Ap maokai support is surprisingly strong and you will hear suprise from your opponents once you have mastered him.

The key is to do with sapling placement and positioning, combined with game knowledge and pre-empting your opponents movements.

Your saplings are your bread and butter and you should think carefully before throwing them as the mana cost can be crippling.

using saplings to check bushes etc is very efficient as they will remain there for around 40 secs and act as a ward whilst also providing heavy dot dmg.

Throwing a saplin into a bush that you KNOW an oppnonent is in is not worth it, as it will tether to your opponent once they are already running away, and you will have wasted your mana. premept your opponent and which bush they will go near.

do not constantly root your opponents as soon as you see them- you are NOT tank with this build. if you can see they will get hit with a saplin... and you have an ally nearby then it may be worth. but remember you are more useful for extreme vision control objective control than going all in (with this build)

Your passive is super useful in lane, auto minions everytime your passive is up for a free heal. it continues to be useful later also of course.

Your combo to one shot an opponent would be
- you see them walking towards a bush (you can sapling this after you have rooted them if you are fast enough)
-you root them
- you throw a saplin into the bush behind them
-you Q them into the bush
- you ult the. hopefully by this point they are dead or you have an ally nearby.

This build excels at playing defensively.
being able to get long ranged wards into bushes makes it a lot safer and can gain you free, risk free poke.

If you are being chased you can turn the fight around if you run into a bush and throw a sapling behind you. You either all in them or continue to run, with the slow now helping you escape.

dont try and pull of any bush cheese (staying in a bush with 5 saplings) as this wont work- the enemy would by now be wary of your saplings.

dont ever be afraid to use your ult to simply zone off the enemy team or to give a teammate an escape route.

if you dont have a tank and your adc is in trouble you may have to sacrifice yourself to save them but this is not ideal. just keep playing around bushes and your saplings.

when your team are pushing lanes, throw the saplings defensively- into the bushes surrounding lanes, to prevent enemies sneaking behind you, and to also give your team an easy disengage.

remember to buy pink wards! your saplings can be used to defend these if you know an opponent will try to take these.
Your saplings conbines with wards late game create an unrivalled amount of vision control that can truly turn a game around.

Remember that randonmly fighting out in the open will only work against you. you ALWAYS want the fight to be near or pathing towards a bush of some kind. always encourage your team to do dragons or barons as you can bait the enemy into walking into bushes laden with saplings and lose half their health before any fight begins.