Malphite or Maokai?

I'm not gonna be like the guy who wrote a whole freakin paragraph but I do agree you should get malphite because maokai has been getting some pretty hard nerfs later due to his opness (hehe it sounds like i just said penis)

The Rock says know your damn role.

Is just my freelo, never played mao, but I bet I can beat him with this rock.

Get both, they are meant to deal with different situations

Currently, Maokai is stronger. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant.

That said, play which one is more fun - both are good.

Plus, I think that there's a good chance that more nerfs will be coming Maokai's way.

Yeah, they are actually surprisingly different.

Maokai is pretty good top, but he has been getting hit with a TON of nerfs lately, and if you saw him in worlds, that was before most of them. He has good sustain in lane with his passive, and plays very passive until when you can get a catalyst, after that point your lane opponent will have a very hard time shoving you out of lane if you haven't died yet. Moakai is great for utility with a bit of damage, and team fights very well because of his ult's AOE damage reduction, which makes him and his whole team very tanky. In jungle he is fairly weak right now, his banks are very strong and he scales well with SotAG, but his first clear is really painful and he usually cannot stay out for very long until he gets a quill coat. Otherwise, in the jungle, if you get off ganks and build tanky then you scale about as hard as in top lane.

Malphite is actually very strong right now, (Stronger than Maokai, imo) and is better at the jungle than Maokai. In top lane, you have decent sustain because of his passive shield, but if your opponent knows Malphite's kit reasonably well, they will try to poke you frequently to keep it from regenerating. Malphite is very good at countering ADCs; he scales off of armor on two abilities and also has an attack speed slow. He can reliably get to the back line with his ult and then use his surprising burst to force the enemy ADC to completely leave the fight. If you build a bit of AP early, then you can actually become really effective as an assassin in the early-mid game, before turning into an initiator tank. In jungle, you have better sustain than Maokai, and your ganks are good. Once you get your ult his ganks are UNREAL and can usually burst somebody while CC chaining them to death.

In teamfights, they have different jobs Maokai is a tanky front liner who helps his team survive. He excels in longer fights where he can soak a ton of damage. He is more of a pure tank. Malphite is a burst tank that initiates and tries to force the carries out of the fight. After he unloads his main spells, he is kind of low impact in most fights, but dale a lot of AOE damage. Malphite is a bit more burst/bruiser focused rather than a true tank, unless built pure tank.

Malphite just for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIGi-lXO3g8

Both are fantastic champions. You can't go wrong either way. I voted for Maokai mostly because you don't see him much and that can be a good thing. If you can play a less familiar champion well, you can have an advantage from your opponent not knowing how to handle you.