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League of Legends has its very first Challenger player of 2021

Sporting a 70% win rate over 54 games, the player from the Brazilian server beat even DAMWON Gaming's Canyon to the top

League of Legends' Lucian

The launch of the 2021 League of Legends ranked season was heralded last week with a special Opening Day livestream, which highlighted a number of changes to the mode’s format. Among them was the revelation that, contrary to previous seasons, Master tier and above would be unlocked immediately with the advent of the season. Now, just days later, one player has ascended the LoL ranks, establishing themselves as the first Challenger player of 2021.

According to League of Graphs, the first (and currently only) player to reach LoL’s ranked apex is 16-year-old talent Jean Mago from the Brazilian server. Sporting a 70% win rate over 54 games on his ‘perfect timing’ account at the time of writing, Mago has sprinted up the ladder utilising champions like Lucian, Irelia, and Akali to great effect. He sits alone at the top of the ladder with 538LP.

The streamer – whose popularity rocketed throughout 2020 – has even managed to pip DAMWON Gaming jungler Kim ‘Canyon’ Geon-bu to the post. The world champion had achieved 453LP Grandmaster by the end of his last session on his JUGKlNG account, featuring predominantly on Nidalee and touting a monstrous 84% win rate across 25 games on the champion.

Close behind Mago and Canyon is OCE account ‘Mitchell Shaw’ – which doesn’t require much imagination to link to Immortals support Mitchell ‘Destiny’ Shaw. Destiny currently sits at 423LP Grandmaster, having piloted a number of champions including Maokai, Alistar, Rakan, and Leona.

With a slew of players already approaching the 500LP requirement to hit Challenger, it’s only a matter of time before Mago is joined at the pinnacle of ranked League of Legends.