Maokai. Why isn't he picked again?

It is because full tanks tend to be weak currently because they just get shredded. Some can survive like malphite because their engage is strong enough to make up for this. Other like mao, whom only have single target lockdown, long cds, weaker engage, and got a good number of ult nerfs, just can't keep up. Also with the abundance of AOE in Runaans and the current selection of mages, clumping (Which mao relies on) just isn't as good. He is a supporting member of a deathball, and deathball tactics are weak right now.

gnar also full tanks are just too weak at the moment

Maokai requires your team to be grouped together and fighting 5v5 to reach his maximum potential. His ult was nerfed so he's less effective in that role than he used to be. TP got nerfed so he's not able to as effectively tp for assistance like he used to. Primarily I would say it's because you don't need to be grouped up to win in professional play right now. Controlled victories are more about having pressure in several lanes, forcing your opponents to make quick decisions where they will end up losing towers and map control if they don't make the right decision and sucessfully execute on it. The most effective champions are ones like gnar and rumble who are able to win lane, split push, and be a game changer in team fights.

Maokai can win you a teamfight, but it basically always requires the use of a TP and oftentimes flash to get him into one. TP is necessary but not very good right now. If you do TP it's very possible you could lose the top turret and have nothing to show for it since TP is so bad and gives so much response time to oppponents. Losing first turret is more costly now so unless you get a bunch of kills and a good dragon you'll almost certainly lose more than you gain.

IDK he's not used for a lot of reasons and that's BEFORE even starting with how good AD itemization is for tank busting right now. I'm sure he'll see play again, possibly without even seeing buffs, but I can definitely see why teams could shy away from using the tank of tanks in the current meta.

He does poorly vs ranged and his initiation is really short ranged.

So why is Maokai bad right now....?