Talk:Maokai/@comment-6950133-20130610165950/@comment-6109369-20130716010001

Everyone in this thread is right about Maokai mid. There are two different playstyles: the first is a passive farming and pushing playstyle using E and the occasional Q to clear waves, while relying on Maokai's tankiness and sustain to avoid getting too damaged by your opponent while you do this. This pushes the lane to your opponent's tower and denies them farm (they can't get gold from your death either, since Maokai is naturally hard to kill), and you aid your jungler's ganks with W + Q. This is the playstyle similar to Galio mid.

The more aggressive playstyle is an all-in, similar to the pattern of jungle Maokai's ganks. Try to poke them down, then jump on them with W. The lengthy disable from W + Q locks them down so you can get the full sapling damage, impact and detonation. However the damage will be much higher than a jungle Maokai gank, because you have AP and you're maxing E (which scales the highest in terms of damage) so a kill is much more likely.