Hello my little saplings, I am a Maokai main

Why would u play Maokai?
1. He's awesome my man
2. He's a nature protector, why wouldn't you want to be a nature protector?
3. Not hard to play but timing things at the right moment and learning the animations is the trick.
4. He's a tree boi.
I Was in top 500 Maokais in the world, according to LoLskill!

Here are my league profiles, also the stream!

Lolskill: http://www.lolskill.net/summoner/EUNE/legol%C3%A1s
OP.GG: http://eune.op.gg/summoner/userName=legol%C3%A1s
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvS6wi8yjxdPZdW_imXxPmw
- Some videos might be on Serbian, but I've made videos in English as well! There are also memes!
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/peepstur
- I don't really stream that often, but sometimes I do Maokai jungle or top or support, so why not just put this here!

Here are the recent results I've been having with this build!

Pros - A lot of Crowd Control - Can protect well - Can initiate well - Great in teamfights - Amazing at catching off people - You have a high presence after level 6 with your ult - Can gank well even before getting his ult

Cons - Bad objective control early - Can fall behind if counter jungled - Mediocre jungle clear - Relies on his team a lot - Can't do much if a team composition has no hyper carry

Basically everything you need to know in one video
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Champion select guide!
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My personal Maokai jungle guide
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Gameplay footage
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Maokai penta :0
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- On most champions it's an auto-include, on Maokai as well. You could try Ghost (can be good while initiating with Turbo Chemtank) but this is a point click teleport, it gives you a much more reliable escape than Ghost. What is also good about flash is you can flash into the baron pit and just smite that and steal it and be a hero (you could also use a plant but you know, if there's no plant this is good). What's also great about flash is you can surprise engage (unlike with Ghost where you just run up to them and they can react more easily to it). Champions who take ghost are just those with more mobility in their kit, or like a movement speed ability built into their kit on which they rely on to initiate or be quicker. Just an overall great spell, makes up for Maokai's lack of wall hopping and a more reliable escape tool.

- You're the jungler my man, what do you expect to have. This summoner spell is necessary for jungling, as you can't buy jungle items without it (meaning less xp in the jungle and also a tough time in the jungle, because of no smite as it heals you for an amount of hp).

Passive - Sap Magic Each time Maokai casts an ability or is struck by an enemy's ability, Sap Magic's cooldown is reduced by 4 seconds. So this is especially good with healing amplifiers - Spirit Visage for example is a very good item to pick up on him as it amplifies his passive heal by 30%, which is amazing late game. Generally this is useful in the jungle too, so if you have taken the Blue Sentinel recently be sure to spam your abilities for maximum potential and survivability.

Q - Bramble smash Range: 600 Effect radius: 300 Maokai knocks back nearby enemies with a shockwave, dealing magic damage and slowing them. Maokai releases an arcane shockwave. Nearby enemies are knocked back and all affected enemies take magic damage and are slowed. Max this ability first as it has great base damage scaling, and spamming it will leave a greater impact than maxing your other abilities as it has a knock back effect. The slow is useful too, sometimes, while chasing your enemies and your Twisted Advance is on cooldown or maybe when you don't have enough mana for your gap closer.

W - Twisted advance Target range: 525 Maokai dashes to the target enemy, becoming untargetable for the duration, dealing magic damage on arrival and briefly rooting them. Mastering how to time this ability is crucial for distinguishing an experienced Maokai player from a newcomer. Using this ability at the beginning of a gank is sometimes a bad thing. Why, well maybe your allies aren't there to follow up that quickly or have their abilities on cooldown, so sometimes being patient with this ability is the best thing you can do. Sometimes you should wait for your allies to land their Crowd control first and then you can follow up with your Twisted Advance. But in case your team lacks CC, you have to go in first and that's that.

E - Sapling toss Range: 1100 Effect radius: 175/350 Maokai flings a Sapling to the target location, remaining there for 30 seconds and granting sight around itself. Saplings tether to nearby enemies, chasing them for up to 2.5 seconds, exploding upon impact or at the end of its duration, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies upon detonation, and slowing them by 35% for 2 seconds. Saplings placed in brush instead have 30 (+ 2.5% bonus health) duration and deals double damage over 2 seconds to all enemies hit. Throwing this in bushes while ganking makes for great damage and slow, it's actually not just good for jungle clears.

Ultimate - Nature's grasp Range: 3000 Maokai summons a colossal wall of 5 thorny brambles that slowly advances forward, each stopping at the first enemy champion they collide with. Each thorny bramble deals magic damage and roots for 0.6 - 2.4 (based on distance traveled) seconds. This is your bread and butter in controlling the teamfight. Using this in ganks is also pretty good, there's 2 ways of using it. 1. Using it before you go into the lane, as a beginning -This option is riskier than the second one, but can be very effective if your opponents don't expect it, or have no vision, or are just pushing really hard. 2. Using it when you've already engaged -This is the safer option, as it doesn't require you to predict anything, just go into a normal gank and use your ultimate once you're close to immobilize your enemies.

That would be it for the abilities part, I'll talk some more about the combos in the Unique skills chapter.
Also you can look at the abilities in action here.

Primary tree (get it, because Maokai is a tree)

- Because Maokai is a tank duh... It has the best options for competitive builds on him, such as mine! It allows him to utilize on his kit and, in my mind, this is the best primary tree for him. Resolve is the primary rune tree because he can be tanky whilst also protecting his team, I mean, that's how I play him anyways. So if you're going to play him my way, this is definitely the best tree by far.

Aftershock - Such a good and interesting new keystone, buffs your defensive stats while also dealing decent damage! This is, in my mind, the best one since Maokai doesn't have that much damage in early ganks, so this helps out tremendously by enlarging his damage by quite a lot, it activates just after you use Twisted Advance, so stay near your foes if you want this to deal damage to them! Doesn't effect minions, so keep that in mind! It's damage is amplified by how tanky you get, so it's the perfect keystone rune for a tank like Maokai.

Font of life - Here you don't have much of a choice since you're not going to be split pushing much, that means you don't really need Demolish , but Unflinching is an interesting pick because what it does is it gives you tenacity after using a summoner spell. Pretty cool while ganking any ranged champion with Crowd control in their kit, since the crowd control is going to last less if you don't dodge it! But my pick here is Font of Life because it's pretty easy to trigger, just hit your Sapling Toss and you should be good.

Conditioning - This is my pick because the other 2 runes in this choice are more lane oriented and they are made so you can counter champions with specific types of damage, so Conditioning is really decent because in the late game you get that 5% which is, if you have 200 armor +19 bonus armor, which is not bad, you would agree!

Revitalize - Revitalize is my pick here because it increases your healing and shields. It helps with your jungle clears if you're low on health, helps you survive teamfights better late game and is very good if you build Locket of the Iron Solari into Gargoyle Stoneplate, so the shield is hella big my boi.

- Might be better than Revitalize, recently I've been picking this almost every time over Revitalize. Only take Revitalize when you have a healing support in your team ( Nami, Soraka, etc.). I guess the bonus from Gargoyle Stoneplate would be better too, it's a good rune.

- It's reliable damage, can it get any better for early game Maokai? I pick this because it's pretty much the only good rune in the domination tree, apart from Relentless Hunter which is your second pick in this build. It's quite useful when dueling early game since you're guaranteed to proc it at least once or twice during every fight. It doesn't seem like much but it's gonna make up a part of your damage that you deal and it gives you more opportunities to take initiative knowing you have a bit more damage.

- It's useful if you don't want to go for the lame *** Mobility Boots. I personally never go for those boots since they don't give you any defensive stats early on. Plus Plated Steelcaps gives you big damage reduction against teams that are full ad or that almost completely deal physical damage. Mercury's Treads are also good if you think the enemy team has a lot of crowd control, and if that's the case definitely pick 'em up. This gives you the movement speed that you need when going between objectives in the late game too, since you should always be rushing somewhere.

Discussing other rune options

- This rune is not the best, just because in the jungle you can't trigger it. If you could however, it would probably be the second best rune, as you're anyways attacking all the time in the jungle, so every 4 seconds, this would trigger. But last season, sometimes I made mistakes and took the wrong mastery page when playing Maokai jungle, and that one included Grasp of the Undying. I usually won those games (kinda got lucky with the teams tbh), but would not encourage taking this rune, it's not really the best one you can get, because of reasons that I wrote above!

- Sometimes I just don't feel this one to be honest, it was made for tanky supports, which would be great on Maokai support, but not so much on jungle. Maybe if you have a duo partner that's pro and you believe in him, you should be going for the last build on the list (the build where you rely on your carry a lot) and take this mastery, but that's not the best if you're going solo, or if your duo partner is not as good (or playing a tank or a support).

- Somewhat of an interesting rune as I've already mentioned, can actually be good against teams with a lot of crowd control. But honestly Font of Life is a lot better, and I've already explained why. I like to think of this rune as something that a squishy carry would take on secondary tree, if they're going for Resolve.

- New rune, patch 8.4! Looks good, but in my mind still better for a laning Maokai. It's good when going into an aggressive lane and trying to survive it, to get to the late game, where Maokai excels. Seems like a good toplane rune (or support), not much of a jungle rune, but you can make use of it if you gank a lot.

- This rune is better on toplane Maokai, as you're going to be in a lane more than just going to a lane for a little while for a gank (that's what you're supposed to be doing in jungle Maokai) but if your play style matches going for towers more often than not, why not try this out! Tell me the results, so I can speak from experience (actually, your experience, still xp tho).

- Again, a more lane oriented rune, good in lane though, Maokai doesn't need in however, Revitalize outmatches that in toplane, since Maokai has his passive heal. Again, you're not going to be using this in the jungle, since it usually can't trigger at all, unless you're getting counter jungled. I'm looking at you Shaco.

Secondary tree discussion

- The only rune that Maokai can use in the secondary tree is Overheal, and even that one isn't very good. The other ones are pretty good for let's say Yasuo, but not that much for any tank. Tenacity is cool ( Legend: Tenacity), but you can get that from your Mercury's Treads, which is more than enough to be honest. The third row is about dealing more damage, that's what you don't really need, you're a tank after all, these are good on champions that are good at dealing consistent damage, but on Maokai not so much

- Some of these are actually pretty good, such as the item CDR thing ( Ingenious Hunter) is kind of cool. Again, the Domination tree is more about dealing damage, not really about anything Maokai could use. But those he could utilize on are Sudden Impact, because of his Twisted Advance, that's if you're going for a more aggressive play style, not in my town though. If you're looking to be eless aggressive you can take Zombie Ward. That's about it for the Domination tree, since it's not the best choice, but does have some interesting rune choices. If you want to try this, do it and tell me the results, I really want to know how it turns out! Something I can recommend is, if you like a playstyle revolving around your carry, go for the last build on the list, but for runes take Guardian (everything else stays the same in the primary tree) but for secondary take Domination with Ingenious Hunter and Zombie Ward. That'll help with protecting your carry really good, and frequently, with item cooldowns being lower (because of Ingenious Hunter).

- This tree is the second best tree for Maokai since it has a bunch to do with his abilities, as he uses them a lot, it's a pretty good tree. Nullifying Orb is good against a team that's based completely or mostly on magic damage, works like Hexdrinker (or Maw of Malmortius) but you don't have to actually buy the item. Manaflow Band could be taken if you're not going blue first, I mean, I don't seem to need it, it's better in lane since Hunter's Talisman does all the mana regeneration you need in the jungle, but it's a solid pick if you're a beginner and don't know how to manage your mana properly. Nimbus Cloak could actually be good if you're planning on ganking more. After level 6, you can use this utilize on this rune by spamming your ultimate and trying to gank as much as possible. In the end, it might pay off, as you'll be more than ready for every teamfight incoming. The second part of the Sorcery tree doesn't really have much to offer to Maokai, but the Transcendence rune is alright, but I don't think the extra Cooldown reduction is needed. The third row of Sorcery doesn't have much to give either, apart from Gathering Storm, which could be useful if the game drags on for way too long. I guess 48 Ability power isn't so bad (that's how much you get after the 30th minute mark), since most games will be longer than 30 minutes (in my experience at least).

- Best secondary tree for Maokai, he can utilize very well on it. It has very interesting additions to his kit and most of them can be very useful. As I've already talked about Perfect Timing and Approach Velocity, I won't be mentioning them here. The rune's I wanted to mention here are, going from the first row, Hextech Flashtraption. This rune can be very useful when you're trying to surprise gank but there's no plant that makes you jump over a wall, i forgot its name. Also very good when spotting an enemy on your side of the jungle early, but you've already wasted your Flash and can't escape, but have just enough time for using your Hextech Flashtraption. Could be a good pick in matchups against junglers that can easily counter-jungle you ( Shaco, Shyvana, Warwick, Master Yi and so on). Magical Footwear is also a pretty good one, it gives you 350 gold (300 gold for the regular boot + 50 gold because every boot upgrade costs 50g less) plus it gives you +10 movement speed on your boot. Seems good, might be better than Approach Velocity but in my mind it's not, since for those 350 gold you're probably not going to buy anything other than the boot early, maybe a Cloth Armor or maybe a Sapphire Crystal (when upgrading into Turbo Chemtank), so it feels sort of useless. You can't buy a boot before the 10 minute mark, so that's a pretty big handicap, since you have to sacrifice another rune to pick up Approach Velocity, to gank at least a bit more effectively. Cosmic Insight could be good in some situations, but it generally isn't the best, since you want to go aggressive. This rune is good in case your lanes all have high damage, but I wouldn't sacrifice Approach Velocity or Perfect Timing for this, it gives more survivability, and your sapling will last longer, but the other two runes mentioned above fit my play style. Try this one out and tell me what you think!

Bramble Smash should be maxed first as it has really high base damage as well as the cc is very nice to have it more frequently, it allows you to protect much better and just to have more early damage.
Maxing Sapling Toss second is optional, but I never saw any reason not to, it helps you deal more damage and maxing Twisted Advance just gives it a bit more damage and the root lasts a bit longer, so in my opinion there's no reason to max W second, but you can try it out and tell me your opinions!
So skill sequence should go a little something like this:

-If you're going to take the blue sentinel first, I'd advise you go for the 3 Health Potions, since you're going to have to deal with much less damage on the blue side clear. But you can spam your spells more, which is also good. -However, if you're going red buff first, take the Refillable Potion, since you already have the damage and the sustain to last a while in the jungle, so you don't need that much healing from the potions. Also raptors are going to heal you a lot because of the Hunter's Talisman you bought, I hope you did!

Core items

- This pretty much the most important item, since it goes really well with your Sap Magic, also amplifies your heal if you're in Gargoyle Stoneplate mode, which is honestly an insane heal, if you pick the Revitalize rune, the heal will be even bigger. From my example, I once healed for 1700 Hp, trust me on this little sapling I don't have the footage to support it though.

- Great for engaging, if you're ahead, great for just forcing fights if you have a stronger teamfight, great for generally everything you need early, this could be an early rush if you want to, but it's generally great as a second or a third item as well. Sometimes I sacrifice rushing boot and just go for Turbo Chemtank, since it's so great early, it can make such a huge impact.

Situational items

- This item is useful if you're up against a very crit oriented team, or just if the enemies have a fed Ad carry, or Yasuo. The stats are pretty decent for its cost and the active of the item can actually be very useful late game, as well as while ganking.

- This item gives mobility (+60 MS) and more damage on hit and also slows its target by 50% for 1 second, which is not much but still can be very useful. Would only recommend to buy this in situations where how well you engage can be the game's deciding factor. If you need an armor item and they have a physical damage oriented team composition, this is a reliable choice.

- A nice item to buy when the enemy team has no % HP based damage abilities, amazing when initiating and also really good when saving your allies. It combo's well with Gargoyle Stoneplate, if you use Gargoyle Stoneplate first and then Locket of the Iron Solari you'll get a shield around 300 health bigger than what you would usually get. Also, this item could go into the core items part of the guide, but I don't know, I just don't feel it. It's really good though, can be considered core!

- You should usually take this item when your opponents have a lot of AOE damage, or just when you don't think that you can protect your team that well in teamfights. So it's a good pick up in a lot of situations. As I've mentioned above, it combo's well with Gargoyle Stoneplate.

- This is when the enemy team possesses some kind of fed Ap carry, or just a team that is oriented around dealing magic damage, for example let's say they have 2 tanks(Jungler and Toplaner are tanks, Malphite+ Amumu that kind of stuff), an Ap midlaner( Katarina, Syndra, you get the point), a marksman ( Vayne, or any other marksman, it doesn't matter much) and a healing support ( Lulu, Nami and so on) That's when you buy this item! It's also good against champions like Brand, Vladimir, Anivia and so on.

- You purchase this item when your team has a carry that is quite good, and if you think he can carry, buy this and protect him as much as you can so you can provide your team the win by just being this wall in front of him, or beside him! Would recommend binding to a Marksman but if, in your opinion, someone has a higher potential of carrying the game that's also an option!

- This is quite good in team compositions where you have a lot of magic damage. It boosts the damage of your spells that deal magic damage by 10%, which is amazing in teamfights where you have a fed, let's say Katarina. Her ultimate ability, with you standing near the enemies that she's hitting with it, makes for a great deal of damage. Same strategies can apply for Orianna's Command: Shockwave, Galio's Hero's Entrance and many more. This item is quite useful in those Area of effect spells, as I've mentioned above.

- I usually don't buy this item, honestly I don't really know why, since it's actually quite good. Has a passive same as Randuin's Omen, but the other passive is quite effective against a fed Marksman, or even someone that's based on auto-attacking. Bramble Vest by itself is very nice early if you're having trouble staying alive but don't have the time to buy the entire item, this could be a rush against some team compositions. It is usually purchased against an enemy team who's entire damage is based on auto-attacking ( Irelia, Yasuo, Shyvana, Vayne, you get the point).

- Oh MY GOOOOOD. They brought back this item from the dead. It's as good as it used to be and it provides your team and yourself with such good speed. Rush this item early and just start ganking and engaging and basically fug em up. Since its removal in season 3 I felt like something has been missing. This item is actually really good early, it doesn't matter what you build late since if you rush this and Turbo Chemtank, you should be set and you should win that game just by ganking the carry's lane. Goes well with The fastest tree build (the one with the Predator rune). It's really fun to use early and can be useful even late game. However, if the game drags on for 40+ mins and you don't feel that you're tanky enough, I'm pretty sure just Turbo Chemtank will do the trick. Sell it late game is what I mean.

Stack your Sapling Toss at the buff where your bot lane is going and you won't need to smite it.
Begin the stacking at 1:00 and u should get 3 saplings. Remember to put them in the bush as they do double the damage when placed in a bush.

Jungle routes and ganks you can do

Interesting ganks you can do!

- This is an option when the enemy laner has no escape, or has used their flash. This is what you can do when your laner is also past 6 and can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Best coordinated when it's your duo partner, but could be done well in higher elo due to people paying attention to pings. Basically you start of with your ult and then walk into the tower where your opponent is. Twisted Advance onto them and use all of your crowd control, which will be enough for your midlaner to come in and do his damage.

Maokai is a special lad. In teamfights, he protecc, he attacc, he can do everything (but he can't deal much damage with this build, so if you're going for that, nah, impossible.... however sometimes, in some games, you might surprise yourself by how much damage you've dealt, I'm going to answer that, it's because Maokai has a lot of AOE and he has high base damage on his abilities, that's why).

- This is the basic initiating "combo", it's more of an order in which you use these abilities, and an item. Turbo Chemtank helps so much when initiating, it's just unbelievable how good this item can get. This is the most simple combo out of them all, so it's generally if your ultimate is on cooldown. It's good for catching off enemies that are of great importance (such as enemy carries, who are fed). You can do this and then your team follows up. Watch out not to wander off without your team though, communication is important when using this, so be careful and ping to your team that you're going in, before you go in, just so they know and can be ready to go in as well.

- So, in this situation the enemy team is doing an objective, or they're grouped somewhere and don't expect you coming up to them. This way, your ultimate's crowd control can be used to its maximum potential. It takes time to learn about positioning of the enemies, but when you do, you'll be able to hit Nature's Grasp more easily. You can use it after going in, that's if you want to make sure your crowd control is chained onto an important target, but in this case, you're trying to root the entire enemy team. Even if you burn an opponents Flash, it's still good, since the cooldown of Nature's Grasp is much smaller than the cooldown of Flash. It's great when the enemy team is fighting Baron, or Dragon. This makes sure they're all going to stay in place just in time for your team to follow up and make their move. You can use Flash in this case too, to jump over a wall. Flash can also be used as a surprise by locking onto an enemy and making sure they get hit by Nature's Grasp.

- Not many people know about this, if timed at just the right moment, this ability can stop any movement action that isn't Cataclysm, Unstoppable Force, Cease and Desist, Unstoppable Onslaught, Onslaught of Shadows and some more, but that would be crazy to put them all here, I'll leave some things for you to discover yourself! So, things like Jarvan IV's Demacian Standard + Dragon Strike combo can be stopped, things like Lee Sin's second cast of Sonic Wave, things like Zac's Elastic Slingshot, Riven's third cast of Broken Wings (the crowd control can actually be negated if Riven casts it and then midway you just use your Bramble Smash, it's hard to time but mastering this is what makes a Maokai player a good Maokai player), some more include Gragas' Body Slam, Ornn's Searing Charge and many more!

- This ability can be used to follow up on every dash, Flash, even longer things, such as an Elastic Slingshot. This video pretty much does all the work for me, so here you go, enjoy! Here's the link, I can't post the full video player here, since it ruins the columns, but if anyone's reading, here it is! These videos are also useful ~ Maokai follows Draven to base Maokai follows Taliyah when she uses her Weaver's wall Maokai with Twisted fate ultimate and Thresh's Death sentence Maokai follows a Warwick using his ult

- These are the Maokai skins, ranked from best to worst in my opinion. Also the Chromas that you should use on Meowkai are Tanzanite, Aquamarine and Peridot.

This section is made because I find statistics fun to look at and these sites offer quite cool info on champions, winrates, items etc. Some of them offer statistics on your own account, so that's cool too! Here are some:

Mobalytics: https://app.mobalytics.gg/r/rf/pOZZVL
OP.GG: Is actually http://na.op.gg/
Lolskill: http://www.lolskill.net/
Champion.gg: http://champion.gg/
Lolking: http://www.lolking.net/
Lolgraphs: https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/
Lolprofile: https://lolprofile.net/

Also, the Maokai mains subreddit is sometimes useful, you can ask more questions there
https://www.reddit.com/r/MaokaiMains/


So I use these sites and find them quite useful.

P.S. I am not endorsed or sponsored by any of these sites, but I'd like to be! That's a dream I'll keep on dreaming!

Here's my Taric guide!

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Created: Season 5
- November 6th 2017 - Huge update to the item, rune and overall style
- November 8th 2017 - Runes reforged added
- November 9th 2017 - Style points added - as in it looks prettier
- November 12th 2017 - Build paths explained section added
- November 13th 2017 - Item and rune sections look neat, like I put some actual coding work into them!
- November 14th 2017 - Minor tweaks and expending the sections by a few sentences
- November 15th 2017 - Summoner spells section added (not the biggest section ever but it's good to have), also added the subsection of the runes reforged part - discussing other rune options (that seemed helpful to add)
- November 16th to December 2nd 2017 - Some minor tweaks, Some interesting ideas added - You can also submit your suggestions, I'll be happy to include them here! Teamwork section updated.
- December 6th 2017 - Matchup part updated
- December 13th 2017 - Matchup part updated yet again, more champions added.
- December 14th 2017 - We passed 100k, thanks guise!
- December 27th 2017 - Minor changes, also interesting ideas chapter updated with more ideas!
- January 3rd 2018 - Happy New Year guise, also Useful sites chapter added!
- February/March 2018 - Smaller updates to the build, some additional stuff added
- March/April 2018 - SHURELYA'S FKING REVERIE BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIS it's back baby rush it, also 250k views, thanks, also skin chapter added.
- May 2019 - Finally updated the thing, some minor things added to the guide. Tweaks and stuff too, hopefully I'll keep it up and update it more in the next months!