It’s update day in League of Legends, and while patch 25.10 is now live and the patch notes are out in the wild, it’s actually news about 25.11 that’s caught my attention. With 25.11 heading to the PBE, Riot has revealed that for the first time in a long while, there will be no new skins on the test server to uncover, and thus no new skins when the update drops later this month. The reason? Riot’s put most of its energy into reworking its underwhelming and controversial Masque of the Black Rose skin series.
The start of the year was a rough one for League of Legends, and one of several contributing factors was the fact that premium, high-cost skins were just not hitting the quality mark. One of the very first skin lines to drop in 2025, the Masque of the Black Rose set suffered from this mediocrity as well despite featuring in the battle pass, and Riot is now trying to make good with some extensive overhauls. Featuring Elise, Ezreal, Renata Glasc, Samira, Vladimir, and a Prestige Katarina, the splash arts for this set looked stunning. It also explored a really cool theme, with the Black Rose being a shady secret society in LoL’s universe.
However, when fans of the MOBA actually saw these skins on the Rift, it was a different story. There were criticisms of bland and basic designs that felt underwhelming given the money needed to acquire some of them and the expectations the splashes had set.
In 25.11, reworks for the skin line will arrive, and with the update now on the PBE you can check out the transformations for yourself. Masque of the Black Rose Elise, Renata, Samira, and Vladimir are the champion skins benefitting from enhanced visuals. The video below from SkinSpotlights is a brilliant before and after comparison.
However, the work needed to overhaul the Black Rose skins has come at a cost. “We hit pause on skins that would’ve normally dropped in this upcoming window so we could go back and give the Black Rose skins a little extra love; a mix of updates across models, textures, and VFX,” Riot reveals in the patch notes for today’s 25.10 update. So, that means that 25.11 will have no new skins to speak of. Wild.
It’s unclear from Riot’s use of the phrase “upcoming window” whether we may actually see more than one patch without new skins, but I’m assuming it’s just referring to 25.11 – we couldn’t see back-to-back skinless updates, could we? Getting just one is pretty unheard of.
LoL patch 25.11 should roll out on Wednesday, May 28 according to Riot’s update schedule.
For more, check out what’s in the LoL Mythic Shop right now, or consult our LoL tier list to find out which champions are dominating the meta right now.
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