Best Maokai Counters In League of Legends

Do you need help to lane against Maokai in League of Legends? Not to worry, here are the best champions to help you climb the LoL ladder.

Maokai is one of the oldest champions in League of Legends, and has donned many roles, with his most recent being in the Jungle and Support position in Season 14. Since his rework, Maokai has become a much more prominent champion both in solo queue and competitive play. The question is, how can you stop him? Don’t fear, ESTNN brings you the best three counters to Maokai in the Support position.

Braum

Braum is one of the better Support picks into Maokai on the current patch. Maokai isn’t particularly tanky early on, and will have to burn through mana to poke you down with his saplings. On top of that, your E will be able to block incoming attacks and his ultimate if you stand in front of your ADC. With Maokai being relatively squishy, you may be able to grab an early kill onto him if you can apply your passive. Depending on the match up, running ignite could be a viable option for getting an early kill if you have an adc that can all-in early.

Renata

Renata Glasc on patch 14.6 has the highest win-rate against Maokai Support according to Mobalytics. Handshake should be able to counteract whenever Maokai is looking to engage. Maokai’s W dashes to the chosen target, but he needs to be extremely close to the enemy champion in order to use this ability. So the key to annoying the hell out of Maokai in this lane is to use handshake to move him away whenever he is looking to come close to you. Even if Maokai does all-in you or the ADC, you have bailout, which gives you another lifeline if you or the ADC that bailout is on gets a kill. With Maokai being relatively squishy early on, bailout is a good ability to counter Maokai.

Taric

All though Maokai is great at engaging, Taric is an excellent champion to counter Maokai. Especially when Taric uses his ultimate as your ADC will become inulvernable and will be not take any damage for a short duration after Maokai has used his ultimate. On top of that, even if you or your ADC is taking damage from the saplings, Taric will be able to heal you both back up to full health. Taric also does a surprisingly decent amount of damage early on, so you can catch Maokai, who will be squishy early on, off-guard.

Worst Champions To Pick Into Maokai In League of Legends

Although Mages and Casters could burst down Maokai if he is caught, there are better options than this one. With Brand for example, if you miss your skillshots, you are prone to him engaging, which won’t be difficult for Maokai due to Brands low mobility. Essentially, any champion that does not have great defensive tools will have a tough time against Maokai. Even if Senna, for example, has ways of locking down a champion, she isn’t the fastest of champions and is easily killable if Maokai can get in range for engage.

Bard is also one of the worst champions you can pick into Maokai, and almost every time the Tree will have the advantage in this support match up. Bard is one of the squishier champions in the game, so whenever he walks up to you as Maokai you should be looking to engage onto him. If you have ignite or exhaust, it is almost a guaranteed kill even with his magical portal that you can go through. If you see Bard channelling his ultimate, just use yours in response, this will lock down any enemy champions coming towards you and give you time to adjust following the Bard ultimate.

Like the other two AP champions on this list, Karma also has one of the worst win-rates against Maokai on this patch. Maokai is great at locking enemy champions down, but could find it difficult if Karma is able to poke him down. The second she uses her ultimate, she is in a much more vulnerable state, so the key is to pay attention for when Karma goes for Mantra + Q or W and then engage. If you have Ashe on your team, Karma is as good as dead, Maokai’s W will root the enemy champion in place. If Karma flashes away with low HP, you can then use your ultimate to help your ADC clean up the kills.

Best Maokai Duos League of Legends

Here are the best champions to play with Maokai in League of Legends, according to Mobalytics. Please note this article will be updated as new patches are released. For more information on when a new League of Legends patch will be released, check out our patch schedule article here.

• Senna
• Seraphine
• Ziggs

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