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• This passive is extremely strong in comparison with other sustain passives in the game because it doesn't require you to fight to get your HP back.
• You don't always have to use your passive while under your tower if you are very low on health, try using bushes to your advantage and camp there while your health regenerates, you will miss farm anyway, but at least you won't miss xp, and you can pop out with more health than before to hit your opponent with a surprise attack!
• Roaming to another lane when the ability is active is frequently smart, as your health will double by the time you walk your way to another lane, so if your teammate needs help and you see a potential kill/assist, gank by all means and then recall/get back toplane.
• In some cases, your passive will give you the opportunity to stay more into teamfights by just taking small breaks every now and then. Don't be suicidal, but be annoying: don't recall as soon as your health goes low unless you have much gold or simply know the teamfight is over, but stay as long as you can without dying to help your teammates out!
• If you time your Courage right, you can prevent Garen from actually taking any damage and that will keep the passive up!

• The damage is real! Use this ability consistently on your lane opponent: it's a simple and safe enough reliable poke, just try to time it well until Garen hits level 3, so that a part of the speed boost remains for you to back off your opponent without being poked back.
• You can activate Decisive Strike to farm aswell if you feel like you need a speed boost or more damage to finish a minion off: CD is low enough, and you have no mana to spend, so no reason to not use it when necessary, just remember that having it available to poke or to escape a gank also matters, so don't spam it too much ;)
• Decisive Strike's slow removal only applies once, at activation. This means that if you know your opponent has a slow or more, you should try waiting for them to use their slow before you activate the ability. The best way to do it is by getting close to them and either auto-attack him/her so they think you'll trade or poke, forcing them to use their slow on you.
• // This ability is your only mobility one, making it valuable both as an engage and a disengage: observe your surroundings and the situation, and make sure to use it the right way in the right moment. If you're pushed, for example, and the enemy jungler could gank you, keep the ability ready, wait for the right moment, and you WILL escape the gank thanks to it. Sometimes you can even hit the jungler with it, so you silence and annoy them :P
• Decisive Strike WILL work on turrets, inhibitors and the enemy Nexus: use it to splitpush and to deal extra damage to structures whenever you can!
• Activating the ability will reset your autoattack timer, so when you're in a melee fight and you're not spinning, autoattack, then use Decisive Strike, then autoattack again, these 3 attacks will be in a much more rapid succession than normal autoattacks!

• The 30% damage reduction of Courage won't reduce incoming True damage, however, the shield you get during the first 0.75 seconds CAN absorb true damage, meaning you can use it to block damage from Darius' ult for example. Timing is essential!
• If you use W before you take some damage from poke in lane and the shield doesn't get fully broken (in other words, if the damage you take isn't bigger than the shield's size), your passive will not be interrupted. Use this wisely in lane to preserve your regeneration and be more oppressive.
• Courage's active ability is amazing but requires brain to be used well: its shield and tenacity components last for only 0.75 seconds, with a total damage reduction time of a mere 2 seconds and has a 23 secs CD at level 1, and since we're usually not putting anymore points into it because we need the other abilities more, you have to use it in the perfect moment and never waste it both in lane, and in teamfights. In general, you need to figure out when your enemies will want to trade with you and use the ability prior to that, don't always use it for poke, make sure to use it when your enemies try using combos OR a specific crowd control effect like Renekton's W's stun. In teamfights, you'll be focusing a specific target and all enemies will be on you: use it as soon as you walk up (or run up!) close to your opponents to mitigate damage and reduce CC durations, this way you'll be at full kill potential when you reach your target! Detailed suggestions for laning phase will follow in the matchup section.
• Activating this ability when the enemy jungler ganks you can save your life: two people hitting you is a big deal even if you are tanky, so using Courage right before the enemies use their abilities on you can cause the gank to fail!
• Abuse Garen's tendency to be a bully to outpush, outfarm and zone your enemy if you can, that way you will be able to stack up resistances while earning the gold to buy even more stuff!
• This is Garen's highest skill ability. That 0.75 seconds of shield and 60% tenacity is a blessing, but it's short. Learn your opponent's abilities well, the CD is long and you need to use Courage perfectly in order to maximize its effectiveness. If you use Courage at the perfect time a single time in early laning phase you can basically win the lane in a single button press!
• Spending a point in Courage will reduce its cooldown by 2 seconds instead of 1 as of patch 9.7. This means it is now a viable option to spend extra points in it (delaying the maxing of other abilities) in earlier stages of the game, in order to be able to use its active and the 0.75s benefits of it more often in laning phase and in mid-game. Note that it's rare, but sometimes useful to do so.

• Attack speed will increase the number of spins Garen performs during Judgment but not the duration of the spin. This is amazing, as it means that you'll be dishing out a lot more damage faster every time you get enough attack speed to increase the spin number.
• DO NOT use this ability to farm in laning phase. Even if the enemy minions take reduced damage from it, it still packs a punch and will push your lane, this is something you don't want, because any smart opponent will freeze the lane close to his tower as long as possbile, this will make you easily gankable, and unable to trade due to tower proximity, if you need help at last hitting, use Decisive Strike instead.
• Use Judgment to trade aggressively and consistently, your damage output is higher than that of many toplaners when the ability's at level 1, and will become the most damaging one once the ability hits level 3/4. Use it in conjunction with your other skills and you will win every trade you take part into!
• Judgment is an AoE ability that deals a lot of damage to all opponents close to you, this makes it an amazing asset for a tanky Garen like you will be! Know how tanky you are, know how dangerous your opponents are, make some calculations and (if possible) jump in the crowd of enemies and damage all of them! If you're tanky enough you'll survive, while your teammates will have an easier time killing the enemies you wounded spinning. Just don't be suicidal, overconfidence is punished and you don't want punishments, keep in mind also that you deal less damage if you hit multiple enemies!
• Judgment can be a very useful mean of escape: when a huge amount of each team's minions is close together, start spinning and walk through them, as you will move through the crowd, while your opponent probably won't be able to do the same and will have to go around them.
• Use Judgment to kite a chasing enemy when he is in range, your movement speed won't be penalized and you'll silently trade with him, potentially forcing him to retreat, or change his mind in case he was going to dive you.
• CC won't stop you while you're spinning, so if you activate Judgment and you get stunned, snared, knocked up or scared, you will continue spinning and dealing damage regardless: if you know your opponent will stun you and then melee attack you, SPIN2WIN!
• When facing a tank, you can spin before using Decisive Strike to apply the armor shred early on in the trade and maximize damage!

• Demacian Justice deals TRUE DAMAGE. This type of damage can't be reduced, which means once you learn what the threshold for a kill looks like on an enemy's hp bar, you'll become incredibly consistent with your executes. The only things that can reduce this damage are HP shields and heals.
• Your ult has a very long cooldown when it's at levels 1-2, which means it's to be used wisely and only when necessary. Don't get me wrong, use it every time you have to secure a kill that otherwise would be gone, but DO NOT use it when the enemies will die surely without it, or can be killed by teammates.
• When your team is retreating from a teamfight and you see that an enemy can be killed with your ult, DO IT, KILL HIM/HER! It's never a waste to kill someone when retreating.
• Your ult is never a waste against people who have flash ready for use and for enemies who have a teleporting ability similar to flash: after you channelled Demacian Justice, nothing can stop it, not even a flash, so use it whenever you know your enemy could escape!
• If an enemy "tower-dives" you and he hasn't got a full health bar, try dealing some damage to him and ult him when he starts backing out: the damage from your ult and the tower's damage will often kill your opponent, while leaving you alive!
• Writing this tip for the people who have started playing Garen for the first time and/or don't know this: Demacian Justice deals damage based on how much health the enemies DON'T HAVE, so never waste it when they have half of their health bar filled, as I see many Garens do, keep it as the finisher.

• Your easiest combo to trade (damaging enemies without the intention to kill them) will be this one: Decisive Strike==> Judgment, and then you back off. Now, when should you activate Courage? It depends. Many enemies will do what they can to escape from you rather than trade with you, so using Courage as soon as you start trading isn't recommended in this case, it's better used when you stop spinning and your opponent will turn around to try and answer to your trade. If an enemy does trade with you while you spin, turn your Courage on and you'll have the advantage, because you'll deal much more damage than you receive.
• The most common combo you'll use when you want to kill someone is activating Decisive Strike and then INSTANTLY AFTER Flashing into the enemy, silence him, then activating Judgment to deal the highest amount of damage: if you see the kill spot, proceed into activating Ignite while still spinning, and then use Demacian Justice to finish him off. Let's recap quickly: Decisive Strike==> Flash==> Judgment==> Ignite==> Demacian Justice
  If you don't need to use Flash don't waste it, it's your job to realize when to use it and when to not use it :)
• When enemies will realize that your main combo starts with Decisive Strike, MAYBE, they'll turn on their brain and wait for you to activate it to then either CC you or simply escape from you until the speed boost finishes, preventing your pokes/trades. If they do it, you can try another combo: activate Judgment, and IMMEDIATELY AFTER, activate Decisive Strike, they'll probably get hit by your full Judgment and after you'll stop spinning, your Decisive Strike WILL also hit, dealing full burst damage in what I call a "surprise attack" ATTENTION, though! Using this method too often in lane can push it! That's not what you want in most cases! Keep this in mind!
• You can use Decisive Strike while spinning to make the enemies not notice the strike being ready and also to make hitting enemies for more Judgment ticks easier.ATTENTION, though! Using this method too often in lane can push it! That's not what you want in most cases! Keep this in mind!
• When your opponent has less than 50% and is hugging his tower, you can dive, but I'd recommend you only do this when your Decisive Strike is at least level 2. Simply use the normal combo, but keep Flash and Courage for last, you'll need them to escape and take less damage in case 1-2 uncalculated tower hits get you. To put this simply: Decisive Strike your opponent, then use Judgment and then see if you need to use either Ignite or Demacian Justice (or both) then do not linger: use Courage and Flash to get out of tower range. If Flash is on cooldown, you could still make it out, but it will be much more dangerous for you unless you're at full health.
• Courage is a defensive skill, of course, but if you have Sheen or Trinity Force, their passives WILL proc when you use W. This is useful in quite a few scenarios. Let's imagine you hit someone with Decisive Strike and use Judgment on them. After Judgment ends (or shortly before then), you can activate Courage, proccing Sheen's passive and making the next auto-attack coming right after Judgment do massive damage before finishing them off with Demacian Justice. This idea of using Courage to proc Sheen is also useful when pushing towers. Use Decisive Strike on the turret to do more damage, wait for a couple of seconds, and then activate Courage for another empowered attack!

Aatrox has recently been reworked from an autoattack based champion into a caster based one, similar to you, with a difference in powerspikes. Aatrox is strong in the early game and during laning phase, with a big amount of offensive potential and great in-fight sustain (he heals for a percentage of all his physical damage dealt to champions), which means you shouldn't try to go for a kill on him all the time, rather use his cooldowns to your advantage. His Q is in all ways similar to Riven's Q, except it's alot slower, has more range on the first two casts and does more damage if it hits you with its sweet spots, so the way to deal with it is to dodge it entirey, or avoid its sweet spots whenever you can't dodge it. After he used his 3rd Q, Aatrox is extremely vulnerable. That's the time when you want to strike, and you may actually get yourself a kill! After level 6, whenever he uses his ultimate, healing he receives from his kit will be increased massively: you don't want to fight him when he's in his ultimate form since it's nearly impossible to outdamage his sustain, even with ignite. A good approach on his ult is to simply run when he uses it, wait for it to finish and then all-in him. It's really that simple, especially considering he can't heal nearly as much off minions.

New Akali may have an extremely fancy kit, but it's not necessairly something that you can't deal with. Her damage is pretty high but we build defensively, so it will be well mitigated, denying a big portion of her strength. Our damage on the other hand will be huge to her, because she's extremely squishy, she does have sustain but it only kicks in later in the game and is moderate to low in laning phase, meaning she can't afford to ever get silenced. Good Akali players will abuse her W, the shroud, to prevent you from Qing her, while this will indeed deny a major part of your burst, you can still use E in the middle of the shroud to guarantee a portion of the burst and perhaps Q after the shroud finishes. All in all a low threat simply because your tankiness should be more than enough to keep you alive during the laning phase and you're better at punishing her mistakes than she is at punishing yours!

Strong champion with good laning phase and amazing lategame, she will be very annoying to deal with if she's not banned and you have to be prepared.
Her main damage output relies on her using her Precision Protocol. It consists of 2 autoattacks (the second, if delayed properly will deal true damage): you can tank one, you must not tank the second. This means if she initiates with autoattacks you can win the trade by using your silence right before her second autoattack empowers so she can't use it, but it will be very hard, so unless you are ahead, try not allowing her to hit you with the second hit.
If she starts trading with her Hookshot it's a different story. Running away is useless as she will reach you easily, you must instantly (REALLY instantly) use E and W right before she hits you and stuns you. That way she will be forced to take damage and expose to an actual trade, instead of a free harrassment, auto attack then Q after you stop spinning for a decent trade that you will lose if her passive shield is up.
This gets us into the next issue: her passive. It's strong but doesn't last long, meaning you need to be tanky enough so that you can auto her normally until it's down, then proceed with your abilities, or spin on her at the edge of your spinning range so that she can't autoattack you and proc it: Her passive ONLY procs when she autos, it's not automatic, this means if you initiate properly she won't be able to use it to its full extent.
Finally, her Tactical Sweep doesn't damage too much but heals her and most importantly it procs Arcane Comet, so you should try avoiding it at all costs, or walk towards her to negate the extra damage and healing from the outer cone and also the slow, making it easier to dodge the comet that will then fall to hit you, this is easy to do if you were already going all-in, hard if you're running away from her.
For the build, you start cloth as said previously, then focus on Bami's Cinder and Ninja Tabi, the boots help against her mostly autoattack focused damage and also boost your movement speed to keep away from her if she is ahead and you don't wanna get ulted to run away. If you get ahead you can proceed towards Black Cleaver, or if you're losing you'll want Sunfire Aegis first.
Killing Camille is normal business if you win trades, not so much if she manages to do what she wants. It's a medium lane because with all her overloaded kit she still ends up being squishy early, or at least squishier than you anyway, meaning it's possible to win and stomp her if you are more skilled as a player.
Just take a small bit of advice here: if you're low or pushed, don't stay/overextend: she ults you ===> you are dead: there is NO WAY to get out of her ult, so you want to be in it ONLY if you're kicking her *** in her own house.
In other words, if you get ulted by her, it means you did something wrong, not that you should flame her for using an op champion.

I was conflicted on this matchup, it should be in the Hard category but I feel in average elos Cho players aren't good at abusing his kit so I'll stick it into Medium and see how it goes!
Cho is a tank with a high base damage on his abilities and CC on each one minus his ult.
To win lane against him there are 3 things you need to look out for.

1. If he uses his Vorpal Spikes (his E), do NOT stay behind your minions, but to their side. That will allow you to dodge the spikes, avoid taking %max hp damage and being slowed, and will keep your passive up. Once his E is over, he is vulnerable to short trades, so you can Q-E and back off super fast so he doesn't get to W-Q you right after
2. His W is a powerful silence that is hard to dodge, if he opens up with it, you know he wants you to not be able to use your Q to avoid being hit by his knockup, so you must move in a direction that he won't expect to dodge that and then you can trade with him
3. His ult is a very high true damage ability that will kill you when you have around 300 hp or less on level 6 and increase its damage based on Cho's maximum HP. He will most likely use it on minions early to get his stacks and ger more max HP. When he does that, that's when you want to attempt at killing him, since he will have 3 abilities while you have 4. The only issue is you still must keep in mind points 1) and 2) when doing that or you'll end up dying even without his ult in the equation!

Of note, it's important that you try zoning him aswell, since he can easily sustain off your minons and that can nullify all your attempts at good trades with him.
Don't try killing him in lategame. That's not something you can do unless he's the Villain and your ult indicator indicates that your ult will kill him. He's too tanky and too strong for you to try killing.

To me, Darius has always seemed like a counter to Garen, because his passive will make yours almost useless and his true damage makes this lane hard due to your Courage's passive bonus being ignored by his Noxian Guillotine. The way the lane works is as follows and with this strategy you should be able to beat every Darius you meet.
Use the Phase Rush page, although instead of taking the Domination tree as your secondary you want to take Resolve and get Iron Skin along with Second Wind. These two runes will considerably reduce his damage to you and when you get a Refillable Potion you will get the chance to sustain his passive damage in 2 trades for free.
Start Doran's Shield and focus on getting Bami's Cinder as fast as you can. Once this is done, you can either focus on Sunfire Aegis or Black Cleaver. Either way, you're going to want to get Ninja Tabi as fast as you can and play ENTIRELY around Phase Rush. With Bami's Cinder's burn effect, Phase Rush will proc whenever you use Q-E on Darius. Simply Q-E, proc phase, hit him with one or two ticks of the spin and back off using the bonus movement speed. Repeat this whenever Phase is up (you can see when it is by looking at your buffs on top of your UI, when the Phase indicator is there it means it's up) and once you lower him to about 600 hp, you can do this exact same trade again, but complete it with Ignite into Demacian Justice.
Darius will get a big AD boost if he gets 5 bleed stacks on you, which means taking longer trades with him when you can't kill him with a single all-in will result in dying and losing the lane. The person who gets the advantage first will most definetly snowball with it, which means you must not make mistakes in this lane. He will zone you from farm early and that's fine, but after a couple of well done trades with Phase Rush things will turn the other way around and you'll get to manage the lane just fine.
OF NOTE: you can proc Phase Rush without Bami's by autoattacking before using your Q. It exposes you to more damage from Darius, but before level 6 you should still win trades super hard this way.

Dr. Mundo is an annoying toplaner because he can zone hard spamming his Infected Bonesaw and his Heart Zapper, but Garen's kit can make all of his strenghts become useless. Start with the Long Sword and trade very often with him after you have unlocked Courage, making sure you wait for him to throw is cleaver and then activating Decisive Strike in case he hits you. Your damage is much higher (just avoid being hit by Heart Zapper for too long) and your sustain is a great disadvantage to him because he pays his abilities with health, so when his pots are done, he's done aswell. Build Mercury's Treads and then specter's cowl, though put some armor in your build as his Blunt Force Trauma can be annoying. Finally Ignite is recommended because using it on him when he's low will make his Maximum Dosage lose lots of power, and give you a better chance at using Demacian Justice. Play Video

After the rework, I can say Fiora has become not only a more common pick, but a generally better one. Her early game got worse and we love that, but her late is ridicolous, and we hate this. Besides, if you get ganked she can prove deadly. Start with the "vs AD" start and go for a Bramble Vest: This item alone will basically win the lane for you if you play correctly. Then go for Black Cleaver and proceed with the standard build. Trading with Fiora is somewhat complex. Her Risposte is the main source of power that champion has against you, as it can deny your Decisive Strike's damage, to prevent this, you must turn Decisive Strike on, then start spinning BEFORE you hit her, she'll waste her risposte and you will deal full burst damage as planned. If one of your Vitals is towards her, back off and wait for a new one to come up to deny her true damage. She is a squishy laner and your damage will be enough to kill her in 1-2 bursts, though you must keep in mind that her risposte can block both Ignite and Demacian Justice, so using both at the same time can be a really good safety measure, to secure kills properly!
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Updated for reworked Gangplank
Many think that Critplank's Parrrley is a big threat to you but they forget that you're the Might of Demacia. Jokes aside, it is an annoying skill just because it's ranged and it deals a decent amount of damage, but you can tank its damage no problem and if Gangplank spams it too much he'll finish his mana, so you just need to tank it and let your Perseverance heal you; start with Doran's Shield. His damage early isn't high and neither will be his tankiness, from level 3 on, you should start trading often as usual, just make sure you avoid his exploding barrels or he'll slow you and deal a huge amount of damage, however, should he hit you with one, use Decisive Strike to clear the slow and Courage to mitigate the damage and keep the trade alive. Be wary of his Remove Scurvy, as it can make your ultimate fail, in order to reduce its healing, try using Ignite in the right moment, and the kill will be yours even if your ult doesn't kill him directly. Focusing on armor, specifically Dead Man's Plate will give you a good edge, because his new passive no longer deals magic damage, I recommend you focus on Ninja Tabi for the extra resistance to his rather high physical damage. His ultimate is not a huge deal to you, it's only dangerous when he's setting up a gank, that's why you really should purchase wards to prevent surprise attacks, the slow is real and annoying!
Overall he's hard to deal with if he plays defensively. He can wither you down with his Q and all-in when you're below 50% which means you either go in for kills or play very defensively to try and prevent him from killing you. I personally believe trying to kill him is the better way to win this lane, as it allows you to shut him down and prevent him from csing safely.
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Gnar is broken. End of the story.
Well, let's get into this. Gnar is a ranged champion in his Mini form, and becomes a melee champion in his Mega form, so engaging him is really dangerous for you either way. In order to win this matchup you'll have to be a bit lucky and a bit smart. Your start is either the one with boots, as they'll help you more than armor in this lane, then, or the one with Doran's Shield for the AA protection, you should then focus on building Chain Vest quickly and choose between Ninja Tabi and Mercury's Treads, you should prefer the former if you see gnar pokes you mostly with AutoAttacks, or the latter if he uses Boomerang Throw to slow you down very often (I usually get Mercury's Treads to lower the damage from Hyper). A good Gnar will prevent you from trading with him by using Hop, and will then proceed to hit you instead, so you should wait for your level 3-4 before you start trading, as you'll need the tankiness from Courage to escape his hits safely, moreover, make sure you spend 1 or 2 extra points into Decisive Strike to have a better chance at landing it aswell as a longer duration for the silence. Killing him in his Mini form with the full combo (including Flash) shouldn't be too hard, but if Flash is on CD, he can always avoid your Decisive Strike and trade back. Killing him in his Mega form is harder but trading when he's in that form is actually easier.
I generally use the full combo on Mini Gnar when Flash is available (or if he's so bad that he lets you hit him with your silence), and use the same combo without Flash on Mega Gnar once to make his health go lower, and then proceed into using it again RIGHT BEFORE HE TURNS BACK TO NORMAL, in that moment, your silence will prevent him from jumping away and his health reduction will give you the needed edge to secure the kill with your combo. Play Video

This is one tough lane. Hecarim has high mobility, spammable damage and very good trading potential through mixed damage and sustain. Many people fear the pony in the toplane because of his Rampage spam and his Onslaught of Shadows/ Devastating Charge damage, but the true problem here is Spirit of Dread: this ability deals AoE damage for 4 seconds and HEALS HECARIM BY 20% OF ALL THE DAMAGE EVERYTHING DEALS TO YOU OR YOUR ALLIES. This means that if he activates this ability during a trade, he will seem MUCH tankier than he really is. Starting with armor is ideal because while he is mixed, his second magic damage ability is his ult, meaning pre-6 he'll deal mostly physical damage, so you must get a Chain Vest as your first item, and then you want to get Mercury's Treads. After you got this stuff, you can complement with a Phage to get some health too, making yourself have a great edge. Then you continue building normal, I'd just recommend you rush a Bami's Cinder for extra magic damage, to put yourself at the same level he is in terms of dps. Trades work as normal, I'd just recommend you wait for his Spirit of Dread to finish BEFORE you use Judgment, that way he will be much less tanky and will suffer more from your E. Ignite is useful but not mandatory against him, you can even think of a Ghost summoner spell just to keep up with him if he escapes. Play Video

The funniest thing about Illaoi is that she ACTUALLY tells you how to beat her. "All is motion". True story.
Jokes aside, the lane is medium. She is quite tanky and has a big damage output, AoE damage, range with her Q, and she can just get your soul and kick your *** from afar if you don't stay behind minions or act good enough to dodge all her skillshots; I'd say Illaoi is as hard to deal with as Darius.
To win against Illaoi you must try bullying her at level 1, using your auto-Q combo to deal damage and abuse Grasp of the Undying every time you can, maybe combining it with Q if you need it to engage, her attack speed is **** early, meaning if she is in autoattack range she won't be able to outtrade you at level 1. Of course, try dodging her tentacle smash or you will lose too much health.
After level 1, I recommend against trading until level 4, unless forced to, that is if she pulls your soul, you have to try fighting, as dealing damage to her in that state makes the ability end faster, and can save you from becoming a vessel of her tentacles.
Trading with Illaoi is all about moving around as you fight, do it between autos, do it while you spin ( Judgment's ignoring collisions mechanic helps here) and do it with Flash when you know you can kill her.
Killing her pre-6 is tough but it's possible to do, post 6 things get easier if you're winning, but insanely harder if you are not. Her ult will heal her up and make you take tons of damage unless you are good enough to dodge the combined attacks of all her tentacles and herself.
Focus on armor early, get a Chain Vest and Ninja Tabi, then go for Black Cleaver if she builds tanky and Sunfire Aegis if she builds damage.
Again, it's possible to win but you must be extremely skillful in dodging everything you can, and abusing your W whenever you know you are about to be hit, and you know you cannot dodge that time. Play Video

Be mindful. Irelia feeds hard into Garen early game, but if you don't push a lead early she will turn big and destroy you without counterplay. Don't worry though, I'll tell you how to beat her just fine ;).
Start with a Doran's Shield or with the Cloth Armor + 4 potions and run Grasp. Max Q and hit Irelia with it every time you CAN, this may sound basic, but it isn't: Irelia is a setup-dependent champion and there are two things you need to look out for before using your Q to harass her without losing the trade.
First of all, look out for her W - Defiant Dance: when she's in that stance, she gains a big amount of PHYSICAL damage reduction. This means your Q and your E won't do enough damage to her and using them at that time will cost you the trade no matter what. When you see her use W, you just need to back off, wait for your Q and E to be back up and trade again after, since her W's cooldown is longer than double and she won't be maxing that ability.
Second, look out for her passive: Ionian Fervor. When she hits abilities she gains stacks that empower her autoattacks and boost her attack speed. When she has 5 stacks you don't want to take long trades but only harass with Q.
These two factors are your main focus in this matchup.
Others factors include "buffering" your Q on her. I'll elaborate shortly. When you see a friendly minion that's low, you can position next to it, then right click on Irelia and press Q immediately after she uses her dash to kill that creep. That's a guaranteed Q hit and she will never W it because she won't see it coming!
Her W will not protect her from Demacian Justice's magic damage so you can ult her easily when she's low, and she won't be able to do anything about it.
Do make sure to use your W when she attempts to stun you with her E, and when she uses her ultimate. Of note, when she ults you, you won't be able to auto attack or use Decisive Strike for a short time, so if she dashes to you after she disarms you, just spin and when your spin is over, you'll be able to autoattack again.

Your prince can be a problem to you! Jarvan IV is a tanky toplaner who deals good amounts of damage and has good CCs to prevent you from running when he wants to trade. Start with Cloth Armor as usual, and focus on building armor: he only deals physical damage and won't get a Sunfire Aegis because you won't let him... To win the lane against him you need to make good use of your Perseverance, as he has no sustain and will rely on pots. His trading potential is very good thanks to Martial Cadence and his kit, any Jarvan will engage you with Demacian Standard and Dragon Strike, knocking you up, reducing your armor and slowing you down with Golden Aegis, then hitting you once with an empowered autoattack, and then backing off. This is his normal trade and if you get knocked up, you can't prevent it, but you can still win it, in general, you should try to be the first to strike with Decisive Strike and then soon activate Courage so you reduce greatly his Martial Cadence's damage, breaking his spell order due to silence, then proceed onto spinning so if he knocks you up, he'll take damage because Judgment doesn't stop, and his slow will not be a problem because you'll be done trading and he will have already wasted his empowered autoattack while you were shielded. Your combo can kill him after a couple of trades, in general, if he's lower than 60% health, it's a sure kill.
Try not to trade with low health if you know said trade won't kill him after he hits level 6: he can wait for your burst to finish and then use Cataclysm to transform the trade into a kill for himself, forcing you to stay and fight, and since he attacks faster than you he may end up killing you.

Jax is a weird bruiser in my opinion. He's supposed to be a strong lategame champion (and he is) but his early is actually extremely good against you too, which means you can win lane and shut him down only by being good with your Courage. His counter-strike will block your Decisive Strike's damage and silence, making you instantly lose the trade.
So the best way to win trades against him is to start trades with your Judgment, using Courage to deny his stun when his Counter-Strike finishes and then autoattack into Decisive Strike. This will generally be a won trade for you and it makes it pretty hard for him to farm afterwards until his E comes back up (it comes back up faster than your W, so you want to keep that in mind and avoid being hit by it when you know you can't block it).
Jax isn't tanky until he gets his ultimate which will make him very hard to kill when active, which means if you get a couple of good early trades, using Ignite will allow you to kill him in the last trade.
Start with Doran's Shield and focus on getting Ninja Tabi quickly, then get a Bami's Cinder and Phage. This hybrid kind of item build should help against the big MAGIC damage his Empower does.
If you get your Q blocked by his E, you'll probably lose the trade horribly and this may actually cost you the lane, which means you must always save Decisive Strike for when you know for sure he can't block it.

Jayce is a versatile champion suited to practically every lane or role, who can really put you into trouble if he is aggressive enough. Start with a Cloth Armor and then build Chain Vest and Ninja Tabi quickly (although if you see he's not aggressive you can pick Boots of Swiftness to engage more easily). Every Jayce will use Acceleration Gate and Shock Blast to poke you and deal insane amounts of damage to you, aswell as autoattack you often, this will keep you from farming and will zone you forcing you to farm under your tower (and still get poked...). He's not squishy as other toplaners but he is weak enough early, so once you get your level 4, you can start trying to trade (use bushes to get close to him): regular combos should work, but make sure you silence him before you spin, because he can use Thundering Blow to get rid of you and nullify your trade. This means you need to spend a couple more points into Decisive Strike and after you did this your combo will kill him surely ( Judgment still needs at least 3 points or it won't be enough), though you'll almost always need Flash or a CC from your jungler to get to him. If you manage to kill him a couple of times, you'll get to farm much more, but in general this lane can be very hard due to him being ranged, so if you see the situation is terrible, you can push your lane trying to get some lasthits and then go roam to get some kills and help your teammates win their lanes.

New Kayle is a bit of a mixed bag. Her early game is garbage: she's melee until level 6 and her damage is moderate at best. This doesn't mean you instantly beat her, but it does mean you have more room to play than you did before. She still has a slow, but it's now a skillshot that you can dodge, and she still buffs her own movement speed, but the cooldown is higher than that of your Q. So here is what you do. Start with a Doran's Shield or with Boots and 4 potions, max Q and try to go for Q trades on her especially with grasp up. If she slows you or speeds herself up or both, as you're running towards her, hit the nearest minion to put your Q on cooldown, and try again as soon as she walks up afterwards. This ensures that you can get some damage off during laning phase. She will hit you with her ranged spells while you back off, so you can use your W to block some of that damage and not lose too much health. When she hits level 6, she gains a new mechanic that's called Zealous. Whenever she autoattacks she gains a stack, giving her more attack speed and damage on her autoattacks, and at 5 stacks she becomes ranged. This isn't a real issue until level 11 but you may want to consider that she gets more damage after her 5th stack, so what you want to do is save your W for when she becomes Exalted (gets 5 stacks). Her ult is largely similar to the one she had prior to the rework, she becomes immune to damage for a few seconds, this time however, if she ults herself she can't autoattack for the duration. Her ult's damage will be dealt to you after it expires in an AoE, so what you can do is try to avoid the damage (if she's not super low, you should do that), or just tank it and kill her right after she loses the immunity if she was super low prior to activating it. After level 11, she will win every fight with you unless you are 5 levels above her, so don't try to 1v1, you CAN stop her splitpushing by clearing the wave and tanking with W but you can't kill her fast enough without dying first. After level 16 she becomes further more powerful and you'll have a very hard time winning against her no matter what you do as Garen.

I always thought Kennen was best suited to the midlane, but I've seen him very often top, so I wanted to write some suggestions for him too. Kennen is an AP focused champion with decent scalings and a very powerful mobility skill, Lightning Rush, and also a nice AoE multitarget ultimate, Slicing Maelstrom. All of his abilities are ranged and he is manaless, meaning that he can poke you constantly. You should start with boots and focus on building magic resistance early, and complete your boots in either Mercury's Treads or Boots of Swiftness. Farming may not be easy against him, especially if he's good at landing Thundering Shuriken, but that's not a huge problem because once you'll be tanky enough you should be able to kill him multiple times and zone him, denying him farm, and catching up with him. Try to use your minions to make him waste his Thundering Shuriken and use bushes to prevent him from hitting you, and to get closer to him so you can engage him. Your burst should kill him, but his Lightning Rush can get him to safety quickly, so I'd recommend you use Ignite earlier than usual and that you spend one more point into Decisive Strike early.

Allright, so Kled is a rare pick and one that not many people can abuse, yet I tell you this little guy has potential, he is from Noxus after all!
Start with a cloth armor and be ready to spend most of your time dodging bear trap on a rope, as it's his main harrass ability that goes through your minions and can do damage and allow him to initiate a full trade. His biggest damage source is Violent Tendencies, it passively gives him attack speed periodically and enhances his daamage for 4 autoattacks, with the fourth doing insane damage that you must avoid or tank with Courage. If you are committing to a trade, keep Courage for that 4th autoattack and you will win it.
Building against him is simple, get a Bami's Cinder and Ninja Tabi quickly, then switch to Black Cleaver if you're winning, or finish Sunfire Aegis if you're losing. You can finish sunfire early even if ahead, as it's a very safe option for you.
Winning trades is a matter of not allowing Kled to engage first with his bear trap on a rope, that means if he misses that you can engage and silence him so he can't escape with his E for a bit, allowing for a full trade. If he commits to it you can tank his enhanced autos with W and win the trade easily.
Now here comes why it's a medium lane. His passive makes him untargetable when you make his lizard Skaarl escape, preventing you from ulting, allowing him to ranged harrass (or kill you if you're low) and buying time for a gank if his jungler is around. This means your ult is only worth using AFTER his passive procs and obviously you will need to lower his health a bit before it is deadly. This means you have to overexpose every single time to kill him unless you're fed. Apart from that, no big deal, also, keep in mind few people know how to use him, so rarely will he be an issue to you if you play well :)

Lee Sin is either a powerful fighter or a dangerous assassin, but since you're Garen he's useless against you, because you won't let him become either. Start with Cloth Armor and focus on armor, a nice Dead Man's Plate coupled with Ninja Tabi are amazing early. Farming should be easy, because if he wants to poke you he needs to get close to you, exposing himself to your high damage and the silence that can prevent him from escaping after the poke, don't be afraid of getting hit by his Sonic Wave if you have lots of health, because if he hits you with Resonating Strike you'll get to hit strike very very hard, just make sure to activate Courage right before he hits you with Resonating Strike to reduce the damage taken. Make sure to use Decisive Strike after he uses Tempest/ Cripple, so you'll surprise attack him and get a free trade while he can't slow you down. His Dragon's Rage deals quite a bit of damage and can put you in sticky situations, there isn't really a way to avoid it, because he has great mobility and will be able to surprise you often, but in general, if your health is low or you see he places a ward, be ready to use Courage and then Decisive Strike to quickly get away from the spot he'll kick you to. He's fairly weak early game, so your burst should kill him, although he has many escapes and could avoid getting killed in different ways, keep trying and you will succeed, this lane is easy for you!
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Malphite's been mini-reworked a bit ago. While the lane winds up in a draw (not being able to kill each other), early on his damage is actually quite a bit higher than yours. He will probably max and spam his Seismic Shard because it's an easy ranged cc that isn't a skillshot and can't be dodged. Start with a Doran's Shield and focus on magic resistance if he plans to go AP (you'll know that if he has Predator or Arcane Comet, or rush Black Cleaver if he is going to go tank (which you'll know if he is using grasp or Aftershock). It may be hard to kill him because he's really tanky, your best bet is to prevent his Granite Shield from activating, so you need to poke often and force trades, by making sure you get hit with Seismic Shard first, so you can use Decisive Strike's slow removal to hit him. His other skills are both AoE so you need to back off if you want to heal up, as he can inadvertently poke you preventing Perseverance from activating, plus don't be too overconfident early: he can hit you hard with Brutal Strikes if you don't have Courage unlocked. Your combo doesn't kill him unless he's already below about 50% health (not counting Granite Shield) and his ultimate Unstoppable Force can make a dive cost you your life, so don't do it unless you're almost full health. If you don't die to him early, the lane will result in you both being unable to kill each other and waiting for midgame to start.

Maokai is a very good tank and is fairly unbalanced top because of his good sustain, good cc and overall good damage. The issue with Maokai right now is you can get a couple of good trades and he will likely sustain them anyway. Proper use of your W can provide you with an advantage in lane, but his abilities have lower cooldowns and cost him next to no mana, allowing a constant harass output from him and generally hard time retaliating for you. If you don't trade too often you should be able to farm nicely, spamming Q-E and backing off quickly before he can cc you can also prove beneficial, but generally speaking Maokai can win trades against you no matter what, especially after he's got Bami's Cinder. Rush Black Cleaver as quickly as you can and try to keep him from teleporting somewhere else. His CC is very powerful but your Courage can deny it to allow you to either run or try to kill him.

Nasus is a very common pick top because of his great tankiness and his damage potential thanks to Siphoning Strike. Your objective against him is to farm, obviously, but it is vital that you DO NOT let him farm: poke him often and silence him every time he tries to use his Q on a minion of yours, this way he'll have a hard time getting stacks and will have to push his lane to heal himself with his passive. Start with Cloth Armor to nullify his Siphoning Strike's damage early and build armor mainly, just keep in mind an early Phage will be mandatory for you to be able to kill him. He will build lots of armor early because he'll count on his Siphoning Strike to deal damage, so you should get Chain Vest and then quickly get the Phage and give priority to completing Black Cleaver. Your combo should kill him early and will require a couple of trades before it is deadly during the mid-game. Late-Game Nasus is amazingly hardcore unless the whole team camped him during the game, so a moment will come in which you won't be able to kill him at all.

Olaf is similar to you: he has great tankiness and amazing damage from early to lategame, his Reckless Swing deals a huge amount of true damage and costs him no health compared to the damage he deals to you, and his Tough It Out combined with his passive Berserker Rage make him ridicolously hard to kill when fighting, plus his Undertow is a pass-through-minions ranged poke that's hard to avoid. Start with a Doran's shield and be prepared to recall often, low health means death against him very often, focus on armor and make sure you get a Chain Vest and Ninja Tabi for the added resistance to basic attacks; don't forget about health items: more health means slower trades for him and will give you more tankiness. His Ragnarok gets him rid of silence and makes an eventual trade almost inevitable, so never think that landing your Q on him will let you fight freely without risks. The key to success is proper use of your Courage and Ignite: the former will reduce his damage greatly when compared to yours, and the latter will prevent him from healing up too quickly, allowing your combo to finish him. If you don't pick some early kills on him you'll probably not get to kill him later: this doesn't mean you gotta go in recklessly, it's just a warning, unless you're ahead, do not go all in but limit yourself to pokes with your Decisive Strike.
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Pantheon's rework has hit Live and many things have changed. I'd classify him as a high threat level weren't it for the fact that his kit isn't too simple to use and sync, meaning in most ranks he should be a maneuverable matchup.
Starting with Doran's Shield is recommended against him because his Q, while turned into a skillshot, is a pass-through-minions one and can hit you from quite a distance even if Pantheon decides to not hold Q and increase its range to the max.
Your best bet early on is naturally to dodge the spear and proceed to trade into him when it's on cooldown. Note that his Shield Vault is still a point and click stun you can't dodge, but you can use Courage in order to reduce its duration and damage. The ideal situation is the one in which Pantheon's got his passive fully stacked and opens up with his stun. If you successfully block it with W, you'll have a much higher chance of winning the trade!
Why didn't I say you'll have a guaranteed win in the trade? Simple. His E - Aegis Assault is his best ability by far. It allows him to block all sources of damage from a specific direction while he deals AoE damage towards that direction. Playing around this ability requires you to do the following things: don't use your Q while he's blocking, use Judgment's ghosting effect (allowing to pass through him while spinning) to get behind him and damage him and refrain from using your ultimate while he's blocking too.
Yes, Aegis Assault WILL BLOCK YOUR ULTIMATE IF GAREN IS IN THE BLOCKED AREA WHEN CASTING IT. In some clutch situations it may be worth flashing behind Pantheon, but my general approach is to either ult him when he's silenced or simply wait for his block to finish before using the ult.
Killing Pantheon requires you to dodge his Q, W his Shield Vault and not burn abilities while he's in Aegis Assault. It may seem a handful, but it's really just natural when you get used to the trading pattern!

New Poppy actually packs quite the punch top right now! I like her alot but.... Garen beats her hard. Abusing Graps of the Undying in the early game is the first key to victory. Her level 1 can be better than yours if you let her land both the procs of her Hammer Shock AND her passive. Also keep in mind stepping on top of her shield destroys it, so do it every time you can.
She mostly deals physical damage, meaning you'll start with a cloth armor and get a chain vest for maximum lane potential. Then you can choose to go Black Cleaver if she builds defensive, or use the new "Assassin Build", going with TrinityForce for burst damage IF the enemy team is relatively squishy.
Trading with Poppy isn't that hard, your silence does counter her trades because she needs to be able to cast her spells to win, but starting with E can be beneficial so you can get rid of her Q's slow with your Decisive Strike. W should be used before the SECOND explosion of her Q or if you can predict it, before her E engage&stun.
Ult + ignite will finish her off just fine ;)

Renekton is a pretty strong toplaner with good stats, good scalings, great sustain and doesn't need mana to spam his ability like you. Besides, post Juggernouts rework Garen simply doesn't counter him as hard anymore. You DO outscale him hard, but it takes a while and you must properly use your skills in order to win this lane. Start with a cloth armor and build as you would with any AD lane, though if you see he's getting insanely tanky and deals no damage to you, you can think of anticipating Black Cleaver's completion, in order to snowball. Trading with him is simple, at early levels (from level 3 to level 7-8) he'll feel safe to proceed with slice then stun you with Ruthless Predator, then he'll Cull the Meek and he'll finally back off with dice, sounds like a complicated burst to break, but here's the good news: silence stops it and can make him fail it. Normally, if you start trading you win the trade, as your silence forces him to hold on to his W's stun, allowing you to simply use W exactly when your silence finishes, negating all the damage he deals. If he engages first and you don't use W as soon as he slices in, you will get outtraded heavily.
The best way to make this lane easier is to rush a Sunfire Aegis. Once you got Bami's Cinder you should already manage trades a bit better. Once you get the full Sunfire, you win the lane no problem if he didn't snowball.
Killing him pre-6 is all about using Ignite and Courage properly, and post-6 is standard as with all enemies. JUST DO NOT ULT UNTIL HE USES Dominus OR HE'LL HAVE A SHOT AT SURVIVING BOTH Ignite AND Demacian Justice.
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Rengar is an assassin, and as such, you're not suppoused to be afraid of him at all. There is one twist though, and that is that he has sustain and is manaless like you, plus his empowered abilities hurt alot, especially Savagery. These are the reason why his threat level is medium. But a smart Garen knows that his Courage makes him unable to lose this lane. The techniques you should use are usual: start with a cloth armor, proceed building Dead Man's Plate. Trading and killing him is easy as usual, there is only one big twist that you MUST master and that is proper use of Courage. His Savagery (especially empowered) will hurt you ALOT, because he'll deal extra damage, gain attack speed and since his Battle Roar allows him to get tankier, he'll be able to outtrade you. If you use Courage right before he uses Savagery you will win the trade, because his armor/magic resist increase is nowhere near as strong as your shield, proper use of your W skill will grant you the win, period.
A few more words on sustain are important here. He has good sustain thanks to his ferocity Battle Roar, but if you force him to use that skill to sustain, it means you're doing a good trading job, because he won't be able to empower one of his offensive abilities. Your sustain, meanwhile is automatic, and if you zone him well, he won't be able to spam his abilities and outsustain you, make sure he's forced to back often, use Courage well and you will completely destroy the lion!
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Garen VS Riven is always thought to be a one direction matchup, in favour of Garen, of course. Garen's silence is indeed a harsh thing for Riven, but I am here to tell you that there are some details you need to address or you may lose the lane to overconfidence. Start with the VS AD start and focus on getting a Chain Vest + Ninja Tabi to reduce her burst damage, along with the effectiveness of her passive. Then proceed with the normal build. Most Rivens will start with their Broken Wings at level 1, meaning you can bully them by autoattacking to then cancel with Decisive Strike, dealing a high amount of damage, and interrupting their combo, and then BACK OFF IMMEDIATELY. From level 2 on, Riven will have Valor at her disposal, and chances are she may max it if she's smart enough to see its utility. From this moment on, you should focus on starting a trade (or answering to one) only when her shield is on CoolDown, or else she may use it to tank the damage from Decisive Strike, then immediately stun you, preventing your Judgment from hitting her more than 2 times, and then get a one-way trade that you don't want. When she ults, her damage receives a very big boost. IF you have enough armor, you can tank her all in and trade back normally, killing her, IF you don't have enough armor, you should aim to back off until she either uses Wind Slash or her ult finishes. When you duel with her and her ult's ready, try to save the silence for last, so you get 1.5 extra seconds of "safety" before she can ult you and finish you off, should you be in danger.
As you can see this lane is far from being a noob-easy lane, but you definetly have a huge advantage in your silence, tankiness and good base damage that Riven won't be able to get above to.
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Rumble received repeated buffs to his Q and his E, making this lane a little harder at early levels, but still manageable enough. I find Rumble to be kinda tanky, now I may be wrong but he isn't as easy as many enemies to burst down, so do get a quick Phage too in this lane if you can, as it'll help you trade faster, you still outdamage and outtrade him without it but, you know, it's just too good of an item to skip, because the health it gives counters his damage. Trading is usual, make sure you land your silence so he can't use his Scrap Shield too fast, use your minions to avoid being hit by Electro-Harpoon and use Courage when he activates Flamespitter. Many people simply avoid the Flamespitter, I think it's best to use Courage and tank part of its damage POST LEVEL 4, because your damage is higher and your tankiness helps alot, so after you hit level 4 just man up and fight. IF HE USES HIS ULTIMATE ALL OF A SUDDEN: RUN, YOU'RE BEING GANKED, AND YOU KNOW IT!
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Ryze can prove to be a pretty big problem due to Rune Prison. Start with boots and be prepared to be poked and outtraded often, though this isn't going to be a huge problem the further you go in the laning phase. Get Mercury's Treads as your first item and proceed with a Spectre's Cowl, as of patch 5.3 it is even better for sustain, this will help you alot against Ryze, since he has none. Once you got a degree of magic resistance this lane will get easier PROVIDED YOU DIDN'T ALREADY DIE 2 TIMES OR MORE. Trading is made easier by the Q/E split (more on this in the to of the page). Many Ryze players will max their Overload to deal more damage, this makes Rune Prison last less, allowing you to get to them even if they snare your on the ground, thanks to the extra lenght of your speed boost. After you get to him, you should be able to kill him fairly quickly even though he's tanky as a mage, a Hexdrinker proves to be an amazing early game item to outtrade him when you get to him!
Not that hard of a lane if you consider this guide, but there is a problem: he can zone you hard and prevent you from getting the money necessary to have an edge, that's why this lane is medium, a gank from your jungler can boost your winning potential considerably, so do ask for one if possible.

Nice update by Rito this time. He no longer has free ranged harrass and no sustain, meaning he must expose to your trades if he wants to farm, and he lacks the ability to regen as much as you do, BUT his shield is actually dangerous for you now, meaning it is recommended you wait for it to finish before trading in any case. Start Long Sword and 3 pots and abuse the AA+Q level one combo, his q takes way longer to perform its full damage and you will be running away with silence in a blink of an eye!
Build an early Phage and work on Mercury's Treads, then finish Black Cleaver. Mercs will give you more than enough MR to stack up with your W's passive's, and BC allows you to melt his armor, while he does no damage to you.
I normally grab Ignite as usual in lane because it allows you to kill him at eas at early levels, putting you ahead and giving you the edge you need to snowball. Teleport is a good option too though, as it allows you to follow up his ganks.
If he uses ult/tp, consider using flash + Decisive Strike to stop either of those, and make the enemy team fall into a huge bait.
Killing shen is ordinary business. This lane got a lot easier after his rework, take it easy, and win it :)
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High damage, high tankiness, decent mobility with Burnout and mixed damage: this sounds fairly complicated, but it isn't if you use reason. Start with boots to avoid taking full damage from Burnout, and proceed with Ninja Tabi, no need for mercury's early because she has no ccs, get a Spectre's Cowl and then a Phage, once you both hit level 4 you should deal more damage than her no problem, and then trade well. She has no sustain, so if she manages to get a good trade going, abuse your sustain and she'll end up being zoned anyway. Killing her could take time: she's tanky even in human form! Demacian tankiness is always there! About her Dragon's Descent: don't let her position in a way that pushes you under her tower or into the enemy jungler with this ult, or you may have to cry if she does it! The best way to trade with her is to wait for her to engage with Burnout, try avoiding it and then turn around with Decisive Strike and proceed as you would normally do when trading. If she manages to force the trade while Burnout is on, just start spinning and use Courage, you will win the trade. Flame Breath deals a rather low amount of damage unless she maxes it, so you can tank it no problem, just avoid letting her consume the mark it applies or you will take damage!
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It's Singed! As long as you do NOT chase him before you killed him 3 times, he won't be a threat in any possible way! Singed is a phsycological type of champion, meaning you don't simply fight with him, you are playing a mind game against your enemy summoner. Lucky for you, Garen is a safe pick against him, and even if killing him may take a while (or not be done at all), you won't die unless you chase him brainlessly.
Your normal burst should do the work, but since most of the time he'll grab you with Fling you won't even have to engage. Simply activate Courage right before he grabs you so the consequent snare from Mega Adhesive lasts less, and then go full burst on him. Just try to use judgment in a way so that you don't stand in his Poison Trail for too long and the trade is won. Get Mercury's Treads and Phage early, then go on with magic resistance and you will snowball him hard no problem.
If you are smart enough to NOT chase Singed and to generally avoid his damage in most cases, the AD Garen build is viable to win this lane and snowball harder as showed in the following video Play Video

Sion deals lots of damage early thanks to his Decimating Smash and his Roar of the Slayer, plus his shield, Soul Furnace deals magic damage based on your maximum health. Against sion, you may want to use an hybrid marks rune page, with a degree of armor penetration, and start with a Long Sword, this way your damage becomes equal, but you beat him. To do this, wait for him to use his roar on you, then he'll proceed with his Q, when he starts loading it, use Decisive Strike: it will stop the attack from happening, and then you'll be able to trade normally with him. If you see you can't avoid his Q, use Courage and the damage and stun will be reduced, allowing a trade to happen anyway, but beware of his W! It deals damage based on health, so you must avoid taking the damage or simiply hit him till the shield expires, so it won't blow on your face! Build the Phage early, after you got a Chain Vest and Mercury's Treads ( Ninja Tabi are viable, but his W deals magic damage, so you need MR) and you're done with getting advantages against him.

Keep an eye out here. The Kench is actuall a less than hard matchu but it's not easy to deal with him. His passive gives him extra damage based on his max health, so the longer laning phase goes without you grabbing the advantage, the less you are likely to be able to win.
Start with a Long Sword and with your E. Spin on him at level 1 without abusing autos so you don't get minion aggro. Work hard to get an Hexdrinker and Mercury's Treads to then proceed towards Black Cleaver. You will generally want to avoid getting 3 stacks of his passive but this isn't exactly simple when you are trading, so make sure you only start a serious trade when you know you can win it. To win trades you need to start spinning, then at the end of you spin, ou silence him and back off. Keep doing this until he gets low. Silencing him at the end ensures that he doen't get to use his shield to ounter your ult. Play Video

Teemo is considered to be Garen's main counter due to his Blinding Dart (blind) and his Move Quick (free kiting ability) and the fact that he has free ranged damage over time thanks to Toxic Shot, to not mention Noxious Trap's kiting power. His kit may counter yours, but with proper use of your kit, I assure you he is NOT your main counter BY FAR! Let's get into this. Start with boots, his blind lasts for only 1.5 seconds at rank 1 so if you go close to him and he uses it, you can then land your Q easily. On your first back get a Null-Magic Mantle and then focus on getting Boots of Swiftness quick. Once you get the boots, get an Hexdrinker (teemo builds health at max, so armor penetration isn't necessary in lane) and then proceed with Spectre's Cowl. Trading is simple, use bushes he hasn't worked on with Noxious Trap yet to get close to him, then simply walk towards him, if he just runs, turn back, if he does the same, activate Courage while he uses his full burst, chances are he'll also use Blinding Dart, wasting the blind, and allowing you to get to him with your Decisive Strike and then burst him down easily. Repeat this every time necessary to snowball him hard, and he will end up zoned by your level 9-10!!! Play Video

Trundle loves your armor, the more you get the better it is for him and that makes him a partial counter. Why do I say partial? Because he doesn't have a passive boost and he only steals a percentage of your armor when he uses Subjugate, allowing you to win this lane before it gets too bad (usually around his level 11, but in general once you get over 120-150 armor). This means you must win this lane fast, but he's not squishy and he's got great sustain, so the trick is to keep him off minions in the early game as much as you can. Start with a Cloth Armor because it's still perfect early, then go on with Ninja Tabi and continue with a Chain Vest. Once you're done with boots and the second cloth, get a Phage and start beating his ***. Your trading potential until level 3-4 is low against him, because his Chomp reduces your AD greatly, and thanks to Frozen Domain he can just AA you to death while sustaining hard. What you want to do is make sure he wastes his Chomp on a minion and then silence, to then proceed with your full combo (use Courage before he bites you, it's all basic attacks afterwards and Ninja Tabi do the job just right). Continue this until he is zoned and keep him away, to then kill him when you get the chance. Ignite is really important to win this lane, don't skip it!
The alternative "AD Garen" build is viable in this lane, as long as you make sure you trade smartly, making use of Courage well.
Play Video

Tryndamere is an auto-attacker, this means his early game sucks and his lategame is epic (yes, fear him lategame, he will often be a problem to you). His passive Battle Fury gives him free critical strikes on basic attacks, so any smart Trynda player will start with his gap close ( Spinning Slash) and use it to engage you as soon as his fury is over 60% to ensure good crits on you. You want to start with Cloth Armor as usual and proceed with Warden's Mail and Ninja Tabi (A MUST vs Trynda). ABUSE Decisive Strike on him at level 1, if he manages to man up and get you to around 30% health, stay back until you get level 2-3 but don't give up cs, if he AAs you, you use Decisive Strike. Your objective after level 3 is to force him to spend his fury to heal himself with Bloodlust and to waste his Mocking Shout when you are trading (to reduce your AD), so you must trade often. You will outtrade him thanks to Courage, by using the regular combos, and he will end up very low on health. Make sure you get Ignite and that you kill him before he gets level 6 for an extra advantage. Once he gets his level 6, after a fight in which he can die, keep the silence, so you can ult, and since he survives thanks to Undying Rage, you can use silence and then AA a couple of times (he can't escape due to silence), to then ignite him. Ignite will reduce his healing and finish him off once his ult finishes.
A really well timed ult can kill him before he reacts with his ultimate, so you may not always need ignite, but I normally take it because it allows for easy kills pre-6! Play Video

Urgot's been recently reworked, then buffed beyond human comprehension then nerfed to nothing and then mini-reworked into what he is now: an unstoppable machine gun. That's right. After level 9 (assuming he maxes his W - Purge), his W becomes a toggle, which means he can keep it on all the time, if he so desires. For reference, whenever his Purge is on, you can't trade with him because his DPS is too high, so when he gets the toggle effect, all he has to do is press one button and he will win every trade. You can't match the damage he deals with Purge with any setup no matter what you have in your runes and what you build. So you are dependent on jungle assistance after level 9.
What can you do prior to level 9 is what we'll discuss here. Urgot is a ranged Juggernaut, so he's basically similar to you in terms of tankiness and damage output but he has the colossal range advantage that you wanna be careful of. His E - Disdain is a good engage tool that will make him dash forward, fling you back if you're in his path, potentially putting you into his minion wave, and gives him a shield, making your damage output considerably less relevant, so you MUST dodge that at all costs. His Q - Corrosive Charge is a small AoE explosive that will deal a bit of damage and slow you, setting up a good E, so you wanna dodge that too or you'll be at risk. If your Q is up when you get slowed, activate it immediately to cleanse the slow and force Urgot to miss his E. His W is a common ability that has a fixed duration prior to level 9, and you can play around it until he maxes it. His ult is a better version of yours, but it requires him to hit a skillshot, so if you dodge it, he basically doesn't have an ult, although his damage output is sufficient without it so be careful still.
So in short: dodge his abilities, trade after his W expires (until he maxes it) and pay attention to his legs. When one of his legs is bright green, he will deal bonus AoE damage when he autoattacks something that's in the direction the leg is facing. You don't want to take that damage.
As for items, start with Doran's Shield, rush a Dead Man's Plate to match his tankiness and prevent him from running you down, and make sure you only trade in the best conditions possible like explained above.
Of note, if Urgot maxes Q instead of W, then the lane becomes a little easier because he won't have his Purge as a toggle until level 13, so you can play around his kit like I've explained for longer.

All in all, I'd consider banning this champion, if I were you.

Vladimir is not a huge threat, but he's a ranged champ with a very good amount of sustain that goes growing throughout the game, so it may be hard to lane against him, especially the first times you meet him. With that said Garen wins this matchup if you make good use of his kit. Because Vlad starts with his Q, you wanna start with boots and 4 pots, and try to hit your Q as many times as possible at level 1 to ensure an early advantage. Turn those boots into Mercury's Treads if he manages to trade well with you and damage you alot or Boots of Swiftness if you find that he is just taking your damage without putting out any, to then focus on a very nice Hexdrinker and potentially, a Spectre's Cowl. You may want to focus on the Hexdrinker first, as he gets tanky over time and you may need the extra damage. To trade with Vlad there are 2 common ways.
[1]: You hit your Silence: if you hit your silence, you spin normally, he won't take full damage from your Judgment because he will probably use Sanguine Pool to avoid some, unless he has it on cd.
[2]: He uses Sanguine Pool before you can silence: in this case I'd just back off and wait for his W to finish. It has a very long cooldown, meaning that if you don't get to silence him you can just wait for your Q to come off cd and then repeat the trade, except case number 1 will verify.
Killing him depends on your silence: if he's silenced when you plan on using your ult and Ignite to finish him off, you got a safe kill, if he isn't, he will Sanguine Pool as soon as you Ignite him, making you potentially waste a summoner for nothing, he'll sustain back and you have no Ignite, BIG DEAL HERE!
Play Video

Wukong is a very very easy matchup for you. He isn't entirely an AD caster, but silence prevents him from turning invisible when you're trying to fight which is very nice. Start with a Cloth Armor and 5 pots and focus on armor, getting Sunfire Aegis if he buys armor, or Dead Man's Plate if he builds damage, then Ninja Tabi and then a Phage. Trading with him is very easy, if you land your silence, you can use your E, get a feel for the direction he'll run at and continue spinning even while he is invisible, after you stop he'll trade back, wait for him to use his Crushing Blow then activate Courage while backing off to significantly reduce the damage he deals. Make sure you get rid of minion aggro, and the trade is won 100%.
Should he engage you first, you need to use Courage immediatly after Crushing Blow to mitigate the armor reduction it applies, then trade normally. This tactic turns his engage in a foolish suicide attempt. To kill him, make sure he is silenced, or his Warrior Trickster could make you fail, hard. Play Video

Xin is mostly an auto-attacker, his spells help him engage and make sure you are committed to the fight when she engages, this is a reason for making sure you are never caught off-guard, or he'll punish you.
Start with a cloth armor, and be ready to use your Q relatively often at level 1, trying to also auto-attack cancel (auto him, then instantly use Q) to get an early edge, then work your way to level 3 without trading too much, he can beat you in trades if he's good, and I wouldn't risk giving him first blood before having Courage. The build then proceeds with a Warden's Mail and Ninja Tabi, to then proceed with a Phage (mandatory here, he isn't squishy). From level 3 on, trading is easy and depends on who engages. Normally a Xin Zhao will engage often, so you may want to wait for him to use his Audacious Charge, then activating Courage IMMEDIATLY AFTER, and start spinning as fast as you can, to then finish it up with Decisive Strike, you trade this way because he will knock you up, and if you're already spinning, he won't stop you and will have to take full damaage from Judgment. If you want to start the trade, you can start with your Judgment and then Decisive Strike after the spin. Silencing him after you hit him hard will prevent him from trading back. Besides, should he manage to trade back anyway, make use of Courage while backing off to mitigate his trade's damage. Killing him is just normal business, do what you'd do against anyone else.

Every Yasuo player will focus on spamming their Steel Tempest to zone you off farm, it's ok to take some damage from it, but you should at least try to dodge it. You can't bully him at level 1 because of his increased crit chance, so you should limit yourself at autoattacking him once to get him rid of his passive's shield, then use Decisive Strike to then immediately back off. Start trading aggressively from level 3, after you get Courage you have 3 useful abilities against his only 2 useful ones, with Wind Wall being a no go against you. You should start with the Cloth Armor and five health potions, with the health potions being extremely useful to counter his regular poke, to then transition into a Warden's Mail, and focus on Randuin's Omen as your first item above all and then on Ninja Tabi, to further reduce the damage his critical strikes will deal, and the power of his basic attacks. Note that, even though the current Yasuo meta is about maxing out his Sweeping Blade which deals magic damage, his main sources of damage are auto-attacks and Steel Tempest which does count as an auto, that is why we absolutely need armor and not magic resistance, the 30 bonus MR we can get through farming is more than enough to go with.
I got 2 more tips for you. First being BEWARE OF HIS ULTIMATE: after he casts it on ANYONE, he will get 50% bonus armor penetration! THAT'S DANGEROUS FOR YOU, so if he manages to ult and you're not full health, wait for this passive effect to end (you can tell by the color of his sword, which turns blue for the duration).
Second tip is to use League's targeting system properly: right click on him once when you plan on using Decisive Strike on him, or he'll juke it by moving around through your minions, making you missclick alot if you spam! You can spam clicks once you start spinning, thanks to AoE countering his mobility pretty well, especially when he's silenced!
Play Video

Yorick can be tough to beat because of his ability to summon ghouls. The way that ability works is a bit complicated but I'll try to elaborate it in a simple way.
Whenever Yorick kills an enemy with his Q- Last Rites, a grave spawns where the enemy dies. When he is in range of 3 or more graves and Last Rites is on cooldown, he can use Q again to activate a different Q ability, called awakening, which will span a ghoul per each grave in range up to a maximum of 4 ghouls (meaning he can get either 3 or 4 ghouls). Ghouls are basically extra minions that do more damage (pushing the lane) and are resistant to AoE damage, meaning your Judgment sucks against them. A ghoul will always die in one auto-attack, however, so just auto-Q-auto to kill 3 very rapidly when necessary.
Additionally, another way Yorick can spawn ghouls is by having his ultimate ability activated. When he uses ult, he spawns the Maiden of the Mist, which is yet another type of minion (more similar to a jungle monster) that will spawn a ghoul every time she walks close to a grave (unless there are already 4 ghouls present).
Now that we got the ghouls out of the way, here's how to actually beat Yorick.
His Q- Last Rites does exactly as much damage as yours, except it will heal him, meaning that if you both use it, he will win the trade by a small amount, so you always want to activate Judgment right after Decisive Strike and hit him with 1 or 2 spins before backing off immediately. Repeating this process often can win you the lane. Note that Yorick can spam Q on minions to sustain, so the better you zone him off farm, the higher your advantage will be.
Here comes the interesting part. Whenever Yorick manages to hit you with his E- Mourning Mist, his ghouls (and the Maiden, if she's there), will leap towards you and focus you down, dealing IMMENSE damage, and making it essentially a free trade for him. Yorick just needs to hit his E, which is a skillshot and has decent range, he doesn't actually have to get close to you to do that and this means he can win trades "automatically". Whenever he hits you with E, just run back and kill the ghouls as you walk back, basically kiting them, so you don't take too much damage.
Yorick's W- Dark Procession is also a quite dangerous ability. He spawns a small wall, similar to that of Jarvan IV's ultimate in shape, that can be destroyed with autoattacks. Most Yorick players will either W->E, locking you in the wall and guaranteeing the E hit so his ghouls can win the trade for him, or E->W, slowing you with E and prompting the ghouls to come to you, and then using the fact that you're slowed to ensure you get locked in the W wall. A COLOSSAL TIP is that you can have Garen autoattack the wall by clicking OUTSIDE of it. This only works when you're locked inside of the wall, and it can be a lifesaver.. If your Q is up when he locks you in, you can auto-Q to immediately destroy the wall and walk away.
Other than all this, there's nothing more to say, the real takeaway from this extremely long matchup guide is you don't want to trade with Yorick if he has his ghouls or the Maiden (or all of them) with him and they're focusing you. If he has ghouls and you want to kill him, kill the ghouls first. If he has the Maiden and you want to kill him, you'll have to kill the maiden first. Whenever his ghouls and his Maiden are out of your way, Yorick is fragile and can only run from you, using his W to keep you from chasing him and killing him, and you should be able to kill him easily in that stage.

Zac has one key trait that can make him play against Garen: being manaless.
Start with boots and 4 pots, you will need the mobility to avoid his Elastic Slingshot, as it deals very high damage and allows him to all-in you and preventing a trade back. Proceed with Mercury's Treads and then keep an eye on his build: if he builds AP (Liandry's and stuff like that), go with a Spectre's Cowl and then a Phage after, if he builds tanky, you wanna get an Hexdrinker and maybe a Phage. Trading with him is relatively simple, the only peculiarity is the fact that his burst damage is relatively high in the early/mid-game, this means proper use of silence and Courage are key to your success. If you silence him, go all in and prepare to use Courage if he trades back with Stretching Strikes and Unstable Matter, then proceed as normal. You will need more trades than normal to kill him, as he's not squishy enough for one burst to dispose of him. Keep in mind your silence stops his Elastic Slingshot so if he tries escaping with it and you are able to cast Decisive Strike, do it!
Be aware that his potential during ganks is high, especially if the enemy jungler is AD based, so keep an eye (or a ward!) out!

Many people complain about Zed being overpowered and/or unbeatable. I find the zed matchup to be qute easy :P. Start cloth + pots, focus on getting a Chain Vest and a Phage early. These two items are going to set you up for an extremely good balance between damage and tankiness in laning phase. Trading with zed is actually somewhat complicated though, due to his Living Shadow's mobility. Your number 1 priority is to avoid getting hit by his Razor Shuriken at all costs, if the Zed has a brain he won't use his W-Q combo to hit you because that would simply open him to damage he can't avoid or escape from. If he does use his shadow to harrass then you wanna go in full on and kick his *** while he can't escape. A smart thing to do is avoid spamming right click, simply click on him once then proceed with your rotation, this ensures if he uses W again to switch positions with his shadow Garen won't lose his targeting and will continue chasing in the proper direction. Post-6 you should always try to hold on to your Q, to keep the silence handy if he ults you. If you have over 120 armor though, you can be the one who starts trades, if he ults, there is no way he'll deal enough damage to kill you. The Q/E split is recommended on this matchup as the extra mobility on your Q will give you the edge in lane and provide more reliable harrass.

29/03/15 - Changelog chapter added!
29/03/15 - Matchups for Sion and Singed added!
29/03/15 - New rune set added! (ArmorPen)
29/03/15 - Added Hexdrinker information and tips in the Items section
29/03/15 - STARTED modifying AP matchups to better suit the addition of Hexdrinker as a core item of the "VS AP" build
29/03/15 - Added new matchups
29/03/15 - Rearranged the extra videos section to better suite matchups (videos with specific enemies will also be displayed under the matchup section for easier use)
29/03/15 - Added Teemo matchup Video
30/03/15 - Added Trundle, Tryndamere matchups
27/04/15 - Added Hecarim Matchup, Reworked "Runes" sections for better Season 5 experience. Also added Tryndamere Matchup video.
01/06/15 - Added Hecarim Matchup gameplay video, added Elixirs in the Items section and in the builds, various fixes.
26/06/15 - Updated Masteries to suit patch 5.12's new defensive tree.
28/06/15 - Added Jax matchup video.
25/07/15 - Added Vladimir, Wukong, Xin Zhao, Zac matchups, COMPLETED MATCHUP SECTION WITH MOST COMMON PICKS, extra matchups to be added soon ; Also added Videos for Rengar, Vladimir and Shyvana.
22/08/15 - Guide updated for Garen's Gameplay update, complete rework.
25/08/15 - Added information about Titanic Hydra and the new Bruiser Garen Build.
02/09/15 - Updated the guide for patch 5.17, slightly improved "Playing Garen" section for easier reading
04/09/15 - Slightly improved Darius matchup, lane is now Hard and needed additional information.
10/09/15 - Added updated Fiora matchup, reorganized the Items section for easier choices based on the enemy team comps and the situation, reworked the Healthy Garen Build for patch 5.16's new items.
13/09/15 - Added Yasuo matchup + video in the spoiler of the matchup itself
15/09/15 - Updated Riven matchup with better information, and added a video for it.
20/09/15 - Split the Items Section in 2 sections (one for the early laning phase, one for the late laning phase), and completel rearranged Item orders for a much easier reading experience. Fixes on the Matchups section, keeping it fresh and up to date with the items and champion changes.
28/09/15 - Added Olaf matchup video
10/10/15 - Added Maokai and Lee Sin matchup videos!
18/10/15 - Added Fiora matchup video!
20/11/15 - Update on the Items sections with all the new items Garen can get something out of, updated crit Garen build. Also removed the Crit Garen Build chapter: I will add it back once it's complete.
14/01/16 - Added Illaoi Matchup + updated Poppy Matchup!
11/05/16 - Added a new Skill Order setup in the AP Lane build guide (will probably add some more info in the Skills section soon enough), addedd ASSASSIN GAREN alternative build to the builds (also known as Movespeed Garen), reworked Shen and Renekton matchup guides and added a gameplay video for both matchups.
15/05/16 - Updated the Core Items (Standard Full Build) in the AD lane section to better suit my actual usual buildpath, also updated the runes section. REWORKED Skill Order with the new Q/E split.
09/08/2016 - Updated Ryze matchup, added Tahm Kench Matchup with video included, updated Darius matchup video, added matchup videos for Akali, Cho'Gath, Dr. Mundo, Illaoi, Irelia, Pantheon.
08/10/2016 - COMPLETELY NEW CHAPTER - ARMORPEN GAREN!!!
23/10/2016 - Placed the EXPERTS Build on the other side of the screen for better reading. Updated Runes section for current situation. Added Malphite and Trundle Matchup videos and updated the matchup videos for Riven, Darius and Illaoi.
09/11/2016 - Updated introduction chapter with Q&A for the preseason and what's coming up in the next season. Setting up all that needs editing in S7.
21/11/2016 - They fixed the guide saving bug! YAYYY. Masteries and runes sections updated for S7. Fixed some stuff in the Items and the EXPERTS BUILD sections.
10/12/2016 - Updated various sections after the addition of Armor Reduction on Garen's kit in patch 6.24
09/01/2017 - Added Kled and Camille matchups (Camille already has a video, check it out!)
27/01/2017 - Updated Darius matchup guide with extra information for expert players who want to use the armorpen build against him without feeding ;P
29/01/2017 - Added link to Discord server to join me in League :)
06/02/2017 - Updated the EXPERTS BUILD with some tweaks on runes, masteries, abilities and more tips. All this along with some minor updates in masteries for both AD lanes and AP lanes in the normal build
28/02/2017 - Old Healthy Garen build removed (R.I.P.). New Healthy Garen build added in as a complete rework and new chapter. Wukong matchup video featuring this build added.
03/03/2017 - New build name changed to "Titan Garen". What do you mean why? Because it's cool as hell, of course!
04/05/2017 - MAJOR MIDSEASON UPDATE: Added Guardian Angel, Adaptive Helm, Gargoyle Stoneplate, Abyssal Scepter Items and Description. Minor updates to Lethality and Titan builds to mirror the new items in the game. Updated Item buildpaths.
06/05/2017 - Further updates for patch 7.9. Specifically, the Item section has been updated. An alternative Main build has been added to both AD and AP matchup guides (it's the Sterak's Gage focused one, for the record).
28/06/2017 - Removed Abyssal Mask from all sections. The item is not viable on Garen anymore
02/07/2017 - Minor updates to various sections
12/07/2017 - Major rework of the guide's introduction section and Social section. Updated Skill Sequence section to mirror buffs in 7.14.
13/07/2017 - Added Bramble Vest and updated information regarding Thornmail and edge of night, along with the item sets. Edge of Night dedicated item description TBA tomorrow ;), finally, edited the Ability sets, E MAX IS BACK BABY!
15/07/2017 - Updated the introduction to mirror the fact that I reached Diamond!
17/07/2017 - Updated video matchups for Yasuo and Gnar (they're higher elo videos, so they are more useful and informative)
27/08/2017 - Fixed a typo on the description of Courage in the Skill sequence section, added useful information for Duskblade of Draktharr
09/11/2017 - Updated the Runes section for patch 7.22
10/11/2017 - Updated the Lethality Garen Section!
11/11/2017 - Updated the Runes section for more readability! Added an announcement in the Titan Garen section to inform that the page is ready and the description is going to be added soon!
12/11/2017 - Added Video in the Runes section!
09/02/2018 - MAJOR GUIDE UPDATE. Updated matchups section. Updated runes section. NEW BUILDS: Bruiser Garen and Jungle Garen are added. DISCONTINUED: Lethality Garen will no longer be updated unless it becomes viable again. UPDATED rune page for Titan Garen (chapter is still pending for update, but at least now you can build correctly)
23/03/2018 - ANOTHER MAJOR UPDATE. Updated the Runes section to patch 8.6 in detail, reworked the Bruiser Build, now called TriGage Garen into a more unique and optimal build for expert Garen players!
25/05/2018 - Minor fixes and added a new montage in the Social section, quality is considerably higher than the previous!
29/08/2018 - Major rework of the 3rd build section. TriGage has been removed in favor of Bruiser Garen (Predator-centric build)
30/08/2018 - Minor rework of the runes section. Updated descriptions, added Glacial Augment as a keystone option and other small fixes. Updated Items section with some minor fixes. Updated Aatrox and Akali matchups for their reworks (sorry for taking so long!)
??/03/2019 - Major rework of the Opening Section of the guide (the one with the recommended items, runes, skill orders etc.). Simplified it across the board for easier readability and some other improvements.
29/03/2019 - Major rework of the Runes section. Minor update of the Introduction. Updated matchups for Irelia and Kayle. Added Urgot matchup. Added DEMOLISHER GAREN Build and Chapter. Marked Titan Garen as discontinued until further notice.
30/03/2019 - Added pictures (made by me!) for each non-discontinued chapter!
02/04/2019 - Updated for patch 9.7's buffs. Updated the FAQ Chapter with my opinion on the buffs. Updated the Skill Details Chapter with information relative to the buffed Courage. Added Yorick Matchup Guide. Removed the redundant Changelog section of the "Future Plans for the Guide" Chapter.
15/04/2019 - Updated Demolisher Build and Chapter to mirror the new points distribution I recommended and added a link to the video guide for the build
26/08/2019 - Updated Demolisher Garen (setup lost importance following the biscuits nerfs :( ). Also edited the FAQ section with information on the upcoming Garen rework!
18/09/2019 - Minor fixes for grammar around some sections. Updated Pantheon, Aatrox and Malphite matchups for their reworks
12/10/2019 - GUIDE REWORK. Removed unnecessary build paths to better use MOBAFIRE's new interface and guide layout. Discontinued builds and chapters collapsed in a single DISCONTINUED chapter for people who are curious about the past builds of the guide that aren't viable anymore. Reworked the Runes, Summoner Spells, Items and Playstyle Chapters.
15/05/2020 - Relatively big update: added new items, changed the core build, updated guide for the main rune page (the Conqueror one), cleaned up some errors and mistakes in the runes, items and skills chapters!