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Recommended Items
Runes: Standard Runes (Movement Speed)
+10% Attack Speed
+2% Movement Speed
+65 Base Health
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Threats & Synergies
Taric
Probably the only "pure" hard counter to Maokai Support. He basically neutralizes you in every phase of the game. In lane with his tankiness, sustain and counter-engage. And later stages of the game with his ultimate. The only reason why he isn't a must ban, is because it is a very unpopular pick.
-The reason for this guide:
When I was browsing for support specific Maokai guides, I couldn't really find a really in-depth guide that is also up-to-date.
-Why Maokai support:
Maokai in my opinion is probably the best all-rounder tank support in the game. He has a ton of CC, great both as an engage- or peel support, amazing at establishing vision thanks to his saplings, and his kit is overall very well suited for objective centered metas (the ones we have in recent years).
Strong CC/utility (suitable for any comp)
Good Vision Control
Easy to execute kit (beginner friendly)
Strong Scaling (dmg and survivability)
Is a flex-pick (less counterpicking)
Good synergy with almost any lane partner
Not many hard matchups/counterpicks
Not often picked/banned
-Cons:
-
weak lvl 1(certain 2v2 matchups can be difficult early game)
low influence in games where your team is behind
(if your team lacks damage, your engages don't really work)
Requires a stronger matchup knowledge than traditional Tank supports
(Maokai's early sustain is weak and he doesn't have dmg mitigation in his kit so you need to be more thoughtful of your engages in lane)

Maokai unlike traditional tank supports, doesn't have any damage mitigation in his kit, so he heavily relies on the extra resistances

From the 2nd row neither rune is really amazing, but overall


3rd row all options are decent,








From last row I default to





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2ndary runes are more flexible, and usually come down to playstyle/preferrances. In this part I will explain what your options are and what the benefits of each are.
-




-




Opting for



It also activates on



-Honorable mention -



The other rune options in this tree aren't that valuable either compared to what Inspiration/Sorcery has to offer.


One great thing about Maokai support is that he offers insane kill-pressure in lane once he unlocks both his Q + W, and




Since Maokai generally doesn't have very one sided 2v2 bot matchups (and even in those you can "fish" for openings), you generally want to keep your chances of securing early kills in lane, this is why

My 1st impressions are that AR, MR and Swifties are all very strong.
-Starting item:
With 14.1 rolling out,

-

-

-




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-Boots:

One reason is it's price, compared to the defensive options it costs 200/300g less, which might not look like a lot, but on support budget every gold counts.
Another reason is that while Maokai has great target lockdown and sticking power with his kit, he can struggle to get the initial engage going, because his W is rather short range. The extra MS helps a lot in this regard.
And one last reason is that our Sapling's MS does scale with our own MS, so it buffs our E slightly.
Defensive options like


Honorable mention:





The AoE shield it provides helps to keep your teammates alive and you generally don't mind the lack of MS on the item because in these games the opponents will look to jump on you and your teammates anyway (opposed to you trying to jump on them).




If you happen to snowball in the early game you can opt for

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-Our 2nd/3rd item will mainly depend on what we need the most (anti-heal, more AR or MR).

The





Overall this item is the stronger of the two when it comes to late game, especially if you don't really need anti-heal or if the enemy team has multiple crit-based carries.
(



Note: With


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Last item:
We will round out our build with






Since


Also important to note that we don't want to finish the full item until we can't really buy anything else. We only opt into this item for the anti-heal passive, and the 800g component already covers that.




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Honorable mention-

Regarding synergies I didn't go into detail, because Maokai is pretty much playable with every duo thanks to his ability to be played both as a Warden and an aggressive Engage support.
That said, his best duos are generally:
-Mages(APCs) (they want good lockdown/CC - which you have, and you also don't mind having lane partners that allow you to roam more frequently because they can just safely oneshot waves).
-Aggressive ADCs (they also want lockdown/CC to secure early kills in lane and snowball their lead from there.) My personal favourites are




One champion you want to avoid is

Ban recommendation:

Your basic combo is W onto enemy champ, Q towards your ADC (to separate the support and ADC) and ignite them. This usually secures a kill vs most champions, especially if they weren't full HP to begin with. (You can AA after Q/ignite if they still in your range, Aftershock dmg also should go off in time, but the important part is to get the Q direction off properly and in time - your W is a very short CC, so Q has to be pretty quick). Not very hard to learn, 5 mins in Practice Tool should do the trick.
(One thing to note: If enemy ADC has

Once you have your entire W+Q combo and have

Unless the wave is very close to their tower or you/your ADC is very low, you should always at least consider an all in.
When you have



The only drawback of not having

To have more successful engages from the lane bushes, you should get

This will also help in case you want to make a quick gank attempt at mid after your 1st back.

Ideally you want




I generally get

Maokai is very good at objective control once he hits lvl 6 because of his ult and saplings, so if your team isn't behind, you should generally look to secure early objectives with your jungler.
Use your saplings to check bushes, and use this to place deep wards in enemy jungle when you have some time to roam.
Maokai makes a great Warden with his Q(knockback ability), always play him according to what your team needs the most (engage/peel).
Since Maokai is a 3 role-flex pick, you can fake hover champions from Jgl/Top lane, to pretend you are picking for one of those roles. This sometimes can help to secure a favourable matchup for your teammates, who otherwise would not get the counterpicking opportunity.
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Hope you find this guide somewhat useful, if you have any questions/feedback feel free to reach out to me in DM/Comment.
GL on the Rift, FunnyBunnyH.
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