Shaco makes his 2021 LPL Summer Split debut after being away from the region for almost 7 years

After being away from the region for 2,527 days, Shaco finally made an appearance in the 2021 LPL Summer Split today.

JD Gaming’s Kanavi picked the champion in the first match in the series against Team WE. He went for an AD-oriented build and ruled over the Rift with the League of Legends trickster. His dominant performance earned him an MVP vote and forced his opponents to ban Shaco in the second game.

Shaco was last picked by JDG on the red side to the surprise of everyone who was expecting a competitive meta jungler. The champion has been dominating solo queue for a couple of patches and has various flexible builds. His success, however, doesn’t translate as well in a competitive environment where people communicate better with each other and play more safely. Kanavi showed off today that the champion can be strong under the correct circumstances, using Shaco to punish the overextended enemies who were being greedy for a couple of creep kills. By the 10th minute mark, Kanavi had three out of the four kills for his team.

As the game progressed, Kanavi maintained an aggressive playstyle and went for a lot of invades to catch the opposing jungler. While not all his gank attempts were successful, he was able to build a significant lead for his team that helped them secure the first game win. Going into the second match, Team WE banned out the pick after its impact in the first match. It didn’t matter, though, as JDG quickly adapted and picked Gwen instead. They went to win the second match as well and closed out the series 2-0.

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