- Crowd control (commonly shortened to CC) is a blanket term used in League of Legends to describe abilities or spells that remove or diminish the control a target unit has over aspects of itself - aspects such as being able to cast spells or initiate movement commands. As crowd controls impact a unit's combat ability, they are essentially more specialized forms of debuffs - however, this ability to directly hinder a unit's ability to fight means that crowd controls are often given significantly more importance in regular gameplay than normal debuffs, resulting in their special classification.
There are many different forms of crowd control in League of Legends, each of which is unique in the way it affects its target and the ways it can - if at all - be resisted, mitigated or removed. Some crowd controls can be exclusive or near-exclusive to certain champions or items, and different champions can apply the same crowd control in multiple different ways. A few specific mechanics (such as 
Yasuo's 
Last Breath) even require a catalyst crowd control to function.
Types of Crowd Control
- For the complete article, see Types of Crowd Control.
The following are the current forms of crowd control that exist within League of Legends:
-
Airborne: A unit that is airborne is unable to control its movement, attack or cast abilities for the duration.
- Knock aside: A knock aside causes the target to be made airborne in a direction perpendicular to the direction of cast.
- Knockback: A knockback causes the target to be made airborne in a direction away from the point of cast. The duration depends on how far the target travels, from 0.75 seconds (
Rammus' 
Powerball) to 1.5 (
Lulu's Wild Growth).
- Knockup: A knockup causes the target to be made airborne on the spot. The duration depends on how high is the target thrown into the air, from 0.75 seconds ( Rammus' Powerball) to 1.5 ( Lulu's Wild Growth).
- Pull: A pull effect causes the target to be made airborne in a direction toward the point of cast.
- Blind: A unit that is blind will miss its auto-attacks for the duration. Miss occurs on-hit, and does not prevent attacks from being declared.
- Disarm: A unit that is disarmed cannot declare attacks for the duration.
- Forced Action: A unit that is under the effect of a forced action cannot control its own movement or attacks, and is unable to cast abilities.
- Charm: A unit that is charmed will move toward the source for the duration.
- Fear: A unit that is feared move around randomly at reduced movement speed for the duration. There are currently no examples of Fear that affect champions.
- Flee: A unit that is fleeing will move directly away from the source with reduced movement speed for the duration.[1]
- Taunt: A unit that is taunted will attempt to basic attack the source of the taunt for the duration.
-
- Ground: A unit that is grounded is unable to activate mobility spells.
- Nearsight: A unit that is nearsighted has their sight radius reduced by 900 and loses their allied vision.
- Root: A unit that is rooted is unable to control its movement for the duration (occasionally referred to as a snare).
- Silence: A unit that is silenced cannot cast abilities or activate items for the duration.
- Slow: A unit that is slowed has reduced movement and/or attack speed for the duration.
- Stasis: A unit that is in stasis is unable to perform any action while being untargetable and invulnerable. The duration is also unaffected by crowd control reduction.
- Stun: A unit that is stunned is unable to move, attack or cast abilities for the duration.
- Suspension: A unit effected by suspension can be targeted by Last Breath, but is otherwise identical to a stun.
-
- Suppression: A unit that is suppressed is unable to control its movement, attack, cast abilities or use spells (including Cleanse). The duration is also unaffected by crowd control reduction.
| Crowd Control | Movement | Attacking | Abilities | Interrupt | Spells | Reduction | Removal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Airborne
| Blocked | Blocked | Blocked | Yes | Blocked | Partial |        with dash/blink |
 Blind
| Allowed | Miss | Allowed | No | Allowed | Yes |
|
 Disarm
| Allowed | Blocked | Allowed | 
| Allowed | Yes |
|
 /  /  Forced Action
| Blocked | Blocked | Blocked | Yes |  
| Yes |
|
 Ground
| Partial | Allowed | Partial | See notes |
| No |
|
 Nearsight
| Allowed | Allowed | Partial | See notes |
| No |
|
 Root
| Blocked | Allowed | Allowed | See notes |
| Yes |
|
 Silence
| Allowed | Allowed | Blocked | Yes |
| Yes |
|
 Slow
| Reduced | Allowed | Allowed | No | Allowed | Yes |   
|
 Stasis
| Blocked | Blocked | Blocked | Yes | Blocked | No | None |
 Stun
| Blocked | Blocked | Blocked | Yes |
| Yes |
|
 Suppression
| Blocked | Blocked | Blocked | Yes | Blocked | No |
|
Notes
- Movement includes mobility abilities (i.e. dashes and blinks, such as Ezreal's Arcane Shift).
- Ground does not impede basic movement.
- Attack refers to a champion's basic attacks (by default right-click).
- Ability refers to a champion's castable spells (by default Q, W, E, and R).
- Spells refers to summoner spells.
- Interrupt refers to whether or not the effect will cancel channeled abilities.
- Roots and Entangles will not interrupt channeling, with the exception of Teleport and Shen's Stand United.
- Roots and Entangles will interrupt Vault Breaker and Elastic Slingshot by virtue of disabling their second casts.
- Nearsight prevents the activation of "long ranged" abilities, which seems to include any ability that can input targets via the minimap. By virtue of disabling the second cast, Nearsight will interrupt Elastic Slingshot. This may be a bug, although it is thematically appropriate for an effect that removes the target's ability to see.
- Knockdown and Ground only interrupt dash and blink abilities.
- Roots and Entangles will not interrupt channeling, with the exception of
- Crowd control applied by one's self or an ally cannot be countered in any way (neither reduced, resisted, nor removed), with the exception of self-slows.
Categorization
To facilitate easier communications, crowd controls are usually described under one of the following systems:
Loss of Control
Crowd controls are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect removes total control of the player's character. Hard CC completely removes all control of a character, while soft CC only partially removes it.
- Hard CC
- Soft CC
Disruption
Crowd controls are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect disrupts a channeled ability (such as 
Karthus' 
Requiem and 
Katarina's 
Death Lotus). Hard CC will disrupt all channels, while soft CC will not.
- Hard CC
- Soft CC
Movement
Crowd controls are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not they restrict movement. Hard CCs prevent all forms of movement, while soft CCs do not.
- Hard CC
- Soft CC
Modifiers
Crowd controls are categorized by what their effects inhibit. Movement modifiers in some way inhibit the ability to move, while action modifiers in some way inhibit the ability to attack or cast abilities.
Countering Crowd Control
Crowd control can be countered in various different ways.
Immunity
Units that are immune to crowd control will completely negate any attempt at its application on the recipient. This does not, however, necessarily mean the user is now also unaffected by crowd controls already applied.
All forms of crowd control currently in League of Legends can be prevented with CC immunity.
- Banshee's Veil provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked while passive is ready.
- Edge of Night provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked in the duration.
- Fiora's Riposte provides immunity to all forms of CC applied during the parry.
- Malzahar's Void Shift provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration.
- Master Yi's Highlander provides immunity to all slows applied in the duration.
- Morgana's Black Shield provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration of the shield.
- Nocturne's Shroud of Darkness provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked in the duration.
- Olaf's Ragnarok provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration, with exception of nearsight.
- Sejuani's Fury of the North provides immunity to all slows while active.
- Sivir's Spell Shield provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked in the duration.
- Zac's Let's Bounce! (first cast) provides immunity to all forms of CC.
While not specific to crowd control, spell shields can be considered to provide pseudo-CC immunity against a single spell, but this is not guaranteed - abilities that do not interact with spell shields (such as Karthus' 
Wall of Pain) will still apply any attached crowd controls if possible.
Deferral
Similar to immunity, abilities that defer crowd control will negate their effects while the ability is active, but any CC still present will be applied after the duration ends. CC duration will still tick down during the immunity period.[2]
- Darius' Noxian Guillotine provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Hecarim's Onslaught of Shadows provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Jarvan IV's Cataclysm provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Kled's Chaaaaaaaarge!!! provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Malphite's Unstoppable Force provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Nocturne's Paranoia provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Sion's Unstoppable Onslaught provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the charge.
- Vi's Assault and Battery provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Warwick's Jaws of the Beast provides immunity to all forms of displacements for the cast time of the ability.
- Warwick's Infinite Duress provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
- Zac's Let's Bounce! (second cast) provides immunity to all forms of CC for the duration of the dash.
Removal
Most types of crowd control can be removed after it has been applied - with the exception of 
Mikael's Crucible, the ability or item in question can still be activated while affected by the CC it removes, even when that CC normally precludes ability or item usage.
Stasis effects cannot be removed. Ground effect can be removed only by basic moving out from affected area. Nearsight effect can be removed only by 
Quicksilver Sash's active. Airborne effects are removable only by other move blocks (airborne effect, dash or blink); airborne effects will still apply for the rest of their duration if not removed by other airborne effect (although they can be prevented and removing their stun component allows to completely remove them by consecutively using own dash or blink). Stasis makes units untargetable and completely prevents ability usage even for abilities that can be activated under CC (thus making whether it can be removed or not a moot question).
- Alistar's Unbreakable Will removes all forms of CC.
- Gangplank's Remove Scurvy removes all forms of CC.
- Olaf's Ragnarok removes all forms of CC.
- Rengar's Battle Roar removes all forms of CC.
- Evelynn's Dark Frenzy removes all slows.
- Garen's Decisive Strike removes all slows.
- Master Yi's Highlander removes all slows.
- Cleanse removes all forms of CC aside from airborne and suppression.
- The Quicksilver item active removes all forms of CC, including airborne effects if a blink or dash ability is used after activation.
- Mikael's Crucible's active effect removes all forms of CC aside from airborne and suppression.
Reduction
Crowd control reduction reduces the duration of crowd control effects by a percentage equal to its value. Sources of CC duration reduction will stack multiplicatively with each other, not additively - successive buys can only approach, not reach, 100% reduction. Crowd control reduction can sometimes be referred to as Tenacity, although this is technically only correct when referring to the unique passive on certain items that grants crowd control reduction.
Ground, nearsight, stasis, suppression and move block part of airborne are not affected by crowd control reduction and will always apply for their full duration. Stun part of airborne effect is affected by crowd control reduction.
Potency Reduction
This effect is unique to the slow crowd control; potency reduction reduces the effectiveness, or percentage, of movement slows by a percentage equal to its value. Sources of slow potency reduction stack multiplicatively with each other, but do not interact with normal crowd control reduction.
Only slows are affected by potency reduction.
Self-CC
The following effects are comparable to crowd control, except that the effect is caused voluntarily and affects the user rather than a target. These effects cannot be removed by cleansing mechanisms and will ignore all crowd control immunity and reduction except in the case of self-slows, which will be affected by slow potency reduction (such as from 
Boots of Swiftness).
- Self-Knockback: A champion that knockbacks itself is temporarily unable to attack and issue movement commands. The target may still cast spells.
- Self-Silence: A champion that silences itself is unable to cast abilities. They may still attack and use summoner spells.
- Self-Slow: A champion that slows itself has reduced movement speed.
- Blitzcrank's Overdrive
- Tahm Kench's Devour (with an enemy champion)
- Rammus' Defensive Ball Curl
-
- Self-Stun: A champion that stuns itself is unable to control its movement, attack, or use abilities.
- Sion's Unstoppable Onslaught (when colliding with terrain)
-
Cast Times and Channels
The casting (sometimes "charging") of an ability cannot be cancelled by the player or an enemy except by death. Forced actions (such as taunt) will have no effect for the duration of the cast, and using airborne effects to move the player will not affect the trajectory of the skill - which will start from the point of cast, not from the player's current location. Summoner spells and most items can still be activated while casting.
The channelling of an ability, by contrast, can be cancelled by hard CC, and will also automatically cancel should the champion attempt to perform another action (such as movement, casting another ability or attacking) - there do exist exceptions to this rule, such as 
Sion's 
Soul Furnace cast while channelling 
Decimating Smash, but these are usually specific coding allowances and not standard behaviour. Summoner spells and most items can typically be activated mid-channel without disrupting it.
Channelling and casting animations are generally not considered forms of crowd control, however disruptive they may be. There do exist several notable exceptions, however:
- Channelled Self-Slow: These abilities will slow the caster for the duration of the channel. In all cases the champion may freely move while channelling but may not issue attack commands.
- Channelled Self-Root: These abilities will remove the caster's ability to control their movement and issue movement commands (included forced actions, such as fear).
- Sion's Decimating Smash
- Vel'Koz's Lifeform Disintegration Ray
- Xerath's Rite of the Arcane (for the first 1 second of the duration)
- Zac's Elastic Slingshot
-
- Channelled Self-Stun: The following abilities have channels that the user cannot voluntarily interrupt (contrary to most channels which will be interrupted if any attempt is made to move, attack, or use another ability). This is effectively comparable to a stun.
- Caitlyn's Ace in the Hole
- Fiddlesticks' Crowstorm
- Karthus' Requiem
- Malzahar's Nether Grasp (for the first 0.5 seconds of the duration)
- Rek'Sai's Void Rush
- Tahm Kench's Abyssal Voyage
- Twisted Fate's Gate
- Urgot's Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser
- Warwick's Infinite Duress
-
Trivia
- Sona's Crescendo causes the target to dance.
- If abilities that share cooldowns or are unique to different forms are counted separately, then Gnar possesses the highest number of crowd control abilities in the game, at six, with Nautilus and Karma tying for second place, at four. Otherwise, if they are counted as shared, Nautilus and Gnar possess the most, at four.
- Nautilus also possesses the highest number of unique crowd control types, at five.
- Maokai, Poppy, Xin Zhao and Zac possess the second-highest, at four. If Lissandra's Frozen Tomb is counted as a form of stasis, she also has four.
-
- The highest persistent level of crowd control reduction in the game can be achieved by Irelia with 3 nearby foes for the maximum benefit of Ionian Fervor, any item bearing Tenacity and five points in the mastery Swiftness for 67% reduced crowd control. With an Elixir of Iron, she can achieve a further 4 minutes of 75% crowd control reduction, and if Cleanse is used on top of this, Irelia can achieve 3 seconds of 91% crowd control reduction, which is the highest reduction possible in League of Legends.
- Aatrox, Alistar, Cho'Gath, Gangplank, Heimerdinger, Jinx, Karma, Olaf, Rengar and Tryndamere are the only champions in the game that can activate an ability while disabled. Of these, Alistar, Gangplank and Olaf, Rengar can also remove the disabling effects.
- Mordekaiser, Ezreal, Katarina, Lucian, Master Yi, Sivir, and Nidalee are the only champions in game without any sort of crowd control inherent to their kit.
References
| Targeting Types | Passive (No Target) · Auto · Ground · Self · Direction · Unit |
|---|---|
| Unit types | Self, Allied and Enemy; Champion, Minion (Lesser and Large) and Monster (Lesser, Medium, Large and Epic); Structures (Turret, Inhibitor and Nexus); and Terrain. |
| Effect types | Area of effect · Basic attack · Damage over time · Healing · Multi-hit · On-hit · Redirected damage · Shield · Single target · Splash damage |
| Ability types | Aura · Blink · Buff · Combat status · Crowd control · Damage · Dash · Debuff · Invulnerability · Pet · Sight · Spell shield · Untargetability |
