Need advice : how do you counter champions like Maokai, Galio and Tahm Kench in top lane?

Frontline Fury·Oct 13, 2017·2 votes·2,220 views

Over all my years of league i've never been able to find a reliable way to endure laning against these champions. They just seem to outdamage every other champion in the game while building so many defensive items they can easily tank the entirety of your team for 10+ seconds. How can you deal with them? Are there ANY champions that can do well against them during laning phase? I know how to deal with nearly every other champion in the game (except mordekaiser, out of respect for malicious metal.)

11 Comments

Jesus Is My KingOct 13, 20172 votes

yeah, get a champion that does true damage. but... idk. maokai just heals... so good luck

Nanuk PihoqahiakOct 13, 20172 votes

Darius, Irelia, and Fiora do well into these matchups as they bully hard and dish out true damage. Make sure to build a bit of magic resistance to deal with their percent damage abilities.

Frontline FuryOct 13, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Angus The Bear,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=naArNaAl,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-10-13T07:18:18.472+0000)

Darius, Irelia, and Fiora do well into these matchups as they bully hard and dish out true damage. Make sure to build a bit of magic resistance to deal with their percent damage abilities.

That's sort of the trick - its the same as with Jax.

You think you need magic resist when in reality, he deals a lot more physical damage than magic damage.

Maokai straight up counters Darius. The ONLY way for Maokai to lose a lane (or even just a trade) with Darius is if Maokai himself messes up. And you cant really rely on your opponent making mistakes to survive your lane.

Maokai's overloaded Q provides him everything he needs to deal with champions like Darius and Irelia. Extreme base damage, low mana cost, very low cooldown and a ridiculous knockback with a slow added on top - one spell and you ruin every single melee champion in the entire game.

The true damage is too unreliable to be used effectively against him - theoretically Fiora and Camille are Maokai counters, but in reality he'll burst them down long before they pull off their full combo on him.

item 3076 This item has removed the little counterplay Maokai had in the past.

BobaFlautistOct 13, 20172 votes

Olaf can bully most tanks, though he won't win teamfights against them if he doesn't get a big lead.

Trundle is similar but his ult makes him more effective against a tank in teamfights.

A well played Vlad is immune to tanks - even if they stand mr, they just won't have the damage for him to care. Akali is a little similar.

I'm pretty sure Morde can just annihilate tanks - the downside being he doesn't have the tools to deal with being camped, but even then he can kinda hide and farm and rely on scaling.

Daddy BraumOct 13, 20171 votes

Fiora for the % max hp true damage

KaìjuOct 13, 20171 votes

I've played a lot of Maokai in my time, mostly back in season five or six. His biggest thing especially now, is that he want a to take spells to the face. If you play someone top who's auto attack based in damage you can do much better since autos don't give him his passive. Champions that don't demand spells to do damage, or that also have good sustain. A few examples would be Garen, Aatrox if he wasn't garbage, Irelia, Fiora, and some others. You don't want champs like Riven who just spam spells for a combo. Darius could also probably be okay too since his passive doesn't proc the heal time reduction. Also early Executioners cucks him. If you can get it first back as Darius you should be fine. Galio and Kench I honestly have no idea since I don't play against them. But if you want Taric top is fun for a meme in normals.

Frontline FuryOct 13, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I've played a lot of Maokai in my time, mostly back in season five or six. His biggest thing especially now, is that he want a to take spells to the face. If you play someone top who's auto attack based in damage you can do much better since autos don't give him his passive. Champions that don't demand spells to do damage, or that also have good sustain. A few examples would be Garen, Aatrox if he wasn't garbage, Irelia, Fiora, and some others. You don't want champs like Riven who just spam spells for a combo. Darius could also probably be okay too since his passive doesn't proc the heal time reduction. Also early Executioners cucks him. If you can get it first back as Darius you should be fine. Galio and Kench I honestly have no idea since I don't play against them. But if you want Taric top is fun for a meme in normals.

That's kind of what you'd think - auto attacks for an anti mage, right?

Wrong. Maokai's extremely low cooldown on Q, coupled with INSANE base damage, a strong slow and a ridiculous knockback means he automatically wins every trade you attempt with him. He can easily bully you out of lane after level 3 as even if you play a champion with strong sustain he will easily waveclear your minions while attacking you AT THE SAME TIME.

I havent found any basic attackers that can deal with him. The knockback prevents you from sticking to him while also chunking him massively, and if you do play a champion with high sustain you will no longer be able to even attack him once he buys item 3076 .

The only champions that can come close to even against him is Fiora, followed by Irelia and Trundle - and even these struggle extremely hard to even just stay in lane against Maokai. Couple the fact Maokai will easily poke you down while denying you farm in the early game (given his very low mana cost on Q and high mana regen) and suddenly you're starved for gold.

Maokai's Q and W are both excellent counters to Darius. And since Maokai only needs to build health and armor - his usual schtick - Darius will only struggle MORE the longer this lane drags on, not LESS like what is usual for champions centered around early game and their level 6 power spikes.

As a melee champion you have to build several items at once against him - you need attack damage, armor pen, life steal, magic resist against his spells and armor against his basic attacks which seem to deal way more damage than they should.

Meanwhile, Maokai typically just needs to build one or two items. Typically bami's cinder and glacial shroud.

He's basically doing the exact same thing as Cho'gath and Gragas - except he does it better, with much less counterplay.

Ironically i've seen Swain have the best success against him, due to his mana refund on passive. He cant win the lane, but he can at least stay somewhat even due to his long ranges and low cooldowns.

Otherwise i've yet to find a reliable matchup here. Maokai just seems to outtrade nearly every other champion in the game, even ranged champions.

KaìjuOct 13, 20171 votes

Aatrox and rush Spirit Visage?

Frontline FuryOct 13, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Aatrox and rush Spirit Visage?

https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/amYEEE2_700b.jpg

Not only do you deal unnoticeable damage, you also heal much slower than Maokai damages you.

Not to mention his basic attacks will deal so much physical damage you'll even lose basic attack duels against him.

KaìjuOct 13, 20171 votes

Huh. I don't remember Aatrox being so bad. I did good last I played him but I also don't remember when that was so maybe I was just on more shit than usual.

DauthiSlayerOct 13, 20171 votes

You can pick a tank yourself, Nautilus is ok into them, eventually losing to Maokai, but, he can lane quite well against him and the other two. Poppy should be fine, Olaf is fine Shyvana is rough early but, she scales out of it, Vi believe it or not is good into Maokai top. Renekton usually just gets cucked by Maokai, but given the opportunity he can burst out Mao early in the game, usually Mao wont take the chance and just focus cucking out renekton. Diana does well against them, haven't done the top Diana into Maokai, or Top Mao into Diana in ages though, so, her new passive may not be very good against Maokai, as opposed to her old flat 20% attack speed passive. Eventually Trundle or Olaf towards late game, just won't care what Mao does and will literally walk up to a tower that Mao is defending the proceeed to take the tower...... with Maokai beating on them to no avail.