I finished Platinum V last season and as I'm writing this I just hit Diamond V with high winrates.

I started out as Bronze 1 in season 4. I put in practice for farm and watched loads of videos. I finished Gold 3 after decaying from Gold 1. Cuz who needs elo anyway right >.<

This season as I'm taking LOL more "serious". I reached plat 3 with a 74% win rate on the masculine champ. I'm planning to reach Diamond 3 and still have 65% win rate on garen with 60% win rate overall.
Garen is now my main champ as Poppy got some nerfs. Still not convinced? LoLskill says I'm #187-Garen in the world. It's way of measurment may not be accurate, but it shows for something.

Less OP ******** compared to last patch, still pretty garbage patches. Garen is not the best but maining a champ is a long term decision + he's easy to put in the closet and pick back up later.

Garen will probably not receive any nerfs in the season even. So buffs are the only thing that is possible if his win rate drops a bit more.

Tip check out Phylol's vid on OP things for any patch, as he's prob 90%accurate or more

Garen is a tank, always but he has nice dmg and his trademark ult Demacian Justice that is almost impossible to stop. Your main goal in a teamfight (besides your tank duties) is eleminating anyone with your ult. It's nice to hit your marked target for the true damage but do not tunnel on this. Your main issue in fights is getting to targets. Picking Garen against a lot of peel is most likely not smart but it depends on your comp as well of course. I also don't think you should pick "right" perhaps even in plat elo, just play your main champs even if it's into a counter.

Garen in lane can be a bully but his early is fragile. He's strongest mid and late game. Garen is a pushing god and can take turrets fast as well. Even if you get behind you are still useful as a tank and have the ult Demacian Justice with base dmg and % missing HP.

Garen works well with most comps, the main thing he lacks are gap closers and hard CC. His passive lets him siege for days or fight against poke.

Garen does a lot of things well, but the mobility issue is not to be understimated. If you play against Gragas Ezreal Janna you catch my drift and you will also be caught adrift.... away from their carries.

% health damage also hurts you alot as Garen like Vayne along with her kiting

If you can't get to the enemy carries or they have loads kill potential on your carries it's best to peel.

Garen's passive "levels" along with his ultimate so it gets stronger at levels 11 and 16.
You can activate Q Decisive Strike during your E Judgment to speed yourself up and get a nice combo. Q also resets your auto attacks.

Another tactic i like on Garen is just to outsustain lane and get your opponent to that point where he wants to go B but he can't cuz you shove every wave in like 2 secs with E Judgment. This way you will have tp advantage and he prob lose CS. This is mainly for mid game when you start getting strong and enables you to have pressure.

lvl 11 is a big powerspike for our macho man, he gets 2nd ult level and passive level Perseverance. same goes for 16. Late game don't rush fights if you don't have to, sustain with regen makes you really a pain in the eyes of your enemies.

Garen can hard carry games thanks to his ult Demacian Justice and silence Decisive Strike.
Hexdrinker and it's completed form counter your ult super fcking hard if the target is not marked. Either wait till it is popped if it's up, hold ult. On your marked champ it won't matter at all as you deal true dmg and it won't even pop.

Extra tip: if you get stunned your E Judgment continues and you can cancel it to get an auto reset for last hitting minions as you don't just want to blindly trust your spells to get the job done.

Your passive Perseverance won't come up as easily and good players will continue to disable it. If you are low it's probably smarter to stay back and regen, unless you want to back obviously. It's best to alternate between trading and more passive laning to get your passive up more, this is the easiest to achieve when winning lane as you can decide agression.

Don't waste TP and don't autopush lane with E Judgment. Good players will punish you hard for this and bad awareness will too. You goal is not to fall behind on levels and farm obviously. Get Q Decisive Strike level 1 for easy trades and E second for fighting again and being able to manage waves and farm under turret etc. Level 3 get W Courage for the passive resistances. After your first back you'll have more passive regen and will become more beeefy.

What's a TP waste? very short: Using it when
you could have walked into lane without losing CS.

Care good players will watch for you Q cooldown so don't use it constantly and be aware you will trade alot weaker. Very early you are best at very short trades thanks to the silence. Use Q to roam and hit it on scuttle if you can, it'll make it go on CD.

This item lost alot of flavor with its lower health on Bami's Cinder and overall cost increase. It's not a bad item, just not a MUST buy anymore. This is an item you pick it rather early or not at all. So 3rd item at the latest and even that is already not a great decision. (boots don't count when ppl talk about champ X has 3 items)

has great synergy with your passive, high HP and good MR + some CDR. A must buy if they have some AP. Spectre's Cowl is great unfinished and you should get it first against AP ranged champs or if you are losing to any AP. Also you can always swap over to the heavier resist option banshees. I think this item is a must buy for any good Garen.

A strong item on Garen as his biggest issue is getting onto people. The passive armor shred is easily applied thanks to your E Judgment. This item got buffed. I never build it first. Get tanky first then worry about damage, some people obsess over DMG and think that's how they can carry their team. Staying alive and soaking damage is your main job on this champion, sadly this is often underappreciated in lower elo's and even by big youtubers who tell you "how to climb".

The biggest armor HP item in the game with great passives and an active that helps you stick to targets. The attack speed slow is also a very powerful passive. They have irelia or aatrox, trynd,... + obviously an adc -> randuins.

Hexdrinker is a great half finished item if they have very little ap or if you pick it up sometime after Spirit Visage against heavier ap teams. The finished product delivers good stats for Garen as well.

Just hp and cdr. It looks nice on paper but it's ****. Your passive alone is plenty. No resistances are bad too. You can get it if the enemy is like full AD/AP but honestly in those scenarios I'd get 3 armor items and for the rest DMG.
As you would already be unkillable.

the move spd is pretty nice and it gives hp, randuins is better IMO though as the passives will wreck any adc or champs like trundle, udyr, etc.

is something you want to pick up rather late but it gives nice stats and utility. In most of my games i don't take it. It can be useful when behind to def open inhib or to siege if you have trouble breaking base. You need team coordination and great macro skills to make full use of this item.

This item is good against burst and for it's stacking potential, however you mainly got this item to match it with Maw's lifeline, which was nerfed. Don't build this anymore.

A video I made to help you get better at farm very fast + pick up on good habits.
Play Video

My growing channel :) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChfXnQSFRn03dVpHHs1hheA

Garen being a full on melee champ has trouble against ranged opponents in lane, like Kayle top lane who can also block ur ult if shes good.....

Most regular top laners you do fine or well against. Except for my personal arch nemesis and broken kit champion Darius (cuz who wouldn't like a 1K dmg resetting ultimate with heals on his Q that stacks with champions hit) Darius is pretty much negative-garen his passive lets you bleed and it will block your passive from coming up, his ultimate is yours but can reset and does more damage. So why shouldn't I play Darius? Well it's not an if/if story but Garen has his own merrits as described above.

Garen benefits from skirmishing and only very hard trades if you're at about equal strength or more. Use the passive to regen after your fights. His splitpush is also really strong.


Riven You are most well known for countering this champion and it's true. You have to silence and trade short most of the time, best when she can't use shield. So silence her before she activates her shield, slap and get out or fight her after she has used abilities.

Kayle Your lane is over unless you get a silence ult outplay (usually thanks to your jungler setting it up) She should never lose lane to you and recks face starting from mid game. Your goal is to limit harass, not trade and farm safely under turret. You cannot freeze against a Kayle.

Nautilus A tanky champion and your ult does well vs tanks, only issue against your ult is his shield. He is also very useful in teamfights and does have killpotential onto you. Ganks he can set up nicely. Avoid trading with his shield up obviously and too long trades if you arent tanky yet. Nauti is stronger early overal so avoid trades as he will root you and do his spell rotation.

Nasus You can kill him in teamfights, but he outscales even the masculine hero of demacia. He's hard to kill in lane as well as he sustains harder than you. You're better off picking a lane bully vs D cane.

Fiora She can Riposte your ult and heal with her ult as well, she has good poke with her dash and can burst even Garen. Watch out for her dash harass as it can keep your passive from activating. You will never win lane against a good Fiora

Gangplank He can splitpush really well, has some sustain, can harass you and his passive true damage helps him in short trades. He also outscales you. You want to teamfight against him unless you are strong enough to win splitpush against him + your team will get ulted by him in a 4v4 scenario. GP is not a champ you want to pick into if you have a better champ.

Volibear His bite Frenzy deals a **** ton of dmg and he can make trades longer thanks to his Thundering Smash which flips you over his back. You want to avoid his ult if possible and fighting an all-in from the start (let's say you both hit level 6 and go all out) is not clever. His passive will make ulting him very unreliable and his ult with frenzy will benefit him alot by the time he's low. As is usually the case with Garen you want to make pretty short trades and heal up with Perseverance. Against his missing % hp bite it's important to try stay above half HP. In teamfights you probably want to peel him off for your carries.

Malphite you should win lane against him and your main worry is teamfighting. If you can splitpush against him then do so, even if it's just to keep him away from your team. Try stop him from using TP over using TP as well.

Gnar has his range and you don't want to fight him in mega form either. Avoid fighting him mega in teamfights as well (always on any champ). dodging his Q Boomerang Throw or Boulder Toss significantly lowers his dmg output along with not getting hit by 3 stacks Hyper. He can also jump away if you engage in both forms.


Wukong You can win lane against him as long as you build tank first (which i generally recommend for garen anyway) His teamfight is more potent but if you play it right or can splitpush hard you can win against him for sure.

Yasuo Hes a high skillcap champion, A good yasuo can **** on you a bad one gets **** on. Care the shield (yellow bar), his knock up (wind around him) and his mobility.

Renekton You outscale him really hard, just play def early game and start cloth 4 pots. If he starts his dash either silence very fast or start spinning so he takes dmg while you are stunned.

Tahm Kench don't get eaten vs him and always side step the tongue don't go straight. Silence him b4 he shields then combo. Silence his ult in lane phase. You continue spinning even inside his mouth.

Graves Dodge his Q sideways, always unless you are at the very end of it at the start. The return damage spreads farther than it shows. Graves will auto push into you which is nice as he cannot set up a freeze. Give up CS over taking too much damage unless you plan to back and TP.

Maokai You don't want to play too passive as he'll do his root short trades onto you or harass with Q. If he sets the root up with a minion you will lose trade and most likely can't chase due to the slow. Play more next to your minions if he uses Q to harass while farming, it will make him push however so decide what is best for your lane.

Illaoi dodge her tentacles sideways always as they don't show the right length. If you can't dmg her while the ghost is up, walk out the range. You'll become a vessel but if you can dodge tentacles its actually free farm. care though when you go for the hentai stuff as she might be aiming to set up a trade then.

Poppy You beat her as long as she can't sit on your carries or knock important members out. early lane phase your goal is to not get pushed out as you scale and she's a bully. At mid game you generally want to start trading longer as your items and passive will let you win against her in the long run. Don't position yourself to get wallstunned though. Don't trade her with her shield up and only destroy it if she isn't close as she will probably E you and get shield anyway.

Shen his base dmg is really high and he builds titanic hydra as it stands. This makes him annoying to itemize against as he'll do mixed damage. He has a shield and the taunt + loads map pressure with ult. It's odd not many people play shen as he's very strong and a reliable pick. + outplay potential with flash taunt and more.

Trundle Care trading early and long. If he bites you or autos and then bites you will trade equal or lose. You can actually hear his bite cast so listen for it and obviously it's a good idea to keep an eye on his character (click him to see actives and items, etc.)
In a full on fight you want to get out of his atk spd boost (frozen ground) if possible and don't fight him while his ult is casting. He'll gain loads HP and resists while you take damage and lose resists along with his bite decreasing your AD. If you play smart against him you are stronger in short trades and outscale him. You can't silence his bite once it is activated BTW

Shyvana same goes for her Q, once it's "ON" you can't silence it so avoid trading her while its active or making your trade/harass too obvious. She pushes hard and also needs no mana. She gets passive resists and she is stronger than you in lane. Without CC she's hard from recking your team also. Basically she shouldn't kill you unless she's way stronger BUT she can do a lot more work than you can if your team lacks disengage (or hard engage). Don't trade while she has E hit on you as you will take more dmg. Dodge E also for keeping your passive up. Last thing to say: do not chase her through her ult fire and let her push.

Irelia Another broken kit champ but not as OP as most. (there's a reason the old joke come into this world: better nerf irelia) She has crazy sustain if she can farm, high dmg thanks to her true dmg from Hiten Style. Her mobility is annoying as well in lane and she can stun you if you are more healthy. The ult from irelia does good dmg as well. However despite all this you do surprisingly well against her, especially out of lane. Peel her from your carries always (not if she derps and focuses alistar) your silence and dmg will shut her down hard.

Sion If you avoid his spells you win, simple as that. You outscale him aswell, just watch out for his knockup in teamfights and his mobility from ult. Don't play in a straight line between him, your minions and yourself. This will make dodging his minion toss very easy. Trade him each time he wastes spells.

Tryndamere Bully him early no matter what item you started, silencing anyone in early trades will screw over most champs. Late game he can 1v1 you in an all-in but just don't split vs him if you don't have to. You cannot silence his ult as some1 was nice enough to point out to me in the comments. All his other spells are disabled though, main issue is late game when he doesn't need his spells as much and he can just AA. Trynd should lose to you every game IMO, Keep trades short untill he's low and watch his crit + heal bar.

Ryze In lane you can hit CS, however you will never be able to bully him as he just roots you and returns too much DMG. This is a free lane for ryze, as he outscales you and is kinda OP. This is a problem. Lane you won't be crushed, teamfighting you will be though. Ban him if you can.

I'm willing to add more matchups, you can ask for a specific one but I'll also add more over time.