Welcome to Lathyrus' Meowkai Guide

Hi my name is Lathyrus, although some people may also know me as BardlyMissed.
I started playing League Of Legends in summer 2017 (Season 7). Starting off as a jungler to gain experience, but later on, swapped to support where I began maining Bard. After picking up Bard, I started climbing and ended up in challenger in March 2018 (Season 8). At the moment I have reached challenger on the EUW, NA, and Korean servers.

Although I do main Bard, if he is ever banned, then Maokai (or even better Meowkai ) is my preferred second pick.

Why Meowkai you ask?
The reason why I play Meowkai is because I think he is a really strong pick right now. He has a good presence in fights with his ultimate but also the potential to stick to someone. His vision control is one of his strong perks because of his saplings giving vision and he can throw them from far away. Furthermore he also does really well against Bard so if someone ever steals my Bard I will be able to counter them with this pick.

GUIDE UPDATES

This guide will continuously be updated. Me and my moderators (Flayless and Venm) are always hard at work to give you the most recent information, as fast as we can. However we do value quality over speed, so after patches it can take us a little bit of time to really know that what we tell you is the absolute best info we can give you!

Coming updates:

• We just added all the new items, but it might still be that some of these change, as Riot will buff and nerf items as far as the preseason goes. We will update any changes to the build!

MEDIA LINKS

Before going on with the guide I wanna quickly shout out my own stream, Flayless' stream, and also give you the links to my OPGGs (for those who are curious). Lastly, I also linked my Discord server, so if you wanna talk, hang out, and chill with other people, or know whenever I am streaming, feel free to join in!

ABILITIES

In this section, we are quickly going to go over Meowkai's abilities. We'll talk about what every ability does, but also give some tips on how to use them.

P - SAP MAGIC Meowkai’s passive is one of the reasons that he becomes so tanky. Every so often your next auto attack will become empowered and heal you for a percentage of your max health (scaling from 6% to 13%). The cooldown of your passive is reduced by 4 seconds every time you use an ability or get hit by an enemy ability. If you are above 95% health, then your passive will not be used. Now some tips for using your Passive! In lane, you will want to use your passive to heal up after trades, or by having the passive up when you engage on the enemy, this way you can W in, and auto-attack immediately to heal up. But generally, you will just want to use it any time it is up and save to go for it, unless you know you want to go in soon. You can just heal of the minions so you don’t even need to go in.

Q - BRAMBLE SMASH Your Q sends out a shockwave that deals a good chunk of magic damage, and slows everyone by 99% for a quarter of a second. Anyone that stands near you while you use it is stunned and knocked back up to 300 unit depending on how close they stand to you when they get hit. Now some tips for using your Q! The knockback on your Q is directional to where you are aiming it, this means you can knock people into your team, or away from your team whenever needed just by aiming it properly. Furthermore, you most often will want to use the knockback to cancel people’s dashes, think of Leona’s Zenith Blade or Rakan’s Grand Entrance. This will often save you and your team’s life.

W - TWISTED ADVANCE Your W is one of your strongest abilities, it is a point and click dash that can be targeted on any enemy unit, this means both champions, as well as minions. The dash has some travel time, but while you are travelling you will follow the enemy no matter how far away they go. While travelling you are also untargetable. On arrival you deal magic damage, and root the target for 1 to 1.4 seconds. Now some tips for using your W! Your W will make you untargetable, allowing you to not only dash but also use this skill to dodge abilities. Never forget that you can also use your W to escape from a sticky situation by dashing onto your minions or neutral monsters. When running the Arcane Comet build you will not really want to use this ability to engage, but more to peel and lockdown.

E - SAPLING TOSS Your E is a great zoning tool, and allows you to gain a lot of control on the map. It allows you to throw a sapling to a targeted location. The sapling stays in that place for 30 seconds revealing the area around it, like a sort of mini ward. If an enemy unit walks near the sapling then the sapling will chase the target for 2,5 seconds or until it collides with it, once it does it will explode dealing percentage health magic damage and slowing enemies by 35% for 2 seconds. If the sapling was thrown into a bush then the sapling becomes empowered, having a longer duration based on your bonus health. Furthermore, after the initial explosion, the empowered sapling will deal the same damage again over a time of 2 seconds. Now some tips for using your E! You will want to use your E’s inside of bushes most of the time since the empowered effect is a lot better than the standard E. However you can still use it if you need to poke a bit. Apart from some poking, you will mostly use them to cut off chokepoints, and give vision. The damage from the saplings is quite good, especially using the Arcane Comet build, and can really chunk the enemy team whenever they try and go anywhere on the map. You can also use your E when you want to facecheck a bush or need to clear a ward, since you will both have vision in there, as well as have protection should an enemy come close to the bush. Apart from that know that the movement speed of your saplings is dependant on the type of boots you have. Base boots will increase their speed by 25, swifties and mobis will increase it by 60, and the other boots will increase it by 45.

R - NATURE'S GRASP Your R is amazingly strong in teamfights or to catch people out. Whenever you use it it will send out a large number of brambles that will move forward at a slow pace. When it collides with a champion it will deal damage, root them based on how long the ult travelled. It is good to know that if an enemy champion gets hit by your ult then the bramble will stop there and not continue going forward. Now some tips for using your R! You will want to use your ult, when either the enemy team or your team is engaging, don’t use it to engage yourself. It is too slow to actually use it as an engage ability so use it as a layer of CC during an engage rather than the start of it. Furthermore, you can also use it when taking turrets or other objectives as a large zoning tool, since the hitbox is enormous and thus will give enemies little choice to either move away, or get hit, giving you a bit more free time.

PROS & CONS

PROS

CONS

+ Easy to get vision + Good ult for objectives and disengage + Damage is high for being a tank + Good Crowd control + Really tanky + Good engage + Easy to peel for ADC Meowkai is a great frontline tank who is able to keep him and his team alive. His entire kit is full of CC and utility, which helps you securing objectives and kills, all while keeping your team safe. Furthermore your saplings allow for a lot of vision control since you can facecheck about anything with relative safety.

- Early game is weak - Very team dependent - Low mana pool - Needs to scale Your kit scales really well with items and levels, but that makes your early game quite weak, hindered even more by your low base mana pool, which can deplete very fast in the early game if you are not careful. Furthermore Meowkai although having a great engage and disengage, he can not do both of them at once, so be wary of your team’s ability to follow up, on whether you want to play aggressively or more defensive.

TEAMCOMPS

My favourite is definitely a team which offers a lot of engage, so I'm not the only engage that we will have. So toplaners like Kled or Ornn. Junglers like Gragas or Jarvan IV. For carries, I just want someone who usually can follow up on the engage. Cause although you can also peel for people, picking yourself into a comp that will not follow up is going to make the game a lot harder for you.

SUMMONER SPELLS

Flash is our obvious first choice for our summoner spell. It is a go to summoner for most champs and although you can use your W for some mobility, having flash will just help you close the gap when people are just out of range, or to escape death.

Ignite is our second choice, it gives you a lot more early kill pressure, for both in lane and when roaming. Late game you can also use it to get some grievous wounds on priority targets. Exhaust is less worth it in lower elos, but can be a decent swap sometimes.

Exhaust is an option for the Aftershock build in higher elos. It gives your team way more survivability against all in supports and assassins. Which are quite prevalent there. It isn't really bad in low elo, but you can get much more done with Ignite there.

RUNE PAGES

There is two playstyle I think that go together really well with Meowkai. And that is a full tank build, or a more poke focused build that plays around your saplings. However, after quite some testing I have found that both of these builds perform best with the Aftershock runepage.

Aftershock is a great more supportive rune that works well with your high CC kit, but also gives you a lot of tankiness if you decide to go for the poke build.

You can check your preferred rune out by clicking the buttons below!

AFTERSHOCK

Aftershock is super strong for Meowkai, since all abilities but your E proc the rune. So anytime you engage, disengage, or peel you will automatically get a lot tankier from it. This will allow you to survive even longer when diving into the enemy team, and even get some chunk damage off.

In the build you will be getting quite a bit of health, so Font of Life is gonna help you heal your allies a ton. Like we’ve mentioned, all your abilities apply CC, so no matter what you do you will be able to make use of the rune a lot.

Bone Plating is great in providing you with a better early game. It will block a lot of damage on the early engages, and just in general it will make it so even if you engage with the poke build, you still are super tanky.

Revitalize goes really well with both your passive and with the healing you will do Font of Life. Giving you that extra little bit of healing that might just clutch up a fight.

We are taking Magical Footwear to save some gold and rush into our mythic faster. The other runes although not bad, I feel that this will give you the most value for taking the inspiration tree second (which we really want for Biscuit Delivery).

This is the big reason why we go for inspiration in our secondary tree. Like we said before Meowkai’s base mana is really low, so getting the biscuits is gonna help you greatly in the early game, and also give you some bonus mana for later in the game.

For our runeshards we take one ability haste runeshard, and two armour or magic resist runeshard. The ability haste is gonna help you out all around. Whether you take the magic resistance or armour runeshard will depend on the game and the matchup you have to face. Note that Meowkai’s base armour is higher than his magic resistance so when in doubt you can get some magic resistance instead.

For the build of this runepage, click here! Or click here to go back to rune selection!

ITEM PAGES

Let us go over the two builds we discussed since both runes do have a different build attached to it. Note that the Poke build is signified with an arcane comet logo so you can see the difference easier.


You can get a premade itemset to import into the game by clicking the rune you want below!



You can check your build per rune out by clicking the buttons below!

POKE BUILD

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SPELLTHIEF'S EDGE

With this build you will be taking Spellthief's Edge because you won't ever realy engage with your W in this build. Your job is to poke and be annoying with your saplings.

IMPERIAL MANDATE

You want to rush Imperial Mandate as fast as you can. Since all of your abilities apply CC anything you do will proc mandate and give you increased damage, while also boosting the damage your team deals.

IONIAN BOOTS OF LUCIDITY

Since the change to Ionian Boots of Lucidity they have become super strong and super gold efficient. The ability haste is going to help you out enormously, and the extra CDR on your summoner spells is going to help you more with flash engages if they are needed.

COSMIC DRIVE

With recent changes to Cosmic Drive this item has become a lot stronger. It gives some insane AH which is just insane value for the gold invested. You already go for Imperial Mandate and Spellthief's Edge meaning as soon as you complete the Cosmic Drive, you also have the AP needed for the movement speed and bonus AH.

DEMONIC EMBRACE

Demonic embrace will add more damage and time for your saplings plus all your spells will tick that lovely damage over time. This is a great item for Maokai for damage, but it will also make him able to survive fights when he does do in with his Q, W, and R.

MORELLO - NOMICON

Morellonomicon is super good cause it applies grievious wounds and it gives you ap and hp. This means that your saplings will do more dmg, but also last for longer!

VIGILANT WARDSTONE

Vigilant Wardstone is the new vision item, and it is absolutely bonkers. Instead of needing to keep your last item slot open for Control Wards you can now get an item that gives you some great stats, but also increase your ward limit. After completely upgrading the item you will be able to place 4 Stealth Wards and 2 Control Wards, all while also allowing you to store up to 3 Control Wards in your inventory at a time.

ELIXIR OF IRON/SORCERY

In most situations your standard elixir of choice will be the Elixir of Sorcery. However sometimes you might need some extra tankiness at the end of the game to win a fight, or help out your team the most you can, if you find yourself in that situation I recommend getting an Elixir of Iron.

For the runes of this build, click here! Or click here to go back to build selection!

AFTERSHOCK

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RELIC SHIELD

We take Relic Shield because it is the item that makes most sense , for what sup/tank maokai wants. That being as much hp and tankiness, and Relic Shield fits that bill. The reason why you do not take Steel Shoulderguards is because you can make much more use of ap, since that is what all your abilities scale with.

IONIAN BOOTS OF LUCIDITY

Since the change to Ionian Boots of Lucidity they have become super strong and super gold efficient. The ability haste is going to help you out enormously, and the extra CDR on your summoner spells is going to help you more with flash engages if they are needed.

TURBO CHEMTANK

With the price change to Turbo Chemtank it is a much more appealing item to get as a support. It will give you some ability haste passively which is great to keep everyone CCed as much as you can. And the active is great for engaging to get into W range of whoever your most hated target it.

ZEKE'S CONVERGENCE

Zeke's Convergence is a cheap armor item that makes your linked champion do more damage when you hard CC someone. Since all of you abilities apart from your E are hard CC, this allows you to proc it with ease, and give a lot of bonus damage to your team.

ABYSSAL MASK

Abyssal Mask functions much the same as Zeke's Convergence but then just MR version it. However this time it is just a plane 10% damage increase on those you CC for everyone in your team.

VIGILANT WARDSTONE

Vigilant Wardstone is the new vision item, and it is absolutely bonkers. Instead of needing to keep your last item slot open for Control Wards you can now get an item that gives you some great stats, but also increase your ward limit. After completely upgrading the item you will be able to place 4 Stealth Wards and 2 Control Wards, all while also allowing you to store up to 3 Control Wards in your inventory at a time.

ELIXIR OF IRON / SORCERY

In most situations your standard elixir of choice will be the Elixir of Iron. However sometimes you might need some extra damage at the end of the game to win a fight, or help out your team the most you can, if you find yourself in that situation I recommend getting an Elixir of Sorcery.

For the runes of this build, click here! Or click here to go back to build selection!

EARLY GAME

Meowkai 's early game is fairly weak compared to the other meta picks there is out there right now. He is pretty good at setting up plays around botside with his crowd control, so asking for ganks early can be a nice addition, but you can also sometimes set up good kills with just your ADC. Just know that the faster you get to mid game the better it is for you. Always keep this mindset at the start of each game.

Thought Meowkai has a fairly week early, he is not to be messed with. If Meowkai lands an entire combo with hitting all of his spells, including hitting an empowered Sapling Toss, he can easily remove 30-50% of the carry's health in just level 3. If your opponent tries to fight in your minion wave, you want to try to keep the crowd controlled for as long as you can in the wave, as minions is a big damage output in every game during laning phase.

When playing with the Aftershock build you will focus on getting your passive off when you kill minions with Relic Shield keeping you topped up on health and gold. Aside from that you will want to look for either your own engage or the enemy’s engage.
When playing with the Arcane Comet build you will be looking to poke with your E both by throwing it into the bushes, as well as just on top of the enemy itself.

MID GAME

Now its time for you to become your team’s living ward and your carry's peeling machine. Meowkai 's job at this point of the game is to walk around the map with Sapling Toss and Stealth Wards to bring vision for your team. While teamfight is beginning to happen a lot more, you will now start to focus on who is the carry on the team for you to peel for. Remember to buy lots of Control Wards to deny vision from your opponents.

When playing the Aftershock build, this is also the stage of the game where you will also be a lot tankier, and thus can engage safely a lot more if the need is there.
When playing the Arcane Comet page it is also when your E’s are gonna hurt a lot. You want to make sure to keep an eye on objectives at all times, and make sure to have vision and saplings set up.

LATE GAME

Now it becomes risky to die and you've got to be aware of what you are doing now. Now you want to focus on the objectives because it is at this point of the game where dragon souls, Elder Dragon or Baron will be really important to get. Luckily this is where Meowkai as a champion is also getting better. With multiple items completed and being higher level, all of your scaling abilities will be really good.

Meowkai in late game should focus on zoning away people from either the objective or his carry in teamfights. His Sapling Toss and Nature's Grasp are your high potential zoning abilities which do plenty of damage, especially if you use the Arcane Comet build. Bramble Smash and Twisted Advance will be your crowd control to peel off any threats for your carry in the teamfights. This will help your team a big time as you can deal damage to their backline by having good placements on your zoning abilities but also saving your carry who will deal most of the damage for your team.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! I hope that you were able to either learn something new from the guide or were able to find the runes and builds that you were looking for. From the entire team, thank you so much for taking the time to read the guide. If you still have any questions you can always hop into my stream, my discord, or just in the discussion tab here, I am always willing to help you out with!