As someone who personally like Maokai I think this skin has a lot of potential to be a really good skin, like better than victorious sivir and morgana. Also its a free skin so who gives a fuck. Just take the skin and enjoy it, just because Maokai isn't meta now doesn't mean he will never be again. He was super strong all of season 5 and a bit of season 6.
Welcome to every year, where people complain about the champion who got the victorious skin. It happens every time without fail. Granted more folks are likely complaining this time considering Maokai's a relatively simple champion and a tank, which many folks are like "ew" towards, but this is consistent with just about every year. People just want their Viktors and Lucians to get the skin.
I'm with you Senpai; I'm excited for Victorious Maokai and I very much like playing Maokai.
The thing is, Viktor's been way more prominent, and Viktorious is a way better name for a skin than Victorious Maokai.
Congratulations, you are a Tank with Bond of Stone. Maokai, aside from his ultimate, is basically acting as bodyblock/a health bar buffer, like Soraka, only you can't burst him.
Viktor meanwhile can actually fight and has actually have a strong place in the meta, even after Riot nerfed the fuck out of him by delaying all of his damage. Or Gangplank has basically molded Top Lane around himself. Both of these champions have had way better performance in Pro Play and should be recognized for it.
Yeah, I'm salty because to feel rewarding the victorious skin should be something that is played a lot and viable. He's a boring champ, and even if I wanted to try him out I wouldn't be able to do much with him at the moment.
Also you're wrong, it's NOT a free skin, it's a reward for climbing the ladder and should make me feel more excited to do so in the future. At the moment I wonder why I even cared.
Because he is a tank, if he was a beautiful weaboo girl or a flashy champ no one will complain.
People always get this way when the skin is revealed. They were hoping it was something they actually play is usually the reason.
I have never before debated the skin choice of Riot's Victorious line EVEN though I do not play ANY of the champions who have received one I have loved them all up to this point.
Maokai is simply not a champion who DESERVES a Victorious Skin. Victorious skins are something to be obtained after a year's worth of trying to get into Gold+
A reward for your devotion to the game, something RELEVANT from the season which promotes the **quality **of League of Legends as a game.
Personally I do not want Riot to give this skin from a champion who requires ZERO skill, is not fun to play and has had an EXTREMELY minor(If ANY) impact on the meta of the season as a reward to represent the effort ** I** exerted to obtain MY rank this season.
I want a Champion who has been CONSISTANT all season, which REQUIRES some level of skill and which promotes in some way that I put an effort to get to obtain the rank required to receive a reward.
Should this not be a fluke I will most likely request Riot removes it from my account via support unless the skin is completely mind-blowingly awesome.[Yeah right]
And no I'm not promoting my own favorite champion 
to get a Victorious Skin but rather one who had some kind of impact on ALL levels of League ALL SEASON such as:
All of these champions have been RELEVANT, they have had a huge and/or consistent IMPACT and represent the player base with much more consistency than Maokai.
Most importantly I do not believe I could ever CARE for a Victorious Maokai skin. It's not something that I'm going to pull out of my Skin vault to show off EVER so why would I want it in the first place?
I'm not salty about the Victorious Maokai skin in itself. It's a free skin and it will give me an excuse to start playing him.
However in the past the Victorious Skin was always following the criteria that the champion picked was very popular and shaped the meta of the season, especially in Pro Play. How many Maokais do you see being played on average in your games. And in LCS currently/last split?
Hence the Maokai skin is a bit confusing because from my point of view it doesn't fit the criteria.
I also personally believe that there should be an actual midlaner with a Victorious Skin, as Morgana shouldn't really count. In the past it might have made sense but not anymore, and Riot shouldn't ignore this valuable bit of information.
Going back to the criteria for choosing the champion, this season champions like Rek'sai, Ekko, Viktor, Gnar, GP, Lucian/Jhin, even Graves, and probably many more, would have made much more sense.
Like I said I don't mind the skin being given to Maokai, I'm sure it will be a cool skin, it just honestly doesn't make much sense to pick Maokai over other champions.
i thin sivir was a very well deserving victorious skin last season, even if you didnt like it. I think maokai isnt a champion that deserved it over viktor, karma, graves etc. a mid laner would have been great considering there really is no mid laner. I was thinking azir last year
its not free T_T
Its not about Maokai not being good its about the skin relecting what was strong and influencal during the time which Maokai was not and there were much more deserving champions.
I think the problem is that Riot decides on the victorious skin and starts working on it really early in the season. Like before MSI in all likelihood.
So when the victorious skin is announced, odds are the champion that was selected is no longer remotely relevant. Maokai is sitting at a 2% play rate right now, and I don't believe he sees much pro play either. So when players are expecting a popular / played-a-lot-professionally champion to get the skin, they're always disappointed.
I agree that it should have been a top laner since the last time a top laner got a Victorious skin was season 1. However, I am incredibly confused by the Maokai choice. Gangplank in my mind was the perfect choice. He's been dominant since his rework in season 5 and was one of the most picked/banned champs in season 6 (despite being nerfed more than any other champion.) Gangplank also hasn't gotten an interesting skin in years. Sure he got the "Captain" skin in 2015 but overall its a pretty weak skin. Before that his last skin was Sultan Gangplank in 2013.
I'll never turn down a free skin but I feel like a lot of top lane champs deserved this skin a lot more than Maokai. Plus, now I'll have to choose whether I use Meowkai or Victorious Maokai whenever I play him. feelsbadman.
there are just so many champs more deserving. so many people have had their champs gutted because of lcs 
etc. the least riot could do is give one of them a skin to apologize. maokai was played very little and the only times he ever gets popular in normals is when he is just crazy strong and people pick him up to win. sivir, elise, and morg on the other had were played like crazy throughout their respective seasons at all lvls because they defined the metas of their seasons, so they really did deserve the skins. when maokai was popular everyone hated it because hes such a boring champ to watch and play for almost everyone except you. the pros played him simply because he won games. he was a ball of stats that they needed on their team. i mean have you ever played or seen 1 for all maokai? its the dumbest thing ever... and sums up maikai. you can't kill him, but you can't do anything else cause he just sticks to you FOREVER! so you end up losing at 40-60 min cause eventually they make their way to the nexus or you FF because its the most boring and futile thing in league of legends.
Viktor had been widely expected, so the surprise upset people.
It's not that people just outright hate Maokai, I think it's more that people are confused as to why he got it instead of someone more prominent who can make those #LC$BIGPLAYS. I personally think its a good skin, even though I won't be getting it since im bronze garbage, but that it really is going to be a confusing choice for most of the playerbase.
As someone who stays far from pro play, I think this is pretty interesting.
So, background: I've been playing League for 5 years, and I think a big reason I'm still here is that after S2 or 3 I stopped really giving much of a damn if I won or lost, so I didn't play Ranked. I'd rather stick with champs I enjoy than focus hard on counterpicking or current metas or that sort of thing. So I stick with normals.
Thus I've never seen a lot of the worst of the worst chat meltdowns or whatever (Not that Normals are free of those, because I think everyone knows they aren't), and I never really get that feeling of a super crushing loss or anything. It's really nice to win after a hard game, but I care more about how much I enjoyed the 40 minutes before the Nexus blows up than which color the Nexus that blew up is. I've always sorta been of the opinion that, so long as you aren't trolling or intentionally feeding or whatever, you should play what's going to make you enjoy the game most.
I think I played Ranked Teams with some RL friends in Season 4 or 5, and it was still mostly just a goofy affair. At least some people got LP out of it (hint: it was not us.)
Thus I know jackshit about competitive picks (Other revelations of today: VIKTOR IS GOOD NOW???? My precious stupid robot boy from S3 is all grown up.)
So pretty much all of my knowledge about Maokai and his status in competitive play came from...literally today and the topics posted about him. And I think it sounds like an odd choice, because apparently he's not popular right now, but he was huge six months ago or so. And, if the Victorious skin is meant to be about the whole season...isn't six months ago still part of that season? I'd guess it was geared more towards that if anything. And I think it makes sense if you look at it from that timeframe. Although my frame of reference is admittedly limited, I think it makes sense to pick someone from earlier on in the season, when people were just getting into it, over someone who just became super popular towards the very end.
Plus, a lot of the current popular champs are probably getting skins from this anyway, with those world champion skins they put out every year.
