Like it or not, WASD controls are coming to League of Legends. After an initial trial period on live servers, the dev team plans to bring them into competitive modes like ranked. At the point that it’s enabled in pro play, things are going to change.

There will always be a difference when it comes to using traditional mouse & keyboard only or adding in WASD, and there’s a good reason Riot Games has so much trepidation about its widespread adoption in competitive modes.

While there will surely be a learning curve when it comes to using your mouse purely for skillshots instead of moving around, it also has the potential to change the way high-level play looks in League of Legends.

WASD Will Change How League is Played

For the vast majority of players, this’ll be a great change. People who aren’t as familiar with playing isometric games and want WASD controls are going to have a great time with it. It’s a positive change for the overall health of the game and casual playerbase, and a very substantial shift considering how little time it got in the dev video on the topic.

So, what’s the big deal about WASD controls for pro/high-level play specifically? Why is being able to control your character with keys instead of having to click around such a game-changer when it comes to LoL?

Well, put simply, it will always be faster to sidestep a skillshot with an input than it will be with a mouse click. Mechanically, it’s better. However, the ability to click and move is completely disabled, and navigating the map is somewhat clunky. There are drawbacks, but not enough to outweigh the value this scheme brings in terms of how much faster you can react.

With the devs confirming that it’ll be coming to ranked, it’s all but guaranteed for pro play. If they were to enable WASD in ranked but disable it in pro play, it’d be hard to avoid the idea that it’s a competitive advantage. WASD controls open Pandora’s box in terms of balance no matter what.

Similar debates have been held in other esports, with the argument over controller vs. keyboard and mouse being a contentious issue in shooters like Apex Legends. However, in the case of League of Legends, there are pros who have been playing for several years and may need to learn a new input method to stay competitive.

It’s hard to say just how much this’ll affect pro play, which is probably why they’re testing it in normal modes first before bringing it into ranked and pro matches. There’s a long and challenging road ahead for Riot if they want to find a happy medium with this input method that doesn’t force pros to completely change the way they play.

And that’s without mentioning the massive list of changes coming in 2026, including some map-wide changes that’ll heavily nerf the power level of the jungle role.