Overview
A support champion that has at times found relevance in both top lane and jungle, Maokai has settled into being a champion with strong CC and engage options from the support role. He also provides unique vision control thanks to his saplings and can be a great pick to supplement a team’s ability to start fights. Click here for the latest data on his best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Maokai
The big allure for a lot of support players to pick Maokai is that they can stack a bunch of saplings in a bush and wait for enemies to walk into them (and thus go boom). This can be good but it can also be good to just spread out your saplings for vision... but don't let us tell you what to do. Create a bomb bush.
Maokai is a great pick primarily because it's extremely easy to get value out of him. His Twisted Advance [W] is simple to use, and his Nature's Grasp [R] can help your team find a lot of picks. It's a very straight forward kit that lets your team pick their fights.
Strengths
The two main reasons to pick him as a support are that he has multiple engage tools to help your team start a fight and they are both extremely easy to use. All of his abilities are actually pretty straight forward, which makes him a very friendly champion to pick for beginners. Nature’s Grasp [R] has both a wide and far engage range, and the large animation serves as an easy go button for your team to move in together. You can follow it up with Twisted Advance [W], which is a simple point-and-click ability to root a target in place, and then follow up on it with Bramble Smash [Q] to further CC them. Finally, as a support, he offers some strong bush control in lane phase thanks to the base power on his Sapling Toss [E] -- if enemies aren’t careful, they may unwittingly walk into a large clump of saplings that you can slowly stack up.
Weaknesses
Ultimately, he’s still a melee support champion that wants tank items but won’t have great access to those items because of his more limited economy. This means he can be harassed down in lane phase or focused down once fights begin and he pushes in with Twisted Advance [W]. It’s a one-way ticket into the fight and you can be sure that he’ll use it, so he can sometimes find himself overextended and then quickly dead after the fact.
Game Plan
Early Game: Good sapling usage -- for example, you can load up a bush with saplings at the very beginning of the game -- can make him much stronger early. He’s also great at committing to fights, so as long as you stay aggressive, it can lead to a lot of kills
Mid Game: He should be roaming around the map to support whatever plays his team is trying to make -- his Nature’s Grasp [R] can help find picks at any point.
Late Game: The game plan doesn’t change much from the mid game, though at this point you can expect more team fights, where Maokai should excel. Twisted Advance [W] should be used on the most threatening enemy, be it a front line diver or a backline carry.
