League Classic brought dozens of champions back into the game in their early versions, along with items that disappeared from today’s LoL long ago. If you want to put together a working build in Classic, guides written for the current game won’t be enough. Kayle, Warwick or Twisted Fate play differently in Classic because they have a different kit, and the items you build from have different properties or don’t exist in today’s game at all. This article covers which champions are in the League Classic mode, how builds for League Classic were put together in their era, and what exactly has vanished from itemization over the years.
Which champions are in League Classic
At launch on 29 July 2026, League Classic included 60 champions: the original 40 characters from 2009 and another 20 that joined the game between 2009 and 2013. Among them you’ll find names that are still popular today, like Ahri, Lee Sin, Ezreal or Vayne, as well as champions today’s players practically never run into, like Skarner, Nunu, Zilean or Urgot in their early versions. The roster covers all of today’s roles and classes, from tanks like Alistar, Rammus and Malphite, through mages like Annie, Brand or Malzahar, to marksmen like Ashe, Miss Fortune and Tristana.
Right at launch, Riot admitted that “60 champions can’t fully capture the game’s early era” and hinted that it will gradually add more characters from the same period to Classic.
You’ll see the complete, always up-to-date list directly in the client when picking a champion for Classic mode. For a general overview of today’s roster and how champions are split into roles and classes, see our article on champions in LoL.
It’s also interesting to look at who’s missing from the list. Champions with later release dates, typically Yasuo from late 2013, didn’t make it into the 60-champion launch roster, even though they’re among the most played in the whole game today. League Classic isn’t meant to be a complete history of League of Legends, but a specific, clearly bounded era. As the roster grows, the cutoff for how late in the game’s history Classic reaches will naturally move too.
How builds worked in the era Classic brings back
Building in the era League Classic reconstructs followed a different logic than today’s itemization. The path to a finished item went through more intermediate steps, and you worked your way toward a full build gradually. Today’s quick jumps between components and frequent switching between build variants depending on how the match develops were much more limited. Deciding what to buy next carried more weight, because it took longer to get there and a mistake was harder to fix.
A typical build of that time relied on clearly defined item roles. A tank bought health and durability regardless of damage, while a damage dealer put most of their gold purely into offensive stats, and hybrid builds were more the exception than the rule. Runes and masteries added flat, direct bonuses on top (more health, more armor, more ability power) instead of the percentage scaling today’s players are used to, so a character’s total power added up differently: more piece by piece, less in multipliers.
Item combinations also addressed specific problems in a match much more directly. Against a team with lots of magic damage you went for magic resist, against physical damage you went for armor, and hybrid “a bit of both” solutions worked worse than they do today. This directness is one of the reasons League Classic plays like a game with clearer decisions, but also with a higher price for a bad choice.
Items that no longer exist today
League Classic’s itemization includes a number of items that modern LoL either doesn’t have at all or has under a different name and with a different function. Confirmed ones include Zz’Rot Portal, Heart of Gold, the combination of Warmog’s Armor and Atma’s Impaler as a typical tank build, Oracle’s Elixir, and standalone vision items like Sightstone and Vision Ward, which today’s game has merged into other mechanics or removed entirely.
What most of the vanished items have in common is that they solved a problem today’s game solves differently. Either through a different mechanic (vision today works through trinkets and wards as consumables, not through a purchased item), or by dropping the concept altogether (elixirs as one-off temporary buffs have almost completely disappeared from regular play). If you’re playing League Classic for the first time, you’ll have to unlearn looking for today’s equivalents and learn what exactly an old item was for in the context of the game back then.
Example: a tank build around Warmog’s and Atma’s Impaler
This is easiest to explain with a specific combination that was typical of the League Classic era: Warmog’s Armor together with Atma’s Impaler. In its version back then, Warmog’s Armor gave a huge amount of health, and Atma’s Impaler converted a percentage of the character’s maximum health into physical damage. The result was a build where the more health you had, the more damage you dealt: a tank that didn’t just act as a living wall, but genuinely contributed to damage.
This logic, one item that primarily gives a single stat and a second item that converts that stat into another, is a principle modern itemization uses much more cautiously and in a different form, because combinations this strong could tilt an entire match heavily in one direction. In League Classic, this straightforward synergy between items is one of the reasons a build feels different from today’s much more diluted builds, which have fewer pairs linked this tightly.
How an old build differs from today’s
Apart from the different specific items, the main difference is pace and how much a build changes during a match. Today’s LoL rewards flexibility: quickly adapting your build to how the match looks at the 20-minute mark. League Classic, on the other hand, rewards decisions made earlier and stuck to longer, because changing direction costs more and the path to a full build is longer. If you play Classic like today’s LoL and try to react to every little thing with a new item, you’ll find your gold melting away across too many half-finished purchases.
A detailed comparison of game pace, itemization and runes against today’s system is in our article how League Classic differs from today’s LoL.
How to plan a build in League Classic
Before you jump into a match, it pays to ask yourself the same three questions a player of today’s game is used to: what the champion’s strength actually is in the Classic version of their kit, what you’re playing against, and what you need to survive, or what you need to dish out as quickly as possible. The difference is that you have to verify the answers directly in the Classic version in the client, because today’s intuition about the strength of a specific ability or item often doesn’t apply here.
A simple rule works well: choose your first item based on your role and on what the champion needs most in their early kit (mana, attack speed, base damage), and only start reacting to how the match develops from the second or third item on. Since the path to a finished item is longer in Classic, it isn’t worth changing your build plan because of one isolated fight. Change it because of a clear trend that repeats over several minutes of the match.
Where this era comes from: old runes and masteries
Builds in League Classic aren’t just about items. The old rune system and masteries, which today’s LoL replaced with a completely different solution, play an equally important role. If you want to get a picture of how specific keystone runes and masteries of that time worked, you’ll find the details in separate articles about old runes that belong directly to the League Classic era: Deathfire Touch, Stormraider’s Surge and Sword of Blossoming Dawn. They’re a direct look into a system you won’t normally come across anywhere today except in Classic.
FAQ
60 at launch: the original 40 from 2009 and another 20 from 2009 to 2013. Riot announced that it will gradually add more from the same period.
If they’re among the champions available in Classic, yes, but with their early kit, which can differ significantly from today’s. You’ll see the current list directly in the client.
No. Itemization, runes and masteries follow different rules, so a guide written for today’s version of the game can’t be applied one-to-one to Classic.
Because Classic brings back the itemization from a time when today’s solutions (such as vision through trinkets, or percentage scaling on runes) didn’t exist yet. The old items solved the same problems differently.
In League Classic it pays to build gradually based on the specific match. The path to a finished item is longer and changing direction costs more than in today’s game, so hastily rushing one item regardless of how the match develops often doesn’t pay off.
Specific old keystone runes are covered in separate articles on u003ca href=u0022/league-of-legends-deathfire-touch/u0022u003eDeathfire Touchu003c/au003e, u003ca href=u0022/league-of-legends-stormraiders-surge/u0022u003eStormraider’s Surgeu003c/au003e and u003ca href=u0022/league-of-legends-sword-of-blossoming-dawn/u0022u003eSword of Blossoming Dawnu003c/au003e.
Information verified as of 28 August 2026, for patch 26.18. What League Classic is and how to get into it is summed up in our pillar article League Classic, and the system differences compared to today’s game are covered in how League Classic differs from today’s LoL. Today’s rune system is explained in runes in LoL, and today’s roster in champions in LoL. The full overview of the hub is in the League of Legends section.