Welcome (back) to the October 2021 edition of Power Rankings! First of all, apologies for missing 2 months of this – September and August were pretty turbulent months as I recently welcomed a new addition to the family, and this monthly wrap-up had to unfortunately take a backseat.
This is the second last Power Ranking for the year, and it’s been the toughest one yet, as October dropped an incredible array of new LEGO sets on us, which I had to make space for in the Top 10.
And this will no doubt change again in November’s Power Rankings, with 10294 Titanic, 21330 Home Alone and 75313 UCS AT-AT threatening to shake the list up one more time.
To help you catch up on all the LEGO news and headlines you may have missed here’s a handy recap of all the news, reviews from this blog, and the broader LEGO Fan Media Community.
If you want to catch up on previous Power Rankings, check out July, June, May, April, March, February and January 2021 Power Rankings to get up to speed on highlights from previous months.
October 2021 LEGO Power Rankings
So, as I’ve missed 2 months, I’ll still include August and September’s rankings, to give you an idea of the movements then, and also to ensure that there’s an unbroken record of changes!
With the Top 10 of 2021 more or less congealing and firming up, I’ve also introduced a new Top 10, this time for sets under the US$50 price-point, which I think belong in their own category.
Top 10 LEGO sets as of August 2021 (no changes)
- 21326 Winnie the Pooh [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 10281 Bonsai Tree
- 80107 Spring Lantern Festival [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 40516 Everyone is Awesome [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 21327 Typewriter
- 21325 Medieval Blacksmith
- 76178 Daily Bugle
- 10283 NASA Space Shuttle Discovery
- 71741 Ninjago City Gardens
- 31120 Medieval Castle [Review] [Rating: 4/5 ★★★★★]
Top 10 LEGO sets as of September 2021
- 21326 Winnie the Pooh [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 10281 Bonsai Tree
- 80107 Spring Lantern Festival [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 40516 Everyone is Awesome [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 76391 Harry Potter Hogwarts Icons Collection [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★] *NEW*
- 21327 Typewriter
- 21325 Medieval Blacksmith
- 76178 Daily Bugle
- 10283 NASA Space Shuttle Discovery
- 71741 Ninjago City Gardens
Top 10 LEGO sets as of October 2021
- 21326 Winnie the Pooh [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 10281 Bonsai Tree
- 80107 Spring Lantern Festival [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 40516 Everyone is Awesome [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 40478 Mini Disney Castle [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★] *NEW*
- 76391 Harry Potter Hogwarts Icons Collection [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 21327 Typewriter
- 21325 Medieval Blacksmith
- 10283 NASA Space Shuttle Discovery
- 71741 Ninjago City Gardens
Top 10 LEGO below US$50 as of October 2021
- 10281 Bonsai Tree
- 40478 Mini Disney Castle [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 40516 Everyone is Awesome [Review] [Rating: 5/5 ★★★★★]
- 76239 Batmobile Tumbler: Scarecrow Showdown
- 10280 Flower Bouquet
- 40499 Santa’s Sleigh
- 31117 Space Shuttle Adventure
- 71747 The Keepers’ Village [Review] [Rating: 4/5 ★★★★✰]
- 76188 Batman Classic TV Series Batmobile [Review] [Rating: 3/5 ★★★✰✰]
- 75312 Boba Fett’s Starship
The Top 10 Under US$50 was created as the primary Top 10 tends to get filled with really expensive sets, and I feel it’s also super important to highlight more budget-friendly and accessible sets as not everyone can afford dropping hundreds of dollars on a new LEGO set each month.
What are Power Rankings?
Essentially, they’re commonly used in sports leagues like the NBA to track and compare the best/worst performing teams, often changing weekly based on results and how teams play.
I often get asked via email or on social media what the best sets of the (insert current) year/month are, and I usually rattle off what I personally like, so to start 2021, I’ve decided to start a regular series where I track and rank what the best 10 LEGO sets are at the end of each month.
This isn’t meant to be scientific or data-driven (some of these I haven’t personally built/own yet) – just my personal opinion of what I think are the best LEGO sets of 2021!
Of course, for a more comprehensive evaluation of LEGO sets, you can read my LEGO reviews for more detailed opinions. For sets that I’ve reviewed, I’ll also include the scores next to the power rankings, but it’s quite unlikely that I’ll get to review every amazing set of 2021 – I sometimes build and miss out reviewing due to time/scheduling issues.
New Extra Pieces Podcast episode!
The Extra Pieces podcast (hosted by yours truly and Richard from the Rambling Brick) has been back for a while, and Season 2 is going strong so far!
Special thanks to everyone that’s been tuning in and discovering us!
Here are some recent episodes:
- S2E7: Lunar New Year and Monkie Kid Announcements; First look UCS ATAT
- S2E6 Home Alone; Shopping for M-tron; Gender Bias in Marketing
- S2E5 VIDIYO Bandmates Surprise! Stuntz, Sanctum Workshop, Supply Chain Crisis, Advent Calendars, The Rambling Brick: 5 Years on the Ambassadors Network; 5 years of studying diversity in LEGO City.
- S2E4 Disney Castle, Holiday Village, Santa’s Sleigh, Classic themes, Wild Speculation
To listen to the Extra Pieces podcast, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts from:
For everyone that has subscribed and been listening, thank you so much! If I could ask you for a huge favour – if you’ve been enjoying the podcasts, do consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! That would be super helpful to help improve our discoverability!
Notable LEGO headlines – October 2021
- Monday Musings #7: How LEGO made nearly a billion dollars in the first half of 2021
- The LEGO Group to remove gender bias and harmful stereotypes from LEGO products and marketing
- The LEGO Inside Tour returns in 2022! Registrations opens soon!
- The LEGO Titanic 10294 officially revealed – 9,090 pieces and over 1.3m long!
- The Office and Jazz Quartet to be turned into LEGO Ideas sets!
- Introducing LEGO 21330 Home Alone – the biggest LEGO Ideas set so far!
- A new LEGO Ninjago Garmadon comic book by Skybound is coming in April 2022!
- New LEGO Art 21226 Create Together also includes a Classic Space Astronaut portrait
September and October 2021 LEGO Reviews
- Review: LEGO 21330 Home Alone – 31 October
- Review: LEGO 76240 Batmobile Tumbler (2021) – 20 October
- Review: LEGO 40478 Mini Disney Castle – 17 September
- Review: LEGO 40499 Santa’s Sleigh – 15 September
- Review: LEGO 10291 Queer Eye The Fab 5 Loft – 14 September
- Review: LEGO 10293 Santa’s Visit (2021) – 10 September
- Review: LEGO 76940 T. Rex Dinosaur Fossil Exhibition – 5 September
Interesting LEGO articles and videos from across the web you should check out
- Launch of the Brick Alliance – Brick Alliance
- Most Common LEGO Parts – BrickArchitect
- The Faces of LEGO 2021: Setting A Baseline For Gender Representation In Marketing ‘Hero Shots’ – The Rambling Brick
- Cali Brick Clique ft. Si O’Connor | 44 | Accessible LEGO – Cali Brick Clique (podcast)
- Mini LEGO Titanic Tutorial – Tiago Catarino (Youtube)
- LEGO Titanic Review – RacingBrick (Youtube)
- Lego® Element Development: The Porsche Bows – Interview With Stephan Breum Steen – New Elementary
- Brent Waller’s Baby Yoda Mosaic – WallerCustoms
- Gotham by Night – WallerCustoms
- Melting Technique – Tips & Bricks
- Lego Ultron from Marvel What If MOC – Hachiroku24 (youtube)
- 20 years of Harry Potter minifigs – Brickset
- Forest Scenes – FourBricksTall
Thanks for reading! I’ll be gearing up for end of year content, including Advent Calendars (yay), but I’m also planning a charity LEGO minifigure raffle, raising funds for charity as we approach the holiday season. There’s just a few more things to plan, but be sure to stay subscribed to find out when it kicks off!
To get the latest LEGO news and LEGO Reviews straight in your inbox, subscribe via email, or you can also follow on Google News, or socials on Facebook, Instagram (@jayong28), Twitter or subscribe to the Jay’s Brick Blog Youtube channel.
I have to say, everyone is awesome gets overglorified. Looking at it from a pure building perspective, there’s nothing noteworthy about it.
Congratulations on the new addition to your family! Thanks for posting, I love these!
Thank you so much!
I’m guessing you like Winnie the Pooh? 🙂
Surprised you didn’t have the Question Block in there. That has probably been the set with the biggest impact on me in the last few months. Admittedly, the block itself is kind of plain, but what sets it apart is the way it folds in / opens up and the displayed micro-worlds. I found that to be quite amazing for an official set and I hope it might be the first of a new series of set pieces celebrating Nintendo worlds/games.
I’m also surprised you omitted Santa’s Visit as that’s a cute and fun little set.
I assume Titanic will be in a category all of its own when November’s rankings are released ;). I also agree with Terrence below, there’s not enough love for the Blacksmith here, or Ninjago City Gardens either for that matter. In my view both pip the Typewriter for execution and build experience.
I like the concept of “Everyone is Awesome” far more than I like the set itself.
Ultimately though, it’s hard to argue with Pooh. Why oh why though is there no Christopher Robin?
This hurts me that the blacksmith shop has fallen so low.