Old Graves Is Back: Bilgewater’s Legends Return to the Rift in League Classic

Some champions have changed so much over the years that bringing back their “classic” version means recovering an almost entirely different character. Fizz, Nami, Nautilus and, most importantly, the original pre-rework Graves are now playable in League of Legends Classic, expanding Riot Games’ retro experiment with another wave of champions drawn from League’s early years.

The quartet arrived with Patch 26.19 as Classic’s third major champion drop, with Riot deliberately grouping them around a nautical theme. Fizz returns with the older version of Seastone Trident and its missing-health damage-over-time effect, Nami loses some of the modern flexibility added to Tidecaller’s Blessing, Nautilus reconnects with the period when he was genuinely played as a jungler, and Graves abandons his modern shell-and-reload system entirely to become the bot-lane ADC many veteran players remember from 2011–2015.

That final return is the real headline. Modern Graves and original Graves share a name, shotgun and several ability names, but they occupy fundamentally different roles. League Classic now provides something Riot’s live game has been unable to offer for more than a decade: the chance to lock in Graves, walk into bot lane with a support and play him as the short-ranged, burst-heavy marksman he was before his 2015 rework.

League Classic Is Not Recreating One Exact Patch

Calling these the “original versions” does not mean Riot has frozen League at one historically exact date. League Classic uses Season 3 as its anchor but deliberately functions as a “greatest hits” collection from several early eras, combining champion kits, items, Summoner Spells and mechanics that did not necessarily coexist in precisely the same form at the same moment.

That distinction explains why Fizz, Nami, Nautilus and Graves can arrive together even though their historical development spans different years. Classic launched in July with 60 champions—the original 40 plus another 20 selected from releases between 2009 and 2013—and Riot has been adding further restored kits over subsequent patches. The mode also brings back the old Summoner’s Rift, legacy Runes and Masteries, Influence Points, older jungle behavior and a huge selection of retired items while retaining modern infrastructure such as current matchmaking technology, positional preference, modern pings and optional WASD controls.

The idea is therefore not archaeological accuracy. Riot wants the combat pacing, sharper strengths and weaknesses and lower-mobility environment associated with early League while allowing different beloved—and notorious—pieces of its history to coexist.

Graves Is the Return Veteran Players Have Been Waiting For

Of the four additions, Graves is easily the most transformative because his pre-rework kit represents an entirely different champion archetype. Riot explicitly describes the restored version as a “true-to-life bot lane ADC” designed around extended fights and heavy burst against opponents willing to stand close enough for his shotgun abilities.

His old True Grit passive gradually grants stacking Armor and Magic Resist while Graves remains in combat. Instead of modern Graves firing individual shotgun pellets as basic attacks and manually reloading, Classic Graves uses conventional ranged auto-attacks and becomes progressively tougher the longer a fight lasts. That creates a distinctive marksman who wants to remain close enough to threaten enormous damage but needs several seconds before his defensive passive reaches full strength.

That tension defined much of old Graves. He was short-ranged compared with many traditional ADCs but unusually resilient once True Grit had accumulated, making him capable of turning aggressive bot-lane skirmishes into fights that felt much closer to a bruiser duel than conventional marksman trading.

Buckshot Changes How Graves Approaches a Fight

His restored Q, Buckshot, may be the most immediately nostalgic part of the kit. Graves fires three projectiles through an area, with targets struck by multiple bullets taking additional—but reduced—damage from the extra hits. Getting close enough to connect with several projectiles dramatically increases the ability’s burst potential.

That naturally creates the risk-reward relationship old Graves was known for. He is an ADC who benefits from getting closer to the opponent than most marksmen would normally consider comfortable. Quickdraw supports that style with a short dash followed by bonus attack speed, while basic attacks reduce its cooldown and allow Graves to keep repositioning during prolonged fights.

Smokescreen remains recognizable, damaging, slowing and nearsighting enemies inside the area, while Collateral Damage fires an explosive shell through enemies before detonating behind the first champion struck. The entire kit encourages Graves to step into threatening range, unload enormous front-loaded damage and then use his growing defenses and attack-speed steroid to survive the response.

Modern Graves Exists Because Riot Completely Reimagined Him

The reason this return feels so significant is that Riot did not merely tweak Graves in 2015. The Marksman Update effectively rebuilt his identity. Modern Graves fires shotgun shells through basic attacks, pellets can collide with units, he must reload and his gameplay became far more naturally suited to jungle camps and close-range solo skirmishing.

His Q became End of the Line, bouncing an explosive projectile from terrain. Quickdraw shifted toward stacking Armor rather than acting primarily as an attack-speed steroid, and the champion gradually became one of League’s most persistent jungle picks rather than a conventional ADC.

That rework succeeded in making Graves mechanically distinctive, but it also removed the old champion from the game. Unlike a numerical balance adjustment, there was no way for players who preferred bot-lane Graves to recreate him through itemization. League Classic finally solves that problem without requiring Riot to undo the modern version.

The two can now effectively exist beside one another in separate versions of League.

Fizz Gets His Old Bleed Back

Fizz looks much closer to the champion modern players know, but several details immediately expose the age of his restored kit. The most important is Seastone Trident, whose passive makes basic attacks apply additional damage over time that scales with the target’s missing health.

Activating the ability then adds more on-hit damage and applies 50% Grievous Wounds, giving Classic Fizz built-in anti-healing rather than the more immediate empowered-strike structure associated with his modern version. Riot even highlights the old missing-health bleed as one of the defining differences players may have forgotten since Fizz was reworked in late 2016.

The rest of his identity remains remarkably familiar. Urchin Strike still dashes through the target, Playful/Trickster still makes Fizz untargetable before letting him crash down or hop farther, and Chum the Waters still attaches bait before a shark erupts beneath its victim. Compared with Graves, Fizz demonstrates the opposite side of Classic’s restoration project: sometimes the champion survived more than a decade largely intact, and the interesting part lies in smaller mechanics that disappeared along the way.

Nami Has Barely Changed, and That Is the Point

Riot makes a similar observation about Nami. Her original design has aged unusually well, so Classic players still receive the familiar combination of Aqua Prison, Ebb and Flow and Tidal Wave without needing to relearn the champion from scratch.

The key difference concerns Tidecaller’s Blessing. Classic Nami empowers an allied champion’s next three basic attacks, causing them to deal additional damage and slow their target. The modern version has evolved to interact more broadly with abilities, so players accustomed to contemporary combinations—Riot specifically points toward the modern Nami-Karthus interaction—will find that some familiar synergies simply do not exist.

That narrower design is representative of Classic as a whole. Older kits frequently make champions exceptionally strong at one clearly defined thing while giving them fewer ways to bend their mechanics into multiple roles or combinations. Nami remains an excellent enchanter and playmaker, but her E asks the ally to actually attack the target.

Nautilus Can Go Back Into the Jungle

Nautilus is another champion whose buttons look almost identical while his historical role tells a more complicated story. Riot explicitly reminds Classic players that Nautilus “used to be quite the jungler,” a striking statement for anyone whose experience of modern League primarily associates the Titan of the Depths with support.

Dredge Line still throws the anchor toward an enemy or terrain, pulling Nautilus forward and dragging enemy targets toward him. Titan’s Wrath still provides a shield and offensive component, Riptide sends multiple slowing shockwaves around his position, and Staggering Blow lets basic attacks root different enemies on a per-target cooldown.

Depth Charge also remains an unavoidable targeted ultimate, although Riot notes that its traveling portion is less disruptive than the modern version. Combined with old jungle systems, different itemization and the substantially different economy of Classic, these nuances create room for versions of Nautilus that disappeared as League’s role ecosystem became more specialized.

The Four Champions Arrive in a Much Stranger Item Shop

Patch 26.19 is not only restoring champions. The update also implements the first tangible decisions made by The Council, Riot’s player-voting system for determining parts of League Classic’s future.

The community voted to revive all three proposed items from Riot’s first poll, so Cloak and Dagger, Moonflair Spellblade and Zz’Rot Portal have now returned. Cloak and Dagger provides Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance and Tenacity; Moonflair combines Ability Power with Armor, Magic Resist and Tenacity; and Zz’Rot Portal once again lets players place a Void Gate that periodically generates Voidlings to march down the nearest lane.

These are exactly the kinds of items that make Classic more interesting than a static museum. Restoring old champions is nostalgic, but allowing players to combine them with items that historically belonged to different moments can generate strategies that never existed in the original game.

Old Graves with a Classic meta shaped by community-voted items is not actually 2013 League.

It is something new built from 2013’s pieces.

The Council Means Classic Can Evolve Without Becoming Modern League

That contradiction is intentional. Riot created The Council because it does not want Classic to follow the same evolution path as regular League. Eligible players vote through the client, with participation in Classic increasing their voting influence, while Riot retains control over areas such as balance and overall game health.

The first poll asked about match duration, retired items and map systems. More than 60% of voters selected the option to restore all three proposed items, and players also supported the introduction of modern jungle timers. Patch 26.19 begins putting those decisions into practice while launching a second Council vote covering six additional topics—including which champion restoration Riot should prioritize next.

Classic is therefore already changing only two months after launch, but the direction is deliberately being negotiated with the audience that actually plays it.

Champion Drops Are Gradually Rebuilding Early League

Fizz, Graves, Nami and Nautilus form the third major champion drop since League Classic launched. The first large post-launch expansion in Patch 26.16 leaned heavily into classic ninja-era League, including restored versions such as the original Akali with Twin Disciplines, Mark of the Assassin and her old invisibility-focused Twilight Shroud.

Patch 26.18 followed with what Riot called a Demacian reunion, adding Fiora, Galio, Poppy, Shyvana and Xin Zhao. Several of those champions are especially significant because their modern counterparts underwent substantial reworks, making their Classic versions almost as different from today’s game as Graves is.

Patch 26.19 continues that pattern. Riot is not merely filling an old roster chronologically; it is choosing groups capable of restoring specific memories, roles and strategies. A player who remembers old Fiora’s Blade Waltz or old Poppy’s infamous ultimate now has those experiences again, while someone whose defining nostalgia is Graves farming bot lane beside an enchanter finally gets theirs.

Classic Graves Could Change the Bottom Lane More Than the Other Three Change Their Roles

The competitive impact of the new wave may therefore be uneven. Nami remains broadly recognizable as a support, Nautilus still offers enormous crowd control regardless of whether players experiment with him elsewhere, and Fizz remains a slippery AP assassin whose core tactical fantasy has survived into modern League.

Graves changes an actual position’s champion pool. Classic bot lane suddenly receives a marksman with high close-range burst, stacking defenses and a kit specifically built around fighting aggressively after Quickdraw. His existence affects not only players selecting Graves but also supports choosing partners for him and opponents deciding how to exploit his relatively short range before True Grit becomes dangerous.

That is why Riot itself calls him the highlight of the patch. League has reworked dozens of champions, but few transformations erased such a recognizable competitive identity so completely.

The Real Appeal Is Playing Memories That Modern League Cannot Reproduce

League Classic has always depended on more than old graphics. Riot could recreate the 2013 Summoner’s Rift and fill it with modern champions, but the result would look old without actually behaving like old League. The decisive differences come from systems that no longer exist: expensive spell costs, harsher jungle monsters, legacy Runes and Masteries, retired items and champion weaknesses modern redesigns intentionally smoothed away.

The new Bilgewater-flavored quartet illustrates that philosophy particularly well. Fizz restores a forgotten damage-over-time mechanic. Nami becomes slightly less universally compatible. Nautilus reminds players that his history extended far beyond support. Graves resurrects a champion that effectively vanished in 2015.

Those differences may sometimes feel awkward compared with modern design. That awkwardness is part of what Riot is trying to preserve.

Bilgewater Has Brought One of League’s Lost Champions Home

Fizz, Nami, Nautilus and original Graves are available now in League Classic through Patch 26.19, alongside the return of Cloak and Dagger, Moonflair Spellblade and Zz’Rot Portal and another round of Classic balance and quality-of-life changes.

For three of those champions, the return is an opportunity to examine how surprisingly durable their original designs proved to be. Their kits changed, but their fundamental identities survived.

Graves is different.

Pick him in modern League and he is a shotgun-wielding jungle skirmisher built around pellets, reloads and terrain interactions. Pick him in Classic and he becomes an ADC again—dashing forward for attack speed, stacking defenses as the fight continues and trying to land enough of Buckshot at close range to remind an entire generation why bot lane once belonged to him.

The seas have brought four old champions back.

One of them has been missing for eleven years.