Bloodletter’s Curse

Bloodletter’s Curse is a 2,900 gold Ability Power item in League of Legends that shreds Magic Resist: 65 Ability Power, 400 Health and 15 Ability Haste in patch 26.21. Its Vile Decay passive lowers a champion’s Magic Resist by 7.5% for 6 seconds every time your abilities or passives deal magic damage to them, stacking up to 4 times.

What does Vile Decay do?

It peels Magic Resist off a target, layer by layer. Each instance of magic damage from an ability or a passive strips 7.5% of the champion’s Magic Resist for 6 seconds, and the effect stacks 4 times, so a target you keep hitting ends up with far less resistance than they bought.

The key word is reduces, not ignores. Unlike percent magic penetration, which only helps you, a Magic Resist reduction helps every magic damage dealer on your team, which is why the item shows up on champions who fight alongside a second mage or an AP jungler. Who stacks it fastest? Champions with damage over time or multi-hit spells: Brand, Malzahar, Cassiopeia, Singed, Teemo, Rumble, anyone whose kit applies magic damage several times a second (the 6 second timer refreshes with each hit, so a burn keeps it topped up).

Is Bloodletter’s Curse gold efficient?

Yes, on the stat line alone: 107%, or 3,117 gold worth of stats for 2,900 gold. The 65 Ability Power is priced at 1,300 gold (20 gold per point from basic items), the 400 Health at 1,067 gold and the 15 Ability Haste at 750 gold.

Vile Decay costs you nothing extra. Put simply, it is a battlemage item with a Void Staff effect bolted on, and the Health makes it a fair bit safer than Void Staff itself, which gives more raw penetration but no durability. The catch is the ramp: Void Staff works from the first spell, this needs 4 hits to reach full strength, so burst mages who cast once and leave get much less out of it.

Who should build Bloodletter’s Curse?

Sustained magic damage dealers who stay in fights: battlemages like Cassiopeia, Ryze, Malzahar and Rumble, AP juggernauts like Mordekaiser, and the burn champions already mentioned. It also fits AP junglers who fight next to a mage mid, since both benefit from the shred.

Burst mages and assassins should pass. A Syndra or a LeBlanc who lands a full combo in under two seconds never reaches four stacks, and the Health does little for a champion who plans to be out of range before the enemy answers. In practice the item is a third or fourth buy, once the enemy has started stacking Magic Resist and your damage starts to feel soft, and honestly that is also when you can tell whether the enemy team is buying resistances at all. No Magic Resist on the other side (check the scoreboard, it takes two seconds)? Then more Ability Power does the same job without the ramp. Simple as that.

What does the build path look like?

The recipe is Haunting Guise for 1,300 gold plus Fiendish Codex for 850 gold, and the final combine adds 750 gold. Haunting Guise first on most recalls, since it brings both Health and Ability Power together. It builds into nothing else.

How has Bloodletter’s Curse changed over the patches?

Riot’s files first list it in patch 25.S1.1, the first patch of the 2025 season, and it has had three entries since:

• Patch 25.04: effect text changed.
• Patch 25.10: Ability Power 60 → 65, Health 350 → 400, effect text changed.
• Patch 26.11: effect text changed.

So one real buff and a few wording passes. For what it’s worth, the 25.10 change is what pushed its efficiency over 100%, and the item has sat in the same place in the shop ever since. The full list is in the table above, and the LoL items database shows the other Magic Resist counters, Void Staff and Cryptbloom among them, on the same timeline.

When is it the right buy?

When two or more enemies have bought Magic Resist and your champion hits them again and again rather than once. Buy it before the resistances get out of hand, not after. If you are still working out whether your mage is a burst caster or a battlemage, the guide to LoL roles covers the difference, and Bloodletter’s Curse belongs firmly on the battlemage side of that line.

FAQ

How much does Bloodletter’s Curse cost?

Patch 26.21 prices it at 2,900 gold; the last 750 gold is the combine, and the shop pays 2,030 gold back.

What stats does it give?

65 Ability Power, 400 Health and 15 Ability Haste.

How much Magic Resist does Vile Decay remove?

7.5% per stack, up to 4 stacks, each lasting 6 seconds and refreshed by further magic damage.

Do basic attacks apply the passive?

Only if they deal magic damage through an ability or a passive. Plain physical auto attacks do not count.

Does the reduction help my teammates?

Yes. It lowers the target’s Magic Resist for everyone, unlike magic penetration, which only applies to your own damage.

What does it build from?

Haunting Guise and Fiendish Codex.