Thanks for showing interest in my favorite champion. Galio has been my main in middle lane since I started playing in the fall of 2013 because all of my favorite champions are tanks and who is a better middle lane tank than Galio? If this guide gets any kind of attention I will make it more detailed by adding reasoning to my choices and notes to the matchups.

Galio is one of the least played champions in the game. I think that there are 2 reasons for this. His kit is one of the hardest in the game to manage mana on and he is a melee champion who can easily be poked out of lane early game if you don't know what to do on him. The second reason is remedied by my choice of runes. Flat armor and magic resist helps a lot early game and the HP regeneration enables you to take a considerable amount of damage without having to worry about it.

Galio has one of the strongest team fighting capabilities out of every champion in the game due to the nature of his abilities. His Q is a relatively large AOE slow with a huge base damage. His W can give a carry 112 armor and 101 magic resist. That is equivalent to 3 free items thrown on your ADC with the click of a button. His E does a small amount of AOE damage which is minor compared to the second effect. A 50% speed buff to your entire team including minions is almost like having a righteous glory active every 5 seconds. Keep in mind that it lasts for 5 seconds so this effect is permanent once you reach 45% cdr. Finally is one of the biggest game changing ults there is. Even if your score is 0-10-0 you can be the reason your team wins. Landing a 4 or 5 man ult when your team is there to follow up is a won team fight 90% of the time.

Early can be tough on Galio against champions who poke a lot which is most of them in middle lane. Play super passive and don't even try to hit them until you are level 3. The only thing you should be doing at levels 1 and 2 is going in and out of the minion wave last hitting. Use Q to last hit the caster minions if you can't safely get to them. Use W to shield some of the incoming damage when being poked.

Once you get level 3 with 2 points in your Q begin trying to hit the enemy champion and caster minions whenever they are together unless they are a champion with natural sustain who will just heal through it like Kayle, Nidalee, or Cho'Gath. Continue farming until you have at least 1100g to go back and get Catalyst. If you are still healthy then stay for 1475g to get boots and a vision ward too. The vision ward should be placed in the small bush in bottom side river and replaced each time you go back from this point on in the game. Spending 75g often will return you with 300g and prevent the enemy from getting 300 gold themselves.

After first back you can start playing more aggressively because the catalyst passive and the nature of Galio will allow you to gain back a good amount of mana from taking damage while you aren't really taking damage because of your shield.

Once you get your ult you can either look to ult, ignite combo your opponent or help bottom lane with a 2 man ult gank. Remember that the flash and ult combo is extremely effective because most people never see Galio and don't expect it. Middle game is different in every game depending on how each team is doing what their strengths are so there isn't much more I can tell you without writing an if/then novel. I will say this though. If you are in bronze and low silver which I have been before there is one major problem in that elo. People do not know how to take advantage of a lead. If one person on your team gets fed early (5-1-4) score or something like that try to get your team to group middle lane immediately. If one person on your team can 2v1 the enemies and win then 5v5 fights are super easy, especially when you are playing Galio and you can give them speed boosts, shields, and 2 seconds of free reign on whomever they want.

The biggest thing to keep in mind late game is that as a tank Galio, you should be in the front taking all the damage. If you don't fall behind your shield will heal all of the damage you take anyways so block enemy skillshots for your team and then spam your laugh as all the damage is instantly healed. If you see a chance to ult 3 or more enemies with your team there to follow then take it. Afterwords focus on poking enemy squishies with your Q, giving your team speed boosts in the direction they need (away if you are retreating and toward if you are hard engaging), and shield your carries. If you have an assassin top laner or jungler try to always keep your shield on them after your primary engage when it should be on yourself.

After you win fights late game keep in mind that you aren't squishy AP Galio. The inhibitor towers will literally heal you so don't be afraid to tank towers even if you don't have minions.

I hope this helped. If you have questions I will try to answer them and like I said before, if this guide gets some attention I'll spend more time sticking more detail into it.