To play the lane phase, you're going to use the bread and butter trade pattern of placing a sapling in the bush, twisted advancing onto the enemy laner, walking to the opposite side so that they are between you and your bush sapling, and then using q to knock them into the bush. After this you can walk away and set it up again, because it will win you trades against most characters. Also you want to keep the wave on your side of the lane. You can tank minion damage no problem with the vast amounts of sustain built into this build and maokai's kit in general. You're looking for opportunities to either have your jungler gank and get them ahead, OR if their minion wave thins out you can twisted advance onto them under your turret clear the rest of the casters with a q, while simultaneously knocking them deeper into your turret, if you think they'd die if you get 1 more turret shot off, you can use your ult point blank to get them stuck there for a split second, applying good damage and likely getting you a good kill.

Maokai is strongest during the midgame. His Q applies a lot of very good sustained damage and he can clear non cannon waves in just 2 q's and then move on to a different spot. During this time you are looking to extend your team's lead by engaging on favorable situations. If an enemy steps out of position I will instantly flash w onto them and q them towards my team essentially guaranteeing a kill for one of my allies. You also have extreme vision and objective control with the power of your saplings. Whenever I am walking through the jungle I am placing saplings on cooldown to check brushes, or place a sapling to be a ward for an area for 1 minute.

When taking dragons or barons I always place a sapling in the bush that is between the red buff and baron pit to ward it, and apply poke whenever the enemy team tries to contest, and putting a sapling in the pixel brush. Remember that it is better to space saplings out in the brush because the damage is only doubled if the bush saplings get all 3 ticks off, so if 2 hit at the same time you're dealing 3 base saplings worth of damage which is about 21% max HP damage, but if you space them a little bit it will be 4 base saplings worth of damage, or about 28% max HP damage, and it applies a slow for even longer.

During the lategame each team's hyper carries can easily shred through your health bar if you're not near your team so you no longer want to be heavily diving the backline. Now your goal is to sit on your carries like a chicken sits on her eggs. Keep that carry nice and warm beneath your tree bark exterior. Q away anyone that tries to come after your precious carry that you have nurtured through this 40 minute ordeal.

Thank you guys for reading this guide! I really hope that you find the great success that I found with it, and if you're confused at all with anything or have more in depth questions you can come by my stream at https://twitch.tv/aizolol and ask me yourself!