Hello! Welcome to my guide on how to play Maokai and Sion botlane! This is a guide that I originally created for personal use but decided to publish. This is a basic explanation on items/runes and some combos.

At first glance this combo may seem quite weak, but that is not the case. This build may require alot of communication, but it will absolutely DESTROY your opponents in lower ranks.

Sion's runepage.

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By far the best keystone for Lethality Sion, massively improves your burst. You really shouldn't be considering any other keystones.

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You and Maokai both have so mutch Crowd Control that it is guranteed to activate. You won't be poking enough with your abilities for Taste of Blood's healing to be worth taking over Cheap Shot and Sudden Impact only activates after you use your ultimate Unstoppable Onslaught.

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Simply the best of the three.

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Your ultimate Unstoppable Onslaught deals so mutch damage, getting to use it more is too good to pass up on. Ravenous Hunter's healing is vastly reduced on all your abilities (AOE) and Ingenious Hunter only affects your Youmuu's Ghostblade.

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Getting your items earlier or just getting that one extra Long Sword is really going to help you in lane. However, if you're bad at managing your mana you can go Biscuit Delivery.

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This is an amazing rune for Sion, it helps you stick on people and is activated by Frozen Mallet, Duskblade of Draktharr and your Roar of the Slayer.

You will want to change this to or depending on what kind of damage their poke is.

Maokai's runepage.

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You will usually take this, helps alot in all-ins with tankiness and a burst of damage. However, sometimes you will want to take Grasp of the Undying into matchups where you will be trading quite often. (For example against melee ADC's like Garen or Yasuo)

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Unpopular opinion, most people prefer Demolish over Font of Life. Still, i would recommend taking it for the extra sustain it gives your team during fights.

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Incredibly strong rune, makes you super tanky. If you are against heavy poke you could consider taking Second Wind instead.

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It's free health. Whats not to like? Everything else in this triplet should just be ignored.

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You will have some Mana problems early, this rune helps out a lot.

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More Crowd Control.

Note: This is my personal opinion and I am by no means a professional. Feel free to try new stuff. This is just what I have found to work the best.

In this chapter i will be going over ITEMS for the duo. Lets get started.

Sion's items.

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These are the items you will start with. The fact that you are melee makes you very vulnerable to harass, Doran's Shield's passive helps with that. In some situations you can use Doran's Blade. Mostly in matchups where you won't get poked, for example against other melee ADC's like Yasuo or Garen.

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The first core item you are going to be building is Duskblade of Draktharr meaning you have two advanced items to pick from for your first back. Caulfield's Warhammer and Serrated Dirk, the difference being that one gives CDR and the other gives lethality. We want Serrated Dirk since it gives us lethality and more lethality equals more damage. Boots is a must have, it allows you to stick to your enemies and avoid being kited. If you can't afford a Serrated Dirk and Boots instead buy a Long Sword and see if you can afford Boots, if you still have enough money for another Long Sword go for it. In most cases you will want 2x Long Sword's and Boots over a Serrated Dirk.

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As mentioned above, this is the first core item you will want. The reason i would take this over Youmuu's Ghostblade, is simply that it deals a lot more damage and has a good slow.

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These are your boot options, you will usually want to finish your Boots after Duskblade of Draktharr but in some cases you will need to finish them before. You will build Boots of Swiftness in matchups where you are permanently slowed, for example against Ashe. Ninja Tabi if most their damage is from Autos and [Mercury's treads]] if you just get crowd control'd to death.