Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts Is Live - Varlamore Start, Pact Trees & What Happened in Week One
By Yellow Hat Editorial ·
OSRS Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts launched April 15. Starts in Varlamore, Misthalin is locked out entirely. Here's the Pact system explained, the best early builds, and what Jagex already changed one week in.
One week into Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts and Gielinor has been turned upside down. Jagex's sixth seasonal mode launched April 15 to the largest Leagues hype cycle in years - and the first week has already produced a balance patch, a flood of community guides, and one viral clip of Gnomonkey getting two-tapped by a Leagues boss he thought he had figured out.
THE SETUP Leagues VI: Demonic Pacts runs from April 15 to June 10 - 56 days total. The biggest structural change from every previous league: you start in Varlamore, and Misthalin is completely inaccessible for the entire run. Veterans who've built their early-game muscle memory around Lumbridge are relearning from scratch in the Shining Kingdom. It's a dense, content-rich launchpad and far less solved than Misthalin ever was.
The Demonic Pacts Skill Tree replaces the old relic setup with a points-based system. Earn Pact Points through gameplay, then spend them on combat buff nodes. The mechanic is built around contracts with Yama, the demonic Master of Pacts - the flavour fits the power fantasy of a league where XP rates can scale up to 16x at the endgame.
Echo Bosses return, now dropping items that directly tie into your Pact choices. The endgame loop has a tighter through-line than any previous league - your Pact build shapes both your progression and your loot.
WEEK ONE IN NUMBERS Time was booked off work. Theory-crafting threads dominated r/2007scape before servers even came online. In the first 24 hours, Ranged builds leveraging Prayer penetration nodes emerged as the early frontrunner. By day three, Magic builds capitalising on the global accuracy bonus on % damage nodes were catching up fast. Jagex deployed a hotfix mid-week granting every player one free Pact reset - a signal they were watching carefully.
THE APRIL 23 BALANCE PASS One week in, Jagex pushed a proper rebalance. Key changes: - Prayer penetration nodes boosted to 25% (from 15%) - Accuracy small nodes to 25% (from 15%), big nodes to 50% (from 35%) - All % damage nodes for Magic, Ranged and Melee now grant 10% global accuracy - Hueycoatl kill task retroactively grants a Pact reset point
THE CREATOR SCENE - League runs from April 15 - June 10, 2026 (56 days) - Start area: Varlamore; Misthalin is inaccessible - Pact Points replace relics as the core buff system - Echo Bosses return with Pact-linked loot drops - Free Pact reset via hotfix in week one - Official overview ft. AColdOne, Doubleshine, Scritic, PotatoHime, YewJack - Settled, known for methodical progression, has a Leagues VI series running
With XP scaling up to 16x at the endgame, even casual players can make meaningful progress in 56 days. When Leagues wraps and you're ready to take that energy into the main game, Yellow Hat's [OSRS accounts](/osrs/accounts) let you skip the early grind - escrow-protected, fast delivery.
(Sources: oldschool.runescape.com; xpgained.co.uk patch notes April 15 and April 23, 2026; pcgamesn.com; steamcommunity.com/app/1343370. Last updated April 22, 2026.)
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