Top 10 hardest plays in esports

Every esport has its number of iconic moments. These can come from many kinds of skills, but the best of them come from mechanical outplays. When you see that the player has perfected the plays that bring him to victory in such a way that it is simply a feast for the eyes, such moments are created. We’ve captured 10 of these moments for you. Enjoy!

10. Genji Clutch

Our list starts with a clutch from EQO at the 2020 Overwatch Summer Showdown Finals, with the Philadelphia Fusion player providing us with the definition of a clutch. On the all-important final map of the finals, trailing by two points and with the payload a few meters from the checkpoint, everything looked like a safe point for Paris Eternals when EQO took fate into his own hands in the form of his sword with his hero Genji. What followed was a mechanical masterstroke by the Israeli player, who turned his opponents into kindling and took the point. However, the grand final was still lost.

9. Viper kiting penta

Viper is one of the mechanically best AD carries in League of Legends esports. Especially during Griffin’s quarterfinal match against Invictus Gaming at Lol Worlds 2019, he reminded everyone why that is. Griffin was already down 0-2 in the best-of-three series and needed a miracle. The miracle had a name, and it was Viper. The Korean turned around a seemingly hopeless team fight that would have meant the end for his team Griffin in the blink of an eye and rewarded himself with a pentakill in the end. Although the best-of-three went to Invictus with 3-1, this mechanical masterpiece of Viper can still be seen.

8. Squishy ceiling shot

In Rocket League, there are many different mechanics that you can only master perfectly if you invest a lot of time and training in the game. This category also includes the so-called ceiling shots, in which players drive up the wall to the ceiling, drop from there and launch the ball from the air into the goal. Cloud 9’s Squishy was the first pro to use this mechanic in competitive matches, and the hype around ceiling shots began. Like in this clip from RLCS Season 4, where he makes his opponents from Team Method look stupid thanks to a ceiling shot.

7. Nukkye’s insane movement

Ex-CS and Valorant pro nukkye blasts his way to seventh place with a godlike movement and an ace to boot. Valorant has been around for a few years now, but few players can claim to have mastered Raze’s Movement with their explosive packs. In a match against the reigning world champions ACE, nukkye proves that he is one of those players. It’s not just the headshots that are particularly impressive in this clip, but also his use of his explosives to expertly jump around the Ultimate of the opposing Raze. The Ace at the end of the clip is the cherry on top of a mechanically superior clip from the Lithuanian.

6. Westball’s sacred combo

Super Smash Bros Melee is just so populated with mechanics to master if you want to be on top of the world. The American Westballs is one of the best players in Smash, even if his playstyle is sometimes too “high-risk high-reward”. What it looks like when it works can be seen impressively in this clip. With a Sacred combo, one of the riskiest mechanics in Smash, he took his opponent out. The special thing about this combo is that you have to perfectly anticipate your opponent’s moves. On the other hand, this combo doesn’t work and backfires. In Westball’s case, everything went as planned and he was able to knock his opponent off the stage.

5. Alliance wombo combo

Our fifth-place finish proves that sometimes the hardest plays just need good coordination. In the 2018 European Qualifier of the Chongqing Majors, Team Alliance managed to pull off one of the best wombo combos in Dota. The play starts with Taiga moving on the hero Magnus into the Roshan Pit. 4 members of Team Liquid are subsequently stunned by him there, whereupon he pushes them all out of the Pit and into the arms of Teammate miCKe. He is just waiting with Enigma to attack the whole group with his Black Hole. The magnitude of this wombo combo is something to behold, as all 4 Liquid players burst before they can move again. A mechanical masterstroke by both players.

4. Acronik double-flip reset

Another Rocket League mechanic has snuck into our list, and if you thought the Ceiling Shot was already hard, you better hold on tight. That’s because in the clip below we see a Double Flip Reset performed by Portuguese Acronik. Flip resets are one of the hardest mechanics in Rocket League. You have to touch the ball with the underside of the car to make the game think you’ve touched a surface. This way you get another flip, which you can use to continue playing the ball. The possibilities with flip resets are endless, and some freestylers even get triple flip resets down pat. Acronik, for whom a double in this clip is enough to score, has definitely mastered this mechanic.

3. Daigo parry

On the podium has made it a clip that is one of the most iconic moments in the history of esports. We are talking about the Daigo parry. Daigo faced off against Justin Wong at EVO 2004 in Street Fighter and was outplayed relatively quickly by his opponent. Daigo only had one pixel of HP left and basically just needed to be pushed. Justin Wong wanted to end it all with a sequence of 15 quick attacks in a row. So Daigo had to anticipate the attack and then parry 15 more attacks with perfect timing to stay alive. He not only did that, but defeated Justin Wong following the attack, also without taking any damage.

2. Kanzen R6 clutch

Probably the most mechanically challenging clutch comes from Kanzen at the Rainbow Six Invitational 2022. With his team Soniqs, Kanzen was ahead and they only needed one more round to win the map, on the other hand it would go into overtime. In a 1 vs. 4 situation, he kept his nerve and not only managed to take out all of his opponents and defuse the bomb, he even stayed unscathed until the last kill. He managed to do this with a weapon that was theoretically inferior to all his opponents: the SMG-11. High recoil and a small magazine didn’t make it easy for Kanzen, but he still managed to take out all his opponents. His team Soniqs won the map and also the quarterfinals against Damwon Gaming.

1. Faker vs Ryu

The name Faker should be familiar to every League of Legends player. He is probably the best LoL player of our time and has been playing consistently at this level for many years. Not only his game sense, but especially his mechanics make him stand out from the crowd of millions of players. Probably his most famous clip is the one below, in which he makes fellow Midlane player Ryu look quite old. In a mirror matchup on Zed, Faker pushed too far and should have died for it. Instead, he created, more or less with Ryu’s help, arguably the most famous outplay in League of Legends esports. The outplay led to Faker’s first trophy in esports, while Ryu is still regularly reduced to the play today. Faker earns #1 on our list with this mechanical feat.