Maokai is one of the best tanks if you ask me, but no one really play him?
In this guide I will show you how to play Maokai to victory.

I always start with Doran's Shield because it gives okay life regeneration and some armor and health all three things is reallt good to have when you just started laning.

My finished Build is

Mercury's Threads - For Tenacity
Warmog's armor - For all the life it gives to make your passive better.
Frozen Heart - For the armor and mana and ofc the cooldown reduction is only a good thing.
Thornmail - Really good if there is many AD carry's
Force of Nature - For the life regeneration and megic resist.
Guardian Angel - For all the armor and resist and the ability to reborn when you die awesome for a tank.

Pros
Good for starting team fights
Strong and healthy so he almost never die
Good at helping your team mates from dieing fast in team fights
Gives fine damage in the start with you "E" spell Sapling toss
Hard to run out of life because of the hp and the armor and resist nad ofc hi's passive

Cons
Not the best saving your team mates when they have to run away
And I can't think of anymore cons

There is really only one way to farm good and that's with your "E" spell Sapling Toss you can take out the ranged creeps with one of them and if you want you can also use your ultimate Vengefull Mealstrom to damage alot of creeps at one time. Later in game when Sapling Toss isn't enough to kill ranged minions then use "E" Sapling Toss and then "Q" arcane smash right after to get all the creeps.

I choose a lot of magic resistance in my runes because my build doesn't have to much of it.

I choose 0/21/9 because when I tank I like to be really tanky so no one can kill me and that's why I took so much in defense.

It's really easy to tank with maokai. To start a fight i always use Twisted advance to get in the group and then use my ultimate Vengeful mealstorm to give my mates a chance to join the fight without dieing and then I use Arcane Smash to stop the enemys from attacking and when they try to flee stop your ultimate so they loose a little bit more life.

When you see some one running away use Twisted Advance so they can't run and if they run with much hp then use twisted advance and then arcane smash after.

Some info about maokai passive
Hi's passive is really good when you have a lot of life witch you will get in this guide becuase it heals 7% of you maximum hp when there has been used 5 spells near you adn you hit a creep.