Maokai
Maokai is a 5-cost melee unit with 9 copies in the shared pool. 4.06 average placement across 2.2M ranked games, ranking 8 of 10 among 5-costs.
Old Growth 
Juggernaut Passive: After every damage blocked, a sapling jumps towards a nearby enemy and deals magic damage. On death, saplings jump out. Active: Deal magic damage to target and restore + missing Health.
Best items for Maokai
These are the builds recorded on boards that played Maokai this patch, ordered by how often they appear. The first row is the default; the rest are what people build when the components didn't cooperate.
| Build | In comp | Avg place | Games |
|---|---|---|---|
   | Inferno Elder Dragon | 3.27 | 7.3k |
| | Elderwood Draven | 3.48 | 3.8k |
| | Juggernaut Sivir | 3.52 | 1.0k |
| | Juggernaut Amumu | 3.17 | 530 |
| | Lunar Aphelios | 3.53 | 186 |
Note what the table does not say: that you should hold components waiting for the top row. A two-item Maokai on the board at 4-1 beats a perfect one at 5-2 in almost every game you'll play — the reasoning is in the chapter on slamming.
Building Maokai mid-game? The in-game TFT helper shows how many copies are left in the pool under the shop and grades each augment for the comp you're on, without leaving the game.
Stats by star level
Health and attack damage roughly multiply by 1.8 per star, which is the whole reason a 3★ 1-cost can hold a board that a 1★ 4-cost cannot. Armour, magic resist and range never change with stars.
| Star | Health | Attack damage | Armour | MR | Attack speed | Range | Mana |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ★ | 1150 | 80 | 60 | 60 | 0.65 | 1 | 30/100 |
| ★★ | 2070 | 144 | 60 | 60 | 0.65 | 1 | 30/100 |
| ★★★ | 3726 | 259 | 60 | 60 | 0.65 | 1 | 30/100 |
The mana column is start/cost: Maokai begins each fight with 30 mana and casts at 100. That gap is what a Tear closes, and it's why the same item is transformative on one unit and wasted on another — see how mana works.
Comps playing Maokai
Ranked by the comp's own average placement. A Maokai marked as a carry is one the comp builds items on.
Other 5-costs
Where these numbers come from. Placements, win rates and pick rates are aggregated from ranked Teamfight Tactics games — the same dataset the NoxuTFT desktop app reads, refreshed every six hours. Champion costs, traits, item recipes and trait breakpoints are game data from Riot. Tier letters are relative to this set: S is the top 10% by average placement, not an absolute threshold, and champions are ranked inside their cost bracket because a 5-cost's average only looks good for having been reached from a winning position. NoxuTFT is not affiliated with Riot Games.