Guide · Top

Garen Guide

The Might of Demacia

Fighter

Tank

Tier A Top

Garen, The Might of Demacia, is a fighter and tank champion of medium difficulty. Across our 775 analysed ranked games, Garen is mostly played in Top (89% of its games), and more rarely in Mid (11%), with a 50.6% win rate in that role: tier A among Top champions (#13 of 48, ranked by win rate). Garen's damage is mostly physical (77%): armor is the best defensive answer against this champion. 23% of that damage is true damage and therefore ignores resistances. Win rate varies with game length: 54.0% in medium-length games (25 to 35 min, 398 games) versus 45.5% in short games (under 25 min).

Updated Oct 10 2026 · Patch 26.21

Averages measured over 690 Top games played with Garen, from our ranked Solo/Duo data collection.

How to play and combo preview

Garen is a simple, sturdy fighter: he regenerates a percentage of his health if he has not taken damage recently, and gains armor and magic resistance by killing. Decisive Strike makes him faster and silences, Courage gives a shield and tenacity, Judgment deals area damage, and Demacian Justice tries to execute a champion.

The trade

Q › AA AA › E

When: An enemy is within range.

Decisive Strike gives you speed, your next attack deals bonus damage and silences, Judgment spins around you.

Defense

W › E

When: You are taking heavy damage.

Courage gives a shield and great tenacity for a brief moment, then a smaller damage reduction for longer.

See all 3 Garen combos: key order, when to cast them, cooldowns →

Laning phase

Decisive Strike removes slows and gives you speed: use it to open the trade. Your regeneration only triggers without damage: step out of range to heal.

Common mistakes

• Casting the ultimate on a full-health enemy.
• Staying in lane without ever backing off: your regeneration needs a break.
• Forgetting Courage before you get caught in a control.

Riot's official tips for playing Garen

• Garen's regeneration greatly increases if he can avoid receiving damage for several seconds.
• Judgment deals maximum damage when only hitting a single target. For effective trading, try to position such that only the enemy champion is hit.
• Garen is only constrained by cooldowns, making items such as Black Cleaver very effective for him.

Build, runes and summoner spells

The most-played core build is Mortal Reminder, Phantom Dancer, and Stridebreaker (172 games, 57.6% win rate).

Mortal Reminder+Phantom Dancer+Stridebreaker

172 games · 57.6%

Phantom Dancer+Dead Man's Plate+Stridebreaker

93 games · 49.5%

Mortal Reminder+Dead Man's Plate+Stridebreaker

64 games · 54.7%

Skill order

Max order : E > Q > W58.3% · 72 games

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
Q		●						●		●		●	●
W			●											●	●
E	●			●	●		●		●
R						●					●

The order shows which abilities reach rank 5 first; the grid shows the most-played level-up sequence with that order (measured over 88 games).

Starting items

Doran's ShieldHealth Potion46.6% · 58 games

Doran's BladeHealth Potion64.7% · 17 games

First completed items, in order

Stridebreaker›Phantom Dancer›Mortal Reminder

17 games · 64.7%

Laning phase (averages)

At 10 min: 3544 gold, 69 CS, 4833 XP. At 15 min: 5689 gold, 113 CS, 8525 XP.

Summoner spells

Flash + Ignite50.1% · 635 games

Flash + Teleport65.0% · 20 games

Flash + Ghost50.0% · 18 games

Most-played runes

Conqueror + Sorcery

51.0% · 351 games

Primary tree · Precision

Triumph99%

Legend: Haste95%

Last Stand96%

Secondary tree · Sorcery

Axiom Arcanist94%

Celerity92%

Shards

Adaptive force97%

Adaptive force98%

Health scaling84%

Stormraider's Surge + Resolve

51.9% · 160 games

Primary tree · Sorcery

Axiom Arcanist92%

Celerity99%

Gathering Storm98%

Secondary tree · Resolve

Overgrowth89%

Second Wind83%

Shards

Adaptive force98%

Adaptive force89%

Health scaling78%

Conqueror + Resolve

49.6% · 115 games

Primary tree · Precision

Triumph96%

Legend: Haste90%

Last Stand91%

Secondary tree · Resolve

Overgrowth76%

Conditioning46%

Shards

Adaptive force88%

Adaptive force96%

Health scaling80%

For each row, the most picked rune among the games played with this page (share of games in brackets).

Which items to build against the enemy team?

We sort every game by the enemy team's damage. These are Garen's completed items and their win rate in each situation; "▲" marks an item that does at least 3 points better than its usual win rate.

Mostly magic-damage enemy team43.6% · 181 games

At least 50% of their damage is magic

Stridebreaker 44.0% ▼

Phantom Dancer 51.4% ▼

Mortal Reminder 51.4% ▼

Youmuu's Ghostblade 50.0% ▼

Force of Nature 46.9% ▲

Dead Man's Plate 44.8% ▼

The item that stands out most is Force of Nature: 46.9% win rate, +4 points versus its usual win rate.

Mostly physical-damage enemy team53.2% · 220 games

Less than 35% of their damage is magic

Stridebreaker 54.9% ▲

Phantom Dancer 58.0% ▲

Mortal Reminder 57.6%

Dead Man's Plate 56.9% ▲

Youmuu's Ghostblade 54.8%

Black Cleaver 63.6%

The item that stands out most is Dead Man's Plate: 56.9% win rate, +5 points versus its usual win rate.

Balanced enemy team52.9% · 289 games

Mixed physical and magic damage

Stridebreaker 53.8%

Phantom Dancer 54.5%

Mortal Reminder 61.6% ▲

Youmuu's Ghostblade 59.4% ▲

Dead Man's Plate 51.6%

Infinity Edge 60.6%

The item that stands out most is Mortal Reminder: 61.6% win rate, +4 points versus its usual win rate.

Counters and matchups

Who counters Garen in Top

Camille Garen: 40.0%20 games

Camille has the edge in 60% of the 20 Top duels against Garen. See the Camille guide.

Nasus Garen: 45.0%20 games

Nasus has the edge in 55% of the 20 Top duels against Garen. See the Nasus guide.

Teemo Garen: 53.3%15 games

Teemo has the edge in 47% of the 15 Top duels against Garen. See the Teemo guide.

Who Garen is strong against

Teemo53.3% · 15 games

Nasus45.0% · 20 games

Camille40.0% · 20 games

How to play against Garen

• Stack armor items to lower the large amount of physical damage that Garen deals out.
• Try to run away from Garen as your health gets lower, as he can execute you quickly with Demacian Justice.
• Be careful about attacking Garen in brush. It often will lead to taking full damage from Judgment.
• Judgment deals maximum damage when only hitting a single target. If getting out of its radius isn't possible, move through allied minions to reduce damage taken.

Win rates measured over direct same-role duels; only matchups with more than 15 games are listed. See all of Garen's matchups.

Garen Top: what our games say

Laning phase against the Top average

Measured over 88 Garen games with a timeline; the average covers 82 champions played Top in our ranked games.

Win rate by game length

Best result: medium-length (25 to 35 min). Only groups of at least 30 games are shown. A gap of several points shows the phase where the champion is the most reliable.

Garen in another role

Role	Games	Win rate	CS/min	Gold/min	Most-built items
Mid	85	50.6 %	7.9	443

Roles where we have at least 40 Garen games.

Abilities

PassivePerseverance

If Garen has not recently been struck by damage or enemy abilities, he regenerates a percentage of his total health each second.

QDecisive Strike

Garen gains a burst of Move Speed, breaking free of all slows affecting him. His next attack strikes a vital area of his foe, dealing bonus damage and silencing them.

WCourage

Garen passively increases his Armor and Magic Resist by killing enemies. He may also activate this ability to give him a shield and tenacity for a brief moment followed by a lesser amount of damage reduction for a longer duration.

EJudgment

Garen rapidly spins his sword around his body, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies.

RDemacian Justice

Garen calls upon the might of Demacia to attempt to execute an enemy champion.

Other Top champions to know

Most played

Jayce50.6 %Yone47.8 %Camille50.1 %Jax54.9 %Ambessa47.7 %Malphite46.2 %Renekton51.1 %Nasus46.1 %

Strongest (at least 100 games)

Ornn59.1 %Aurora54.8 %Urgot54.6 %Yasuo54.2 %Sylas54.2 %Warwick53.6 %Cho'Gath53.2 %Anivia52.8 %

Frequently asked questions

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