How to win the jungle race as Locke against Maokai · Matchup data reviewed on patch 26.15
Read from Locke's seat: the race windows this plan plays for against Maokai.
| Stage | Read | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 Clear | Locke Favoured | Q nail volleys clear camps at range while banking marks for the first scuttle fight. Maokai can make it awkward — Twisted Advance's untargetable root locks you down for the counter-trade — but not before either of you has a second camp down. Trade, then walk away with a camp and a chunk of their health bar. |
| Level 2 Skirmish | Locke Favoured | The blink-auto mark consume chunks hard, but spending E in a duel spends the escape too. The margin is thin: Twisted Advance root trades keep skirmishes on their schedule, and one slow camp on your side hands the window straight back, so keep the trade short. His damage is front-loaded CC, not DPS — dodge saplings and out-trade after the root. |
| Level 3 Route | Locke Favoured | W's grey-health refund makes his short trades cheaper than they look — full clears cost him real HP. Bramble Smash knock-back plus the W root is a solid pick kit, not a stat-check, so this is an edge and not a blowout — take the level-3 river fight only with the HP and cooldown lead. |
| Levels 4-5 Macro | Locke Favoured — Take Duels | Through levels 4-5 you remain the stronger duelist — keep taking short, decisive trades vs Maokai, but only with the HP and cooldown lead. |
| Level 6 Breakpoint | Even Ult Window | Level six changes both of you at once: the Purgatory totem turns any low-HP skirmish into a chain of executes and blink resets, while Nature's Grasp roots the whole river. Flank around the root wave — it is slow and dodgeable from the side, and let the objective timer say when to commit. |
| First Item Spike | Lich Bane | Lich Bane turns every blink-consume into a Spellblade chunk on top of your Silver Stake missing-health scaling. This is your strongest duel window of the game — cash it on a pick, not a coin-flip. Maokai's first item mostly buys health and cooldowns — his spike is durability, not damage, and it arrives early. |
| 2+ Items Scaling | Respect Maokai Late — End Early | Late game you are a cleanup engine, not a frontliner: enter second, blink the marked kill, and chain E resets. Every sealed soul permanently raises the totem floor — your scaling is the seal count. |
Start Red with a leash and Q the camp from max nail range — W’s grey-health refund keeps the clear honest, but full clears cost real HP, so path toward a healthy scuttle, not a fight. Maokai clears comfortably with Sap Magic sustain and saplings, and he is close to full health at every crossing.
Ranked by the race windows in Locke's plans — the jungle race carries no win-rate sample.
The full Locke vs Maokai report continues with scuttle & dragon rules, invade windows and safety boundaries, the top-side objective fight, macro rotations and the win condition — plus the live enemy-jungle tracker that shows their start, clear and gank timers in game.
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Locke's race plan controls 4 of the 7 windows — Locke holds the tempo advantage in this jungle matchup.
Not exactly — Locke's race plan controls 4 of the 7 windows, so Maokai is playing catch-up and has to lean on the map.
Playing the other side? Maokai vs Locke guide →
All Locke jungle matchups →
More Locke jungle matchups: vs Kindred · vs Lee Sin · vs Lillia · vs Master Yi · vs Morgana · vs Naafiri