Use your favourite features in-game with our Desktop AppElderwood is easy to understand at a basic level: activate the trait, place the plants, and let your forest fight for you.
Playing Elderwood well is a completely different story.
The strongest Elderwood players aren't simply chasing the highest breakpoint. They are manipulating plant targeting, timing, star levels, combat duration, positioning, and flexible trait webs to make the summoned units do as much work as possible.
This guide focuses exclusively on those advanced decisions.
Elderwood gives 3 kinds of plants.
At 3 Elderwood, it gives a Stonebark Tree and a Lifebloom.
They are both very ugly, but you can clearly tell the difference, the tree is.....a tree, and a huge one. Meanwhile, the lifebloom is a flower.
When the Stonebark Tree dies, it'll stun 2 closest enemies and give shield to allies. Therefore, you want Stonebark Tree to die as fast as possible. So you want to put it at the outside and die first. If enemy has melee carry such as Rengar, Master Yi or Brambleback, make sure to put the tree on their side to stop them, it will make a huge difference.
The flower (Lifebloom) is even more simple, as long as it lives, it gives stats to our allies, so you just simply put it backline, prefer a safe corner. It can also be used as a corner bait for assassins such as Kha'Zix and Rengar.
Advanced tips:
Watch out which side enemy carry is, and adjust the trees to the same side so they die asap.
At 7 Elderwood, you gain the Deepwood Protector, who looks like Daisy from Ivern.
The Deepwood Protector is a VERY STRONG tank, but he needs protection, the protector needs protection is kinda ironic, but here is how it works --- we put The Deepwood Protector in the middle or on the second row, protected by Hecarim (usual main tank) and your trees, so he dies last among all the tanks.
This is because his passive is when ally dies, he gain A LOT of HP and attack speed. So if he dies too fast, you only make half of its value, which is not good.
As we can see in this example of late game positioning above, where we assume enemy is on our left side (and his right side), we put all the trees there and Hecarim there as well, meanwhile The Deepwood Protector in the middle safely guarded.
In this example of Elderwood Aphelios as well, the deepwood protector is in the middle, protected by trees and Hecarim.
7 Elderwood is a huge leap for your frontline quality.
In order to have 7 Elderwood, you need either Elderwood Emblem or early Gnar. Gnar is very hard to find on Lv8, therefore an Emblem is extremely good in this comp.
When you have 7 Elderwood at Lv8, you don't really need to roll for another main tank, you can just rely on your plants and Hecarim to be your tank. If you have perfect items Ezreal, Aphelios or Soraka (with emblem), you can go 9 easily!
After you go Lv9, it's time to tag in your 5 cost tank.
If Maokai arrives really early, he is usually the best tank.
But in most cases, Taric is actually the best 5 cost tank.
Before you find your 5 cost, your 2 star Hecarim is normally enough since 7 Elderwood gives him a lot of extra HP, makes him potentially even better than some 4 costs tank.
For Elderwood, going 9 is very important, stuck on 8 is really deadly and could very possibly lead to 5th or 6th.
You should use the plants as a strong base to go Lv9, only roll a little bit on Lv8 which is enough to stabilize.
At Lv9, you could also gain Alune, Gnar, Draven, Kennen which would all give you massive amount of strength on your board.
If you successfully go 9 without an emblem however, you will have to pivot into this variation with only 3 Elders.
in this variation, Rakan is a great synergy bot, who provides both Juggernaut and Vanguard to Amumu and Taric.
Kennen with 2 inferno can apply wound/burn to enemy super fast, meanwhile his combo with Draven and Ezreal could potentially one shot enemy backline.
Xayah is the item carrier for Draven meanwhile Varus is the item carrier for Ezreal.
This opening is extremely strong early game, because you have 2 inferno, you don't have to make sunfire.
In this variation emblem is not urgent, however if you are playing the AP route of Elderwood, emblem will be much better.
Leblanc is the early item holder, she can hold Spear of Shojin for Ezreal and AP items for Soraka.
when you find Soraka, transfer items from Leblanc to her and give Soraka the Elderwood Emblem as well. She will be 2 Executioner with Ezreal and your duo carry at Lv8.
This version is much more intuitive and easier. However you need to remember, to ensure your board strength at Lv8, you normally need Ezreal + Soraka duo carry, so prioritize backline items, the frontline item is not that important, Gnar can do very well with a Thief's Gloves (TG)
In my very own experiecen, Evenshroud on Hecarim is very good in this comp, so that's normally the first tank item I would go for, and you can never go wrong with Warmog's Armor, it has a lot of tempo value in the mid-game.
That's the whole guide, thank you so much for reading! If you are interested in understanding this meta better, please check out our tierlist by clicking here ↓
