How to win lane as Sion against Maokai · 51.31% win rate over 1,144 Emerald+ games · Updated 2026-07-27
| Stage | Favoured | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Even / skill | Both of you arrive at level 1 with one ability — neither has a clear advantage without landing a skillshot first. Charged Q in the open is telegraph-able and his Q knockback can interrupt it. |
| Level 2 | Maokai | His W root (Twisted Advance) locks on and cannot be dodged once activated — at level 2 it pins you inside saplings before your W-shield habit is reliable, giving him the short-trade advantage. |
| Level 3 | Maokai | With all three basic abilities online, Maokai can root you, reposition with saplings, and knock you back out of melee whenever you try to hold a charge — he dictates every trade direction. |
| Levels 4-5 | Maokai | The sapling zone control and knockback spam make charging Q nearly impossible without fog or a brush angle — Maokai comfortably out-pokes you from a distance with passive regen recovering any damage you deal. |
| Level 6 | Maokai | His R (Nature's Grasp) adds a lane-width root wave on top of his existing lockdown toolkit; engaging into that root wave mid-charge Q is a death sentence at this stage. |
| First item | Maokai | His sapling AP sustain, root, and knock-back have been consistent all game and his item spike keeps that trade pattern intact — your Heartsteel HP is growing but not yet dominant enough to brawl through it. |
| Two+ items | Even / skill | At full HP stacking your W-shield absorbs most of a sapling burst and your zombie passive still costs him HP after the kill — both of you are equally dangerous in a sustained brawl, returning this to a genuine skill matchup. |
Levels 1-3 are Maokai's window — his W root locks you in place before you have the feel for W-shield timing, and a rooted Sion standing inside three saplings takes a brutal burst of AP damage. The key habit here is pre-charging your Q from brush or fog-of-war so you arrive at close range with the stun already loaded; do NOT start a charge in the open or his Q knockback (Bramble Smash) will punt you out of it the moment the animation appears. If you get rooted, throw up W immediately to eat the sapling hits, then detonate it for return damage — you will not out-damage him without it.
The full Sion 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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Playing the other side? Maokai vs Sion guide →
All Sion top lane matchups →