League of Legends has received a new control scheme after 16 years. Players feared it would be too powerful, but after the first tests, they are happy that the Attack-Damage-Carrys, or ADCs, are suffering from it.
What is the new control scheme of LoL? In the last Dev Update on YouTube of the year 2025, the developers of League of Legends discussed changes for the upcoming first season of 2026. Besides many new features in gameplay or a system where flexible players are well rewarded, they also talked about the control scheme using the classic keys W, A, S, and D.
To everyone’s surprise, the WASD control scheme was implemented on the official servers just one day later. For now, it is only in normal matchmaking, but it is expected to be integrated into ranked lobbies as well.
Why did players fear that the new control scheme would be overpowered? In League of Legends, players have moved their champs with a right-click of the mouse for 16 years. Now you can also press the WASD keys, which would lead to some advantages.
A major point, which is already known to the developers, is the so-called “kiting”. Kiting describes a method to keep the opponent at bay while repeatedly attacking. The attack is executed with the mouse by right-clicking or using the attack button. Afterward, the mouse must be moved to run in the right direction to keep the opponent at a distance.
With the WASD control scheme, the long mouse movement from issuing a movement command to an attack command is eliminated, allowing you to move easily with WASD and attack simultaneously, without having to move the mouse several meters to kite an opponent.
Player says the control scheme is really bad for ADCs, but there is a trick
Why is WASD supposed to be bad for ADCs? In a Reddit post, a player shared his thoughts on the new control scheme. According to him, there is no real advantage, except for keeping the perfect distance from the opponent while attacking from maximum range.
He mentions two problematic points and has concluded that the damage per second is significantly less when he uses the WASD control scheme. He further mentions that moving with the keys does not cancel the auto-attacks, in order to perform the next one faster.
However, another player pointed out a method to cancel the auto-attack (reddit.com). The X user BOTika_LoL discovered that there is a trick to attack faster.
What is the trick for the WASD control scheme? A Riot employee commented under the X post and assured the player that this trick is intentional. According to the employee, the movement key must be released briefly before the next attack fires. This way, the next attack is executed faster than without this trick. According to him, this trick is a kind of skill check.
Since it became known that the WASD control scheme would come to League of Legends, there have been many discussions about the advantage over the mouse. When the control scheme came to the test servers, the developers at Riot disabled a champion and nerfed one of the most important values. How the control scheme will ultimately look in ranked remains to be seen: You can now test the new control scheme for LoL, which nerfs one of the most important values and makes a champion unplayable
