League of Legends Maokai Nexus Blitz Comprehensive Guide

by Blueexx2

Today I’m gonna be teaching you about the easiest, most broken champion in NB, Maokai. I’ve played like 150 games of Nexus Blitz as Maokai alone. The overwhelming majority of them I have highest damage + lowest deaths. Let’s start

General Info:

You can play Maokai in both roles but I prefer jungle. You max E first (the saplings), followed by W (your root), then your Q (your push). Your runes are Dark Harvest, Cheap Shot, Eyeball Collection, Ultimate Hunter, PRESENCE OF MIND, Coup de Grace, 10%CDR, 10Adaptive, 90Health. Of all of these, Presence of Mind is the most important and should you want to experiment, never take it out. Let’s explain every rune:

Dark Harvest: while Liandry no longer procs DH, Maokai has another form of damage-over-time that still does: his empowered saplings. It is possible to hit someone with a sapling, take them to below 50% with 2 ticks, then proc DH with the third tick. Overall its just very good but its also necessary since we just wanna be in this tree.

Cheap Shot: you deal true damage when you damage someone that is already movement-impaired. Guess what? Your empowered saplings have 3 ticks AND slow, so they movement-impair on the first tick then deal the true damage on the second tick.

Eyeball Collection: 30 free AP. Sure, your E has shit AP scaling but it still helps a lot with the scaling on your other abilities (especially your ult which will erase every minion it touches).

Ultimate Hunter: this + Presence of Mind means your game-changing ultimate is a basic ability.

PRESENCE OF MIND: the cream de la cream (I don’t know what its called). This is the bread, the butter, the toaster, the plastic packaging, the knife, the grain itself, the grocery store you bought it from and the farmer who picked the wheat. Never remove

Coup de Grace: I mean the other options are useless since you’re gonna be tankier than the enemies while also never falling low. Even if this rune was blank, the other 2 options are a waste.

Jungle Clear:

Start E, go over the herald pit and throw 1 sapling into enemy wolf brush to assert dominance then leave (you get nothing from throwing a sapling into your brush this early, it will time-out) .Start your own wolves, pull them to lower brush and get the big wolf low, then auto one raptor to pull them. The big wolf explodes, killing all wolves and barely leaving the raptors with health. Quickly put a point in Q and use it to kill all the raptors, then smite the big one. Go do gromp, then you can either gank or do the bot gromp.

Why you win every event:

Prize Fights: it is possible to stuff the enemy bush with like 3 empowered saplings before the start. Unlike Teemo shrooms which you can avoid/destroy, the saplings are unkillable and chase you. You can continue throwing saplings in enemy bush during your own round as well (assuming its not the final). You can also time your ult such that it kills the enemies in your round and reaches the enemies of the following round.

Urf Deathmatch: this is your most broken state. I’ve never gotten less than a Quadra as Maokai. You just throw saplings every 2 seconds and ult every 15. You’ll reach the On Fire buff and start spamming saplings. If someone wants to reach you, they’ll have to go through your team, your ult, and your saplings. Oh they reached you? Don’t worry, you’re unkillable because you can spam W and be perma-untargettable.

Loot Veigar/Teemo: where do I start. Your ult causes the enemy team to run away from the objective, and Liandry lets you melt it. Not only that but as Maokai, you can chase Veigar through his prison with your W and avoid getting stunned, but for Teemo on the other hand there is no way to avoid his laugh, which is arguably worse than Veigar’s prison.

Scuttle Racing: your Q pushes the scuttle in the opposite direction, and your W stops it. Your ult also causes the enemies to run from their scuttle. Also since you run Dark Harvest, YOU CAN FARM DARK HARVEST STACKS FROM THE SCUTTLE. You can proc Dark Harvest on the scuttle, then it regenerates, then you do it again.

Bardle Royale: your ult causes the enemies to get stuck in the fire if they’re on the edge, and you can start filling the middle of the circle with empowered Saplings.

King of the Hill: just fill the circle with saplings and ult to get the enemies away from it. The circle will always be next to a brush.

Push the Cart: again, ult to get the enemies away and throw saplings near brushes.

Items:

Runic Echoes > Liandry > boots upgrade > tank items that give health (Deadman’s, Warmogs, Spirit Visage, Randuins, etc)

Your starters are the 450 gold jungle item and a potion. You recall at 1200 gold to buy a Fiendish Codex and boots (or 900 just for the Codex). Finish the Runic Echoes then start building Liandry’s.

When buying items, build the health components first. The whole idea of this Maokai build is to deal the most amount of damage while also dying the least amount of times. Your saplings live a lot longer from every tiny health item you build (just a Ruby Crystal increases the sapling’s lifespan by 4 seconds), so when buying something like a Deadman’s, go for the Giant’s Belt first.

Good luck and have fun! While you can’t earn Mastery Tokens in Blitz, you can still earn Mastery Chests!