I normally play tanks in top lane 
. I have never really played against an Illaoi, or at least do not remember having this much trouble laning against one.
I was playing as Mao and she completely bullied me out of lane constantly. What can I do as a tank to stop her from taking complete control of the lane? Which champs do you play when you know you are facing an Illaoi? What lane tactics work best against her?
a lane vs 
is hard if she knows how to play. things you need to be prepared:
-avoid letting her getting your soul by standint begind minions (like playing against a 
)
-you have more chance to win your lane is you play poke champs and ranged ones, for exemple:
-
-or you can play champs to fight with her, stuch as:
-
-or, if you simply want to play your main and carry the game that way, pick a champ you like and are good with, and dont try to force a fight you know you are going to lose. trade well and avoid the skill shots, that way she loses the "ALL IN POTENTIAL"
also, keep in mind i dont main top lane, but this are my recomentadions. good luck ;)
Well as a Level 6 (almost 7) Illaoi main:
If I KNOW I'm going against an Illaoi, I'd pick a ranged top in the first place. She is incredibly weak to kiting and relies on her zoning pressure with her tentacles, which ranged AAs can easily kill. Quinn is a good example here.
She's incredibly weak pre-6 as long as you respect her zone and don't just chase her into a place full of tentacles. Early ganks/camping pressure should help a good bit here. After 6, a duo gank is probably one of the worst possible ideas unless she has almost no mana, because otherwise, it's fairly easy for her to kill one or both of you.
Her Q hitbox is a bit larger than the indicator, so be careful of that. Focus on just CSing and continually kiting. Pushing her to tower and denying her from setting up her tentacles is another good tactic, as long as you're watchful for the enemy jungler.
If you're really confident, you can try to bait out her E, or otherwise just stand behind minions to use them as a flesh wall to bodyblock the E.
If she ults, immediately drop everything and leave. Just leave. She will not ult unless she has either pulled your Spirit out and can hit both you and the Spirit, or unless other members of your team are also there as more targets. Just drop everything and leave. The initial ult only spawns tentacles, and the W is what makes them all smash afterwards. For a duration after she ults, her W will be on a two second cooldown. Just back off and get out of the tentacle pit. That is the most important thing.
If she rips out your Spirit and you're ranged, don't try to run away. If you break the tether, it will slow you and trigger the debuff. Focus on kiting her instead from a good range, because that will be a harassment towards her as well as reducing the duration of the ability.
Hope that could help.
She counters Maokai pretty hard. Volibear is actually a very effective pick against her, but I think Cho'Gath could also work with his eternal silence (I haven't actually played against a Cho'Gath yet).
Uhm, good picks are people who can bully her safely and shut down her strengths. So ranged champions who can kill her tentacles (Quinn, Teemo, Kennen), Juggernauts who can outtrade her (Darius, Volibear), champions who benefit from her tentacles (Nasus), or champions who can disperse her spirit pretty quickly (Cassiopeaia, Rumble, also Nasus).
If she misses her E you can fight her safely for a bit. You really need to dodge any poke-tentacles that come your way and kill the ones on the walls whenever you can.
Don't run straight into and give her a free E unless you're Volibear. In that case, just flip her away so she can't make any use of your spirit.
Tell your jungler to gank when she's low on mana, or Health, or just missed her E. Walk out of her ult should she mis-engage and then re-engage when its effect is over.
A lot of times you'll be able to burst her before she can even set up her ult, so don't be too afraid of her.
ATM, 
seems to be one of the best, if not he best pick against Illaoi. Ranged attacks allow you to bully her and take down her tantakus easily, blind ruins her hard as she depends on basic attacks, move quick allows to easily dodge her stuff, and if she pulls out your soul you can shroom under it to hit her back really hard. Moreover, she has 0 disengage, so you can often kill her easily with ghost.
Very few champions can fight her head-on. When playing her I've had most problems with extremely mobile champions like Fiora, Yas or Riven - they can dodge your pull and slam with ease then punish you while it's on cooldown. Also champions with good poke and preferably some safety - Teemo, Quinn and Kennen, maybe Swain.
you win by not feeding her. Even if she doublesyour cs, if your team aren't idiots(which is the difficult part) she will fall of hard post laneing while you scale well into teamfights.
The exption for your champs is boli, as he's also focused on winning lane and falls of later. However, he has enough earlygame power to all in her if she misses her E, just try to fight away from tentakles and sidestep her Q if possible. Though if she's good, she will just pushyou in as voli and only fish with her E if she has a big enough minion wave to win trades even if she misses it.
Hi mobility works great. I was able to 1v1 an Illaoi as Zac by waiting for her ult using my ult and then LEAVING quickly. She burned a tin of mana trying to hit me as I walked around her and once her ult was done I just went right back in and out mobilitied her. If she blows everything and you leave quickly she will become very weak immediately after.
rush 
, dodge Q, all in when she OOM. usually works for me.
Play 
and stack the tentacles. Lifesteal to stay in lane. Probably would have a good matchup verse her as well.
When she misses her E, dive in because you can safely disengage after trading without her using her I don't wanna lose button.
Take out tentacles whenever she moves away from them.
When fighting her, try and bait her to areas where she doesn't have tentacles, especially after she uses her ult.
For me, I consider Illaoi to be a lot like Darius. The same general rules apply. You lose in melee range with almost every champion. Farm under tower if you can't trade off. Ranged attacks are good for harassing if you can avoid getting caught. Dangerous in teamfights if allowed to get enough gold.
