I am Split King a High Elo player with a Youtube Channel and Twitch account. At the end of season 9, I got to Grandmaster 400 LP with my 3 Main Champions, Rek'Sai, Shyvana and Rammus.

Most of my guides are aimed towards getting people to High Diamond and above. I realize that this is a flaw since a lot of the players reading my guides won't even be Low Diamond. Therefore I decided to make a guide aimed towards the average player. I want to show you how to get to Diamond with relatively little effort.

This is where Garen comes into the picture. Garen is VERY easy to play well and despite being easy to play he is still extremely strong.

I did an "Unranked to Diamond" series on Twitch where I ONLY played Garen. I played Garen Top, Jungle, Mid, ADC, and Support. From my experience, his strongest role is by far the Top lane. So that is what this guide is about. Play Garen in the top lane and get to diamond doing it! Without too much of a hassle ;)

A Brief Explanation of the Runes

Take this Rune setup into EVERY matchup.

Conqueror
Garen is the strongest abuser of Conqueror in the game! This has been true ever since Judgment was allowed to have a special interaction with Conqueror. Normally you can never get more than 2 stacks of conqueror from any single ability. But Judgment is coded so each spin counts as a separate ability. This means that you stack Conqueror EXTREMELY fast once you activate E. NEVER take another Keystone rune

Triumph
This one is fairly obvious. Presence of Mind is useless for obvious reasons :P
And Overheal does little to nothing as well since Garen has no healing in hit kit and he won't build lifesteal either (Garen's Passive is a Regen not a heal, so it will not interact with overheal)

Legend: Tenacity
This is the best Legend Rune 99% of the time so you really don't need to bother about changing this rune. Legend: Alacrity is almost useless as the attack speed gained from this rune wont work with your Judgment (runes have no effect on Garen's E) and Legend: Bloodline is equally bad. Tenacity is also AMAZING on Garen as it makes it alot harder for enemies to kite him (which is his main weakness)

Last Stand
ALWAYS take this rune. Coup de Grace is good on a lot of champions, Garen is not one of them. Extra dmg on people low on health is useless since this is when you want to Demacian Justice them anyway and True Dmg cannot be amplified. Cut Down is also bad as you will be building at least some health. So we are left with Last Stand! :)

Secondary Tree:
Sorcery

You take Sorcery to remove Garen's only weakness: Lack of mobility.

Nimbus Cloak
SUPER strong rune when you are running Flash and Ignite as it gives you two very strong options for escaping and chasing down opponents. When you have summoners ready you will not go down easy.

Celerity
A somewhat weak but permanent boost to your movement speed. It is not the greatest rune but it does have nice synergy with all the Movement Speed you get from Items, as well as your Decisive Strike and Nimbus Cloak. You can change this rune for Waterwalking if you go Jungle.

I am still doing the Twitch Garen Series and once it is finished I will post all my findings ;)

If you like my guides or want to support me for some other reason please take the time to subscribe to my Youtube channel, follow me on Twitch or become one of my patrons. Even a little support goes a long way and it will help me make better guides that are always up to date. Thank you!

Links:
Youtube Channel

Twitch Channel

Patreon Page

Link: Solo Queue Shen
Shen: A tanky split pusher with a supportive Kit. This guide can teach you a lot about split pushing and map awareness even if you don't want to play Shen.
Viable Elo: Mid to High.
Shen is a weird champion since he actually gets stronger the higher rank you are. Throwing a well-timed Shen R on a Diamond ADC does a lot more than throwing it on a Silver ADC. I do not recommend playing Shen Below Gold.

Link: World Famous Shyvana
Shyvana: A tanky Split pusher with very high sustained damage. I am disgustingly good at this champion. learning to play Shyvana does not take long. You can become fairly adept at Shyvana even with limited time on your hands if you follow this guide.
Viable Elo: Any
Shyvana is a very stable Champion. She is viable in almost all patches and all ranks

Link: Control Mage Teemo
Satan: A squishy Satanic Hamster that can control the battlefield with his shrooms. The map control is amazing. You can use it for vision resulting in a safe split push, or you can use it to place a heavy line of defense that makes it very hard for the enemy team to finish. A full build Teemo is also very scary. If you have sold your soul to the devil this guide is for you.
Viable Elo: Low to Semi-High
I can only play Teemo effectively up to about Diamond 3. Most players above that Rank knows too well how to abuse his weakness. I will however highly recommend using Teemo for climbing if you are below Diamond. You can climb fast and reliably with Teemo because he does not rely much on his team. Be a one-man army.

Link: THE Rek'sai Guide
Rek'sai: A void monster that burrows underground to stalk her prey. I got to Grandmaster with this champion and it's possible that I am even better on Rek'sai than on Shyvana. Rek'sai is extremely fun to play once you master her but it does take some time since she essentially has 7 abilities instead of the standard 4. You should use this guide if your main concern is to get as high rank as possible.
Viable Elo: Mid to VERY High.
You could still use Rek'sai in low elo with great success if you become good at her, but since she is harder than most champions to learn I would advise against this. When I play ranked on a new account I rarely start out by playing Rek'sai as there are other champions that can carry better with enough kills. You can, however, reach any elo with enough skill because Rek'sai is so extremely strong right now.

LINK: Rammus Guide
Rammus: A Tanky Tank. Rammus gives zero ****s because he cannot die. This guide is ideal for newer or low elo players since Rammus is extremely easy to play. You can learn the basics of the jungle without having to worry about learning a difficult champion at the same time.
Viable Elo: ANY (If picked as a counter) or LOW-MID (If picked every game)
I played Rammus alongside Rek'sai and Shyvana when I got to Grandmaster the first time. BUT I only pick Rammus against certain setups otherwise he is just too weak. The guide contains a section about WHEN to pick Rammus. Rammus is designed as a Counter Champion to AD.