diff --git a/processing/src/main/java/io/druid/query/topn/TopNQueryEngine.java b/processing/src/main/java/io/druid/query/topn/TopNQueryEngine.java
index 80a1d0a3bd9..f0716a60407 100644
--- a/processing/src/main/java/io/druid/query/topn/TopNQueryEngine.java
+++ b/processing/src/main/java/io/druid/query/topn/TopNQueryEngine.java
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ public class TopNQueryEngine
       topNAlgorithm = new DimExtractionTopNAlgorithm(capabilities, query);
     } else if (selector.isAggregateAllMetrics()) {
       topNAlgorithm = new PooledTopNAlgorithm(capabilities, query, bufferPool);
-    } else if (selector.isAggregateTopNMetricFirst()) {
+    } else if (selector.isAggregateTopNMetricFirst() || query.getContextValue("doAggregateTopNMetricFirst", false)) {
       topNAlgorithm = new AggregateTopNMetricFirstAlgorithm(capabilities, query, bufferPool);
     } else {
       topNAlgorithm = new PooledTopNAlgorithm(capabilities, query, bufferPool);