As League of Legends grows, players get more skilled and the competition grows fiercer. With each passing year, the capabilities of pro League players expand and the moves they can pull off become far more intricate. The 2021 professional League season played host to some of the most memorable moments from the game’s esports scene. 

From head-turning teamfights to mechanical outplays, League pros put on a show in 2021. Across the game’s major and minor leagues (as well as the international stage), players staked their claim on the season with some seriously intense plays.

Here are five of the best League plays in professional games in 2021. 

5) CoreJJ crashes down with Rell

Blink and you’ll miss the best play by a support in 2021. CoreJJ’s four-man knock-up against 100 Thieves in the LCS Championship exemplified why he’s so heavily touted as the best support player in North America—if not the west.

At a breaking point in the game, CoreJJ found an opening in which he used Rell’s Crash Down (W) and Magnet Storm (R) to start a tide-turning teamfight with 100 Thieves. The fight was over in a flash, with CoreJJ’s engage serving as the foundational factor in Team Liquid’s cleanup. Even as the lowest-level player in the game at the time, CoreJJ charged brazenly into four members of 100 Thieves, knocking up four of the team’s five players and setting up a Liquid victory.

4) Fudge’s Lee Sin kick at MSI

Fudge came into this year’s Mid-Season Invitational as a player on the rise—one who hadn’t yet made his mark as one of the best top laners in the LCS. At MSI though, Fudge made the most of his opportunity on the international stage to take opposing top laners to task. In Cloud9’s rumble stage contest against Royal Never Give Up, Fudge played Lee Sin for just the second time in his professional career, using the champion to dominate RNG.

In the final moments of the game, Fudge pulled off a textbook “InSec” on RNG’s AD carry Gala. Fudge used the classic combo of Sonic Wave (Q), Resonating Strike (Q2), Safeguard (W), Flash, and Dragon’s Rage (R) to get behind Gala and kick him directly into Cloud9, setting up a game-winning teamfight for Cloud9. 

3) Chovy’s Akali pentakill

Chovy was a walking highlight reel all on his own in 2021. But if there was any one play where he defined himself as one of 2021’s strongest individual talents, it was his Akali pentakill with Hanwha Life Esports in week five of the LCK Summer Split.

With his teammates losing a fight and KT Rolster on the advance, Chovy had to wait for the perfect window to dash into a one-vs-five scenario against KT. Once he finally found himself in the mix, though, he made the most of his opportunity, cycling between targets like lightning. Within seconds, Chovy cleaned up KT and earned the first pentakill of his professional career. 

2) Danny earns his LCS stripes

With their backs against the wall, down two games to one in the second round of the LCS Summer Playoffs, Evil Geniuses needed a miracle to get past 100 Thieves and keep themselves alive in the upper bracket of the postseason. Luckily for them, that miracle came in the form of Danny, the LCS Rookie of the Year.

In a desperate teamfight at the back-end of an elimination game, Danny put Evil Geniuses on his back, wiping 100 Thieves off the map single handedly. Even when the rest of his team had gone down and he faced a one-vs-two battle while on the wrong side of the map, Danny still mustered up enough personal strength to stare down two of 100 Thieves’ carries and deliver EG to an unlikely victory. 

1) Carzzy keeps Europe’s hopes alive at Worlds

For a strong majority of MAD Lions’ do-or-die tiebreaker game against LNG Esports at this year’s World Championship, the LEC champions had been on the back foot. Once LNG finally reached MAD Lions’ Nexus, the tide turned as the team’s AD carry Carzzy fended off an onslaught of minions and opposing champions with perfectly timed skillshots.

Once backup arrived, Carzzy and MAD Lions won a teamfight decisively—the cherry on top being Carzzy’s well-placed Trueshot Barrage that simultaneously took out two of the last retreating LNG members to ice the game entirely. 

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