Renekton vs Maokai — Top Lane Matchup Guide

How to win lane as Renekton against Maokai · 49.31% win rate over 947 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27

Verdict: Maokai is favoured — Maokai owns 5 of the 7 game windows to Renekton's 1. Play it patient and win your windows. Renekton wins 49.31% of games vs Maokai in top lane (947 Emerald+ games analysed).

Favour timeline — who owns each window

StageFavouredWhy
Level 1RenektonNo Twisted Advance at Level 1 — his lock-on root is offline and his passive sustain hasn't stacked, so your auto-trades go unanswered.
Level 2MaokaiTwisted Advance online: his lock-on W root reaches you through your E dash, reversing your burst pattern and letting him root you inside a sapling field.
Level 3MaokaiFull kit online but Maokai's Twisted Advance cooldown is short enough to chain roots across multiple abilities — his Q knockback after a W root keeps you off him.
Levels 4-5MaokaiTwisted Advance cycling every 13 seconds means he can root you twice in a standard engagement window, turning each extended trade into a sustained drain he wins.
Level 6MaokaiNature's Grasp ult roots you in place mid-Dominus — he negates your HP buffer by locking you down for a full Q follow-up while saplings chunk for free.
First itemMaokaiHeartsteel first item turns his passive sustain into percent-max-HP scaling — your flat burst from Sundered Sky no longer races ahead of his regeneration in a long trade.
Two+ itemsEven / skillAt two-plus items neither of you wins a clean solo all-in — his tank scaling outpaces your burst but your E mobility keeps you relevant on the map where he cannot follow.

Early game (levels 1–5)

Level 1 is yours — Maokai has no mobility tool yet and his passive sustain hasn't accumulated stacks, so auto-trade freely and build the health lead you'll lean on. The moment he hits Level 2 and Twisted Advance comes online, everything changes: his W is a lock-on root through your dash, meaning he can interrupt your E-W combo mid-flight and root you inside his sapling field. Play Level 1 aggressively to max value, then respect the W the instant it's available — if you E in and he fires W, your entire burst sequence becomes his trade, not yours.

Read the rest of this matchup

The full Renekton vs Maokai report continues with the mid-game plan, the late-game and teamfight plan, every power spike to play around, and the win conditions for both sides — plus cooldown tracking and the live enemy-jungle tracker inside the app.

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