrupt his clear. Your laners are paranoid because a stealth gank could come any second. Late game, you're never sure which Shaco is real.

Let's recap what happened:

The ban list you see today reflects all these overlapping changes. Champions that benefited from 26.01's systemic changes, survived 26.02's corrections, and remained frustrating to play against.

The meta is still settling. Riot explicitly said they're "waiting to see the outcomes" before taking larger swings. More changes are coming.

For now, these top 10 bans make sense. If you want to gain LP, pay attention to what gets buffed or nerfed in patches 26.03 and beyond. The current list will shift again, and it always does.