Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight featuring Maokai, the Twisted Treant.
Maokai is a support-tank hybrid. He disables enemies, keeps his teammates alive, and even scouts the map.
Maokai’s passive is Sap Magic. After five spells are cast near Maokai, he is empowered by “Magical Sap.”
When empowered, his next basic attack will heal him for a percentage of his max health. While it doesn’t make him invincible in lane, he’ll regain lots of health in large fights.
His first ability is Arcane Smash. Maokai damages and slows targets in a line.
Targets immediately around Maokai are knocked backwards. This nuance is especially useful when combined with his second skill.
Twisted Advance is up next. Maokai quickly travels to target enemy, damaging and rooting it in place.
For those of you who analyze the power of abilities during the spotlight, this is rank 1 of the skill. By rank 5 the duration of the root is doubled.
Third comes Sapling Toss. Maokai tosses his sapling to a target area, dealing damage where it lands.
After a brief delay, the sapling comes to life, chasing down enemy targets nearby. When it reaches the enemy, it explodes, dealing more damage.
The sapling lasts for 25 seconds and gives a ring of sight where it stands. Enemies who walk nearby are then chased down.
Maokai’s ultimate is Vengeful Maelstrom. Maokai creates an area on the ground. Allies inside of it take reduced damage from minions, monsters, and champions, but not turrets.
When Maokai deactivates the ability, enemies inside of the ring take damage, with bonus damage based on the amount of damage the ability reduced.
While the ability doesn’t look too impressive blocking Ryze’s basic attacks, wait until you see it in a team fight.
Learning Sapling Toss first allows you to help your teammates who jungle. Here I plant two saplings before monsters spawn to help Udyr get level 2 a little bit faster.
Be sure to back off so you don’t steal the experience, though!
Maokai’s abilities all combine together quite well. I’m able to repeatedly harass Heimerdinger out of his lane by using Twisted Advance into Sapling Toss, followed by an immediate Arcane Smash.
If Heimerdinger hadn’t used Ghost to evade the Sapling the first time, he probably would have died.
Maokai’s job in a fight is to be extremely disruptive. Comboing his main abilities together, I set us up for some nice damage on Amumu and Heimerdinger.
When Malphite shows up, I immediately retreat to land Twisted Advance. Most importantly, I walk around him before using Arcane Smash, which knocks him farther away from Ashe.
Finally as we chase down Amumu, Twisted Advance once more allows us a kill underneath the turret.
In a mobile fight, you have to be careful about when to use your ultimate. It drains mana every second, and you want to maximize the damage you deal to enemy champions.
Here it blocks a lot of their initial burst and hits the four enemies present in the fight. Afterwards, I get forced backwards due to all the damage I’m taking, which is my job anyway.
Arcane Smash forces Trundle away and I continue to harass with Sapling Toss. After deciding I can survive Malphite, I head in for Twisted Advance and Arcane Smash, helping us get the kill.
Even if Vengeful Maelstrom doesn’t block turret damage, Maokai can still dive them effectively.
I help my team pick up Heimerdinger and Sivir by slowing and rooting them in sequence as well as using Vengeful Maelstrom to help return their damage back.
As I escape, I use Twisted Advance on Amumu to run out of turret range faster.
As a tank you want to pick out isolated targets first. Twisted Advance allows me to get behind Malphite and knock him forward with Arcane Smash.
Upon seeing the battle start, I throw up Vengeful Maelstrom. Sapling Toss and Vengeful Maelstrom end up putting a lot of damage out on Amumu, letting us pick up three unanswered kills.
Target selection is extremely important, though. While I’m sure Trundle would have been a very easy kill for us, I’m much more concerned with the Sivir who is killing our Ashe.
Twisted Advance locks her inside the turret while she Spell Shields my Arcane Smash. Thankfully, Udyr also knew who to kill and we are able to avenge Ashe’s death.
When attempting Baron, use your Sapling Toss to scout your opponents’ advance. Down in the mini-map you can see we have the major inlet for the purple team covered by saplings.
In late-game fights like these, your opponents are likely to have a Banshee’s Veil; the sapling can remove that shield as they come in.
Another extremely important factor of Vengeful Maelstrom is that it has a max range. If you walk too far away from the ring, it disappears.
Because of this, you can’t go off chasing enemies far away. However, I make a point to Exhaust Sivir immediately once the battle starts and toss Arcane Smash at her while she’s near.
I spend the rest of my time taking on Malphite and Trundle, using Summoner Heal to keep Kayle alive as long as I can.
I deactivate Vengeful Maelstrom to kill Malphite and conserve mana, picking up Trundle with Twisted Advance.
It's possible that you wood have some problems fighting Maokai. If you’re having trouble chopping him down, I guaran-tree you'll have better luck playing as Lumberjack Sion.
Sapling Toss is an excellent scouting tool. I’m going to display some important sapling locations while detailing the builds I recommend for Maokai.
I take magic penetration marks, mana regeneration per level seals, flat magic resist glyphs, and flat health quintessences.
This build should beef you up a fair amount and allow you to use your abilities to pretty good effect as well.
My masteries are 9/21/0. Improved Exhaust allows me to disable an enemy carry while Heal synergizes extremely well with my ultimate. Make sure to take magic penetration and Strength of Spirit as well.
On the abilities side, it depends on your preferences. The default tank build will get just one point in Sapling Toss before maxing Twisted Advance and Arcane Smash.
If you want to play aggressively, Sapling Toss gains the most damage per skill point and is the best skill to max for damage output.
Upgrading Twisted Advance will help keep your opponents in range of the sapling as well.
Finally, let’s talk items. Sapphire Crystal and Health Potions will give you a lot of sustenance and mana for abilities. Grab a fast Catalyst and usually Mercury Treads.
Some opponents might require different boots, so think about how many spells will actually be affected by them before making your decision.
From there, Aegis of the Legion, Sunfire Cape (because not even you can stop this forest fire), Banshee’s Veil, Frozen Heart, and Void Staff are my items of choice.
Maokai’s damage combined with Sunfire Cape is pretty good, so I like the magic penetration. Otherwise, Force of Nature or Randuin’s Omen is a good choice.
Please let us know how you liked the video and post any suggestions you have down below! Subscribe to the Riot Games YouTube channel if you want to see these videos the second they come out!
Thanks for tuning into the Maokai Champion Spotlight. Get out there on the Fields of Justice and punish those “reckless mages!”