Maokai Build Guide by bocchicken

Welcome to my second guide ever! Maokai is one of my favorite champs in the game due to his suite of CC, good damage, and solid sustain. Even most of his losing match-ups are not too dangerous for him, and he can round off almost any comp as an initiator, peeler, or follow-up engage! With the meta primarily being lane bullies/bruisers, maokai's safe playstyle and utility shines and remains viable. With this build i currently have a 69% winrate in ranked with 100 games played this season, even after he has fallen out of favor a bit in the meta! I will also be looking to update this as the preseason comes to a close

Pros + very easy to gank for + extremely tanky with only 1 item + fits well into almost any comp + Q is low cost/CDR for reliable pushing and damage + utility and sticking power in teamfights is high You are able to survive almost any lane with minimal effort and can CS and push easily with your Q once you have multiple points in it. You win trades and can look to all in at lvl 6 to get surprise kills in some situations.

Cons - squishy early - runs out of mana if full spell rotaion is used - once in a fight, hard to get out - can get poked out if against ranged champ - useless if your team is too far behind. You are extremely squishy before you get items and your full combo of spells costs a large chunk of your mana pool if you do not have any mana items. Loses against some of the meta anti-tank picks at the moment.

In most of your matchups you can use the high base damage of your Q Bramble Smash to stop enemies from shoving you under tower and get surprisingly good trades in. Your all in combo does much more damage than many people expect, especially if you fight near a brush that has an E Sapling Toss in it!

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Your main goal is to itemize for the game you are in and NOT the matchup you are against toplane unless you are in danger of falling significantly behind.

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Your kit allows you to absorb the pressure from a poor matchup and sustain through it without devoting much of your early build to surviving laning phase.

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Do not spam your abilities early, you will run out of mana very quickly. Instead use your Q when you can hit the enemy minions as well as your lane opponent to give you the manaflow band proc and optimal value.

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Be mindful that your Q can interrupt many dashes such as Tristanas rocket jump, Irelia Q dash, Jarvan E+Q, Fiora Q and many more but it does NOT interrupt the effects of Urgot E and Malphit R.

Flash: Flash is a MUST have, use it to get a surprise engage onto the enemy backline, or to escape a bad fight or gank.

Teleport: Look for TP flanks mid/late game or to get back to lane if you are pushed out early in a poor matchup.

• Taking Aftershock instead of Grasp will make you much tankier when you are in teamfights later in the game. Your passives healing makes up for the loss of sustain from not taking grasp.
  
• Bone Plating gives added survivability in teamfights and helps you through tough matchups in the early game.
  
• Conditioning makes the most out of your resistances from Iceborn, Spirit Visage and other items and makes you even more hard to kill.
  
• Overgrowth allows you to scale better into the lategame with more HP, making you harder to kill
  
• Manaflow Band fixes your early mana problems. Your Q's cheap mana cost makes it very efficient to push the wave and proc it on your lane opponent.
  
• I run scorch for extra damage to win trades more easily, the other mastery choices for this slot are not very appealing for maokai.

Take into comps with multiple ADC's or many AD threats

More damage, more CC, more CDR, more armor. Useful if in need of more utility.

Helps with last hitting and pushing the lane early until you get more items. Also helps with trading in lane.

Gives all your abilities a slight bump in dmg and provides more CDR as well as resists against any AP threats

Take if you need grievous wounds against a comp with a lot of healing. good into Trynd, Fiora, Vlad, Soraka, and almost every ADC.

THE PREMIERE KAI'SA COUNTER. Also takes champs like Teemo, Singed, and Casseopia out of the game. *Build in certain situations*

The hp is nice, look to pick this up if your team needs a more beefy frontline who can then disengage and come back full HP after a few seconds

Good into comps with lots of attack speed. provides more armor than Frostfire, but with less damage

Good situational buy into teams with high attack speed or crit

After engaging into an enemy team, activating gargoyles while you are near full HP will make you almost invincible for it's active duration.

Get this if your team needs a hard engager, this will let you initiate fights more easily and allow you to stick to mobile backline targets.

You have many options here: you can be:

• Hard Engage
• Follow Up Engage
• Peel/support tank

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- If you are hard engage look to be towards the front of your team and find a opening when you can get a path to the enemies backline. With a W you can follow through with a Q for added crowd control, an E to slow, and then an R as they attempt to escape to lock them down, or in most cases just kill them.

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- If you are a follow up engage, look to lurk off to the side or behind your frontline, wait for their engage and then drop your R to lockdown their entire team. Then look to W onto the nearest high priority target and CC them so your DPS can take them out.

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- If you are a peeler, do NOT follow up on the engage. Instead place your sapling near your carry and use your W to intercept any incoming threats. If you are against a stealth champion like Rengar/Evelynn caste your R so it covers your carry then body block by standing near and using your Q to displace any threats.

Thanks for reading the guide! If you have any questions, comments or criticism PLEASE leave a message down beneath! I appreciate all feedback.

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Thank you and have a blessed day / night <3