Children, gather around, let me tell you of the great Maokai.

During a League match on The Twisted Treeline, Maokai, an ancient oak that stood above the upper jungle, spontaneously roared to life. Ripped from the natural balance by arcane forces, his sentience was forged in chaos. Before the Adjudicators of the League could step in and suppress him, he slew all champions participating in the match.

Yeah, Maokai showed up in Twisted Treeline and aced all the Champions. Many cries of "lol who fed Maokai, nerf plz" were heard that day. I think Maokai is one of the strongest junglers in the game. He's got loads of cc, great AoE clears, and strong ganks. With the recent nerfs to all of the other jungle tanks, I think Maokai might be the strongest (and my favorite!) right now.

In the Jayce Patch: Alistar and Nautilus get nerfed
In the Zyra Patch: Malphite and Nocturne nerfed
In the Diana Patch: The new AP Amumu build bringing him back into popularity, gets nerfed. And Shen has gotten what feels like a dozen nerfs since his remake a few months ago. Rammus, Sejunai, Skarner, none of these are up to the task, they fear the strong Maokai.

So what does this mean? It's time for Maokai to take his place as the king of the tank junglers. So now let me break down why Maokai is so good, and go over the tools at his disposal.

Sap Magic (Passive): Each time a spell is cast near Maokai, he gains a charge of Sap Magic. When he has 5 charges, his next auto attack will heal him for 7% (1 hp heal per 14.3 hp) of his maximum health.

So Maokai's passive. It gives him that little bit to help maintain his jungle, but in a team fight a tanky Maokai is hard to kill because this passive is activated every few seconds, especially once he builds a little bit of health, and he can get very difficult to take down, allowing him to stay in the fight longer.

Arcane Smash (Q): Maokai smashes the ground and sends an arcane shockwave forward, damaging and slowing his enemies for 2 seconds. Enemies close to Maokai are knocked back briefly.

It's only a 6 second cooldown, and once he gets some CDR Maokai will be causing so much disruption in a team fight. This is the real power in Maokai. It's AoE, it knocks up, and it slows. It is similar in many ways to Alistar's Pulverize. Not to mention that early to mid game it's damage is quite good because many Maokai players get this ability maxed first for it's reliable damage and CC.

Twisted Advance (W): Maokai transforms into a cloud of arcane energy, quickly traveling to a target enemy and becoming untargetable while traveling. Once Maokai reaches the target, it takes magic damage and is rooted in place.

This is what makes Maokai able to be right up there with the best of the gank junglers. You can't dodge Twisted Advance, he won't miss, and you can't even flash away once he starts the cast. His W will bring him right to you and root you, and his advance will follow you until he gets to you, even if you flash. This gauranteed root makes it very difficult to escape Maokai.

Sapling Toss (E): Maokai hurls a sapling to a target area, dealing magic damage on impact. The sapling becomes implanted in the ground, warding a nearby area for up to 35 seconds. After a 1 second delay after landing, the sapling will seek out nearby enemies. When an enemy approaches, the sapling will chase for up to 2.5 seconds and explode in an arcane blast that deals magic damage to enemies.

Saplings are great. Their damage is high, both base and scaling, and the AoE is great for clearing the jungle, killing minion waves, and poking. So the obvious damage uses aside, the Saplings are an amazing tool. You can set them up at key locations to either stack them for fast clears, or place them at tactical locations as a makeshift ward, as the Saplings last 35 seconds and do grant sight. The only downside is that Maokai's cc is so hard to resist ranking up as you level, and most players max this last.

Vengeful Maelstrom (R): Maokai creates a great vortex of natural energy on a nearby area reducing non-tower damage done to allied champions in the area by 20%. Maokai can prolong the effect as long as he has mana to spend on it. When the effect ends, Maokai unleashes the absorbed energy to deal damage to enemies within the vortex.

This ability isn't the easiest to use, but it's very strong and very under-estimated. 20% damage reduction is like completely canceling out the effects of one player on the enemy team. This ult is amazing for team fights if you manage to place it properly, it makes your entire team tanky, and it's damage is not to be overlooked.

Items

A strength of Maokai is the power of the items he can get. Maokai's base damages are actually pretty good, allowing him to clear the jungle very fast while building no damage items. Philosopher Stone, Heart of Gold, and even Kage's Lucky Pick under the right circumstances, allow him to start generating a ton of gold without hurting his jungling. Defensive stats are really the most important for Maokai, but he also gets amazing benefits from CDR, making him an absolute menace in terms of laying down CC, and his AP ratios aren't too bad all things considered.

I think Maokai best fits the build of an aura tank. His big items are Shurelia's Reverie, Aegis of the Legion, and Frozen Heart, capitalizing on his catching power with Shurelia's plus his W, his passive by getting a strong health pool, and building CDR to keep spamming the CC, all while building aura items that helps his team edge out the enemy.

I think CDR is the most important, because he has naturally pretty good damage on his abilities, and what's really important is his low cooldown CC. With 40% Cooldown Reduction, Maokai can Arcane Smash every 3.6 seconds, and Twisted Advance every 7.8 seconds, giving simply rediculous amounts of crowd control.

Early Game

Maokai doesn't absolutely need to get blue immediately (although you're going to want to take the first one for yourself if you're going to want to reach top clear speeds), and what kind of king would Maokai be if he couldn't start where he pleased? If you want to start red, start with Q and grab W, (help from the team goes a long way) and go out looking for a gank to get first blood, Maokai can do it just fine.

Another way to take advantage of Maokai's amazing clear is to use Saplings to clear a camp.The saplings last 35 seconds, so common tactic is to stack Saplings at Wraiths, killing the camp almost instantly, before heading to blue, giving you just that slight edge in the jungle. In this blog I'm going to link a blog by doo0ooooooom that goes into a few crazy routes you can take as Maokai, that guy has it down to a science.

So early game you'll be spending most of your time farming the jungle or ganking. And boy can Maokai gank. If your team can follow up your CC with burst damage or more CC, you can create huge advantages for your lanes early game. Maokai is one of the best junglers, not just because of the strength of his ganks, but even if he can't successfully gank and get fed from early kills. He has very good aoe clear, he can build gp10, and he transitions very well into late game with modest amounts of gold.

Where other gank junglers all have flaws like Shaco's late game being much much weaker than his early game, and Alistar doesn't clear the jungle as well as Maokai, nobody's got power like the mighty Maokai. I honestly prefer Maokais' ganks over most. His CC is so strong and reliable, and his early game damage is really respectable, making his ganks arguably second to none.

And right now I'll let you guys in on a little secret of mine that plays to the advantages of Maokai's AoE clearing. Basically I hate having to kill golems. They do decent damage, they have a ton of health, and they feel really far out of the way sometimes. So something I like to do is a rotation involving my wraiths, my wolves, and the enemy wraiths.

If you completely clear the wraith camp, the enemy won't know when it's going to respawn, and you'll get there just in time to kill it once it comes up. This also leaves you close to the middle of the map, allowing you to camp mid, stay close to control buffs, or make your way the top or bottom lanes. A ward at enemy wraiths goes a long way to make sure you don't walk into the enemy jungle and right on some unfriendly guys

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So this is just an example if you were purple team. Follow the black line clearing the small camps, and you will be able to be stay close to anything you need to get to, while denying the enemy the gold of his jungle.

Transition into mid to late game: Maokai is strongest somewhat early game, but that doesn't mean he is weak later on. He fits the role up a supporty, utility tank, initiator, and peeler/bodyguard. With aura items, a powerful ult, a bunch of CC, and great catching power he has a lot of tools to contribute to a team fight.

This blog is not intended to be a guide to Maokai, it's just informative to let you know the story of the fierce warrior Maokai and why he is so feared on the Fields of Justice. If you'd like to learn more about how to play Maokai in detail, I really recommend the guides by doo0ooooooom and TheOddOne. They have shown me the way of the Maokai, and you too are able to learn their ways.

Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoy!

-Fox