Maokai Support Wild Rift Guide

Overview

Maokai fills the Dragon lane with saplings the enemy has to play around. He lobs saplings that explode and slow, dashes in to root a target on command, and heals whenever spells are cast near him, so a fight he starts keeps refilling his health bar. His ultimate rolls a wall of vines across the river and snares everyone it touches, which makes him an engage support who threatens picks from a long way off. In the 2v2 he is a walking root with a health bar nobody can burn through. Sapling chip wears the enemy duo down and reveals brush before flanks arrive, and the moment your jungler shows or your ADC is ready, you Twisted Advance onto the carry, root them, and let your partner kill a target that cannot leave. He is durable enough to dive first and sticky enough that the dive lands. The catch is range and timing. His root is a short dash, so a missed Twisted Advance leaves him standing in the enemy duo with only saplings, and a disengage tool or cleanse breaks his whole all-in. Everything good he does starts with walking into a fight and landing the snare.

Build Snapshot

Rune Setup

Summoner Spells

Maokai Support Counters

Who counters Maokai Support in Wild Rift (WR)? These champions beat Maokai in the support matchup, with how each one wins. Learn to play around them or ban them in ranked.

• Morgana: Black Shield eats your root and leaves you standing in the enemy duo having done nothing, and her binding can catch you mid-commit on the way in.
• Milio: His cleanse pops your root off the target the moment it lands, which deletes the whole point of your dash, and his speed-ups pull his carry out of your kill window.
• Lux: Lux pokes and bursts from outside your dash range, and her binding catches you the moment you try to close, turning your engage attempt into a death sentence.
• Galio: His magic bulk shrugs off your sapling chip, his shield eats the root trade, and his taunt flips the all-in you start into a fight his team wanted.
• Braum: Braum answers each part of your kit: Unbreakable blocks the sapling poke, his flip knocks your dive off the carry you rooted, and his passive stun wins the melee trades.

Champions Maokai Is Strong Against

Maokai's best matchups in Wild Rift. Maokai holds an edge against these picks in the support role, so look to press the advantage and contest objectives.

• Nami: Nami wants to bubble and heal from the back line, and your root pins her before any of it matters, since she has no escape and nothing to disengage your dive.
• Soraka: Her heals hold the lane together right up until you root her, and a rooted Soraka cannot kite, escape, or save anyone, herself included.
• Veigar: His cage is the only thing keeping you off him, and Twisted Advance is untargetable on the way in and a root on arrival, leaving a squishy scaling mage with no escape.
• Pyke: You are the worst target for his pick game: too tanky to execute, your saplings reveal the fog his ambushes need, and every dash he shows eats a point and click root.

Maokai Support Synergies

The best duo partners for Maokai in the Wild Rift support role. The Dragon lane is a 2v2, so queue with one of these picks to make the lane and the mid game much easier.

• Miss Fortune: Your root and Nature's Grasp hold the clump that Bullet Time erases, and saplings zone the flanks so she channels in peace.
• Twitch: You frontline the chaos his ambushes create: root the counter-engage, zone with saplings, and let Spray and Pray shred through the fight you anchor.
• Kog'Maw: You are the tree he hides behind: roots peel divers, your ult walls off the backline, and he out-ranges everything your zone control holds at bay.

Early Game

Drop saplings in the brush the enemy wants to walk through and on the wave when it lines up with their carry, so every approach costs them health. Hold Twisted Advance until the root actually buys something: your jungler arriving, your ADC ready to commit, or the enemy support out of position, because a root with no follow-up is just you walking into their duo alone. Your passive keeps you healthy through poke trades, so you can sit forward and bully more than most engage supports, but respect the matchups that punish your dash the instant it lands. Crash the wave and pressure dragon vision once your support item pays out.

Mid Game

Mid game your ultimate covers a huge area. The vine wall reaches across the river, so before any dragon or herald contest you can roll it through a choke and root the enemy duo or jungler before the fight starts. Roam with it too: a snare from fog onto a wandering mid or a face-checking jungler is a free pick, and your tankiness means you survive the trip even when the gank goes wrong. Keep saplings in the objective brush so nothing flanks your team unseen, and ward the pit early so Twisted Advance has a target the moment someone steps up. In grouped skirmishes you decide where the fight starts by deciding who gets rooted first.

Late Game

Late game you are the lockdown that opens every fight and the body that refuses to die in it. The creeping ultimate starts fights and zones at the same time: rolled through a choke it splits their team, and saved for the engage it snares whoever leads. Around Baron and dragon, set the trap, root the first target your team can collapse on, then fall back to peel for your carry once the burst goes out. You bring almost no damage, so your value is the snare and the frontline, which means staying alive matters more than any chase. An alive Maokai keeps applying crowd control; a dead one gave one engage and nothing more.

Teamfights

Start the fight or split it. The best opening is the vine wall rolling into a clustered team and rooting two or more while your side collapses, but the wall is just as useful rolled sideways to cut their backline off from the fight. After the engage, switch jobs: Twisted Advance becomes peel for the diver on your carry, and your body stands between your ADC and everything that wants them. Keep saplings in the chokes so flanks show up before they arrive. You will not top the damage chart and should not try; the fight you win is the one where the snare hit the right target and your carry survived.