This article is to highlight Maokai, a champion that fell heavily out of the meta during Season 12. In 2023, he had gone from zero to hero with healthy kit adjustments and a meta that favors tanks over carry junglers. Here is why you should look to add this Twisted Treant to your champion pool.
Maokai has become a League of Legends staple this Spring Split, across each of the top regions in the world. Having received ability adjustments in Patch 12.17, players have started moving this big grumpy tree into the jungle, a role where he hadn’t seen play for several years. Now having far more sustain, AoE clearing, and enough crowd control to stop a riot, Maokai has earned himself a fierce 63% win rate. More impressive than that statistic, Maokai has a presence of 83.5% in all games played across the LCS, the LEC, the LPL, and the LCK. This article will discuss what changes made him so popular, and why he will be a benefit to add into your champion pool.
Let’s look at Patch 12.17 and see what took Maokai from forgotten to most played. Two important changes were added to Maokai’s passive Sap Magic. First, his passive cooldown can now be reduced by an additional four seconds by hitting a champion or an epic monster with Sapling Toss. This change allows healing from his passive to be even more frequent in teamfights, but also grants him the chance to take early Dragons or Rift Heralds with less risk. Secondly, and more importantly, Maokai now receives a 1.5 second cooldown reduction anytime monsters hit him with basic attacks and abilities. This causes Sap Magic’s cooldown to constantly be reduced as you fight the Wolf, Raptor, and Krug camps, keeping your health topped off and ready for skirmishes around Scuttle Crab or ganks your lanes.
Maokai’s Q Bramble Smash also received some changes. He now gains percentage max health damage (it now deals 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 / 2.75 / 3% of target's maximum health). This helps a bit, but the second change is bonus damage directly to jungle monsters (it now deals 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 bonus damage against monsters). Mixing all this damage with the fact that it's an AoE “area of effect” ability allows the player to quickly farm up. The fact you can take the camps so quickly adds even more to Maokai’s sustainability, given that he will take fewer hits from jungle camps. This also speeds up Maokai’s clear speeds, allowing for a full clear of 1:41 as seen here in this “Zen'Kih” video. For comparison, Karthus has a clear speed of 1:22, and Fiddlesticks has a clear speed of 1:40.
While he may not get to boast the fastest or healthiest clear, Maokai gets his advantages from being able to gank before the Level 6 power spike others require. Maokai has crowd control in each of his abilities. Being able to root and leap to an enemy with your W, Twisted Advance, pushing them back into your laner with Bramble Smash, and then even slowing the enemy with his E Sapling Toss. This gives you and your ally roughly four seconds of crowd control as early as Level 3, making a well-timed gank onto an over extended opponent a near guaranteed kill. This crowd control time only goes up from here as you level up your abilities and gain access to your ultimate Nature’s Grasp.
Once you have your full kit, you really become a tyrant. The range of Maokai’s ultimate is 3000 units. That's 500 units longer than Jhin’s W Deadly Flourish, almost as long as Caitlyn’s ultimate Ace in the Hole 3500 units, or 27 Teemos long. This ultimate allows you to gank from deep within the jungle, out of sight from wards. You even have the chance to toss this over a wall and gank for your teammate without ever setting foot in the lane. The fact that Nature’s Grasp is as wide as the lane itself forces the enemy to burn a Flash or be rooted in place. Nature’s Grasp has such a low risk of failure that you’re able to cast anytime it’s off cooldown.
Contrasting from Maokai’s time in the toplane where Grasp of the Undying and Aftershock were his most common Keystones, Junglers have now opted to use Phase Rush. In professional play, Phase Rush is used in 53.4% of his games. The quick combo from his kit activates this vital burst of movement speed, allowing him to stick to fleeing enemies, or to reach a squishy backline target alongside an assassin to assist him. Nothing is scarier than a tank that can outrun you.
As for your core items, you are looking to build Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Demonic Embrace, and Radiant Virtue. Since your keystone is only able to grant bursts of speed only once you’re already on your target, it’s important to rush the boots so that you can reach them in the first place. They also help you move through the jungle camps quickly and get you to neutral objectives such as Scuttle Crabs, Rift herald, and Dragons when your team needs to contest them. These boots also are important for the 20 ability haste, which helps you keep your abilities up and glue you to enemies, locking down high priority targets for your team to focus down.
Next look to build Demonic Embrace, as it really is the perfect item. With 75 ability power and 350 health, this item takes Maokai from a stun bot to a standalone threat, not only able to take damage but to deal it back out. This item also burns down enemies with max health percentage damage any time you hit them with your abilities, so you don’t have to kite with auto attacks. Just keep pace with a target and use crowd control to lock them in place and burn them down.
Your other main item will be Radiant Virtue. With another addition of 400 health, 30 armor, 30 magic resist, and 20 ability haste, this item allows you to build it in most games since it covers all tank stats. Yet the stats aren’t even the best part. Radiant Virtue’s passive Transcends you when you cast your ultimate ability, granting you bonus max health (and bonus ability power thanks to “Demonic Embrace”) beginning to heal you and your allies over time. Since your ultimate is a useful attack whether you’re engaging or disengaging, you will always be able to activate this item. The Mythic buff will also scale tremendously, because as you gain bonus health, Demonic Embrace will turn a portion of this health into ability power. Meaning you can deal even more damage for being the team's shield. Getting to look like the hero, but still being useful on your own.
The big guy has finally found his place back onto the Rift, able to provide crowd control to your team, quickly clear the jungle, absorb all big damage abilities for your squishy allies, and cause quite a disruption in teamfights. Maokai adds an overwhelming amount of value to a team composition, being able to be picked or banned nearly every game on the pro level while simultaneously winning well over half of his games played. This really shows that he is a force that cannot be ignored. While the pros make most champions look easy, Maokai himself won’t be too hard to pick up for most jungle mains since he has a simple kit and is just generally useful. You really cannot go wrong so long as you keep up in levels, and only fight when you have a carry behind you.
