Garen
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Garen is a highly engaging champion with a variety of builds that feel different, yet all effective enough to clear the highest level content. It's a lot of fun to hit stuff with Single Combat and watch his units stats grow, or yell DEMACIA as Judgment wipes the enemy board.
However, he can be a bit slow, as he relies on his own 5 cost champion card. Also, his 6* can be frustrating because the Silence happens after the Strike, often failing to secure KOs as a result.
Does extreme damage to the enemy Nexus. Judgment, Single Combat, and 6* all count.
Doubles Garen's stats, which is especially strong because overkill damage converts into Nexus damage.
Grants mana so you can play Redoubled Valor immediately.
Strategy
Demacias Will does absurd amounts of damage to the enemy Nexus when Garen strikes, especially if his stats are doubled from Hymm of Valor.
The extra stats are strong because every time you single combat a small enemy unit, that does damage equivalent to Garen striking the Nexus. If you play Judgment after Hymm of Valor against a wide enemy board, the overkill damage is almost guaranteed to one shot the enemy nexus.
Grants Garen extra keywords, all of which are useful excluding Regeneration. With Fated and Augment, Single Combat scales him up very quickly.
Grows Garen's stats even faster than normal when he survives damage via Single Combat.
Grants extra mana so you can play Single Combats, and sometimes Judgment.
Strategy
A great setup if you don't have Garen's paid relic, Garen grows to astronomical size extremely quickly when you kill enemies with Single Combat.
Hidden Tome is used here so you can drop Garen on 5 mana, strike with C6, strike again with Single Combat and level up. Do NOT spend the spell mana here if you think you might have to block next round, because with 6 base + 3 spell mana, you can cast Judgment on defense. Then, you can counter attack and likely win the game.
You are hoping to accelerate Garen's mana curve by hitting his Sharpsight spell with the mark. Unfortunately, you can't guarantee this until after the first 'cut' node.
Doubled Judgment easily clears the board.
Reduces the cost of Judgment and ensures you draw Garen. 'The Grand General's Counterplan' is another good option in this slot.
Strategy
This turns Garen into a spellcaster, relying on duplicated casts of 'Judgment' to wipe the board on offense and defense. Stall until you get to 6 mana gems, but manage your mana carefully: you must save enough mana to play Judgment on key defensive turns.
This becomes significantly stronger with Garen's C5 extra mana gem.
Guarantees you have mana to play Judgment the turn after you play Garen for 5 mana.
Doubled Judgment easily clears the board.
Ensures access to Judgment every turn.
Strategy
This variation of Mage Garen should have a good chance of completing Lissandra. Stall the game until you have Chemtech active and you will win.
Community builds recorded for clearing the 10-Star Zoe Adventure with Garen
- level: 43Player:SuurkyyNote:Fiora, Duplicate
- level: 37Player:VodopadUmraza
- level: 47Player:ProfSE
Extra mana is good, but this consumes another relic slot just to get Garen to the titanic threshold, making it hard to justify over other options.
Garen frequently kills units in combat, making this a solid relic.
Gets Garen down on turn 1, but same problem as SFG: takes up two relic slots, leaving not enough room for payoff relics.
Grants Overwhelm to all of Garen's units. Can be useful, but usually you just rely on Garen himself so you can use a better relic that only applies to Garen.
Demacian Might
When an ally strikes, grant it +1|+1.
Justice
+1 Starting Mana.
Round Start: Create a Single Combat in hand if you don't have one.
Demacian Might II
When an ally strikes, grant it +2|+2.
Elite Succession
Each round, the first time an ally dies, create a random Elite follower in hand. It costs 3 less.Review
Not especially useful as Garen wants to keep his units on the board and not let them die. A random follower that likely has no items is also often a dud.
Justice II
+2 Starting Mana.
Round Start: Create a Single Combat in hand if you don't have one.
When you play a Single Combat, grant allied Elites everywhere +1|+0.Review
Very good especially for higher level content. The +1/0 from Single Combat applies before damage calculation, so you can strike something with 1 more hp than your attack and still kill it.
Decisive Strike
When you play a 5+ Power ally, it strikes the strongest enemy. If it was an Elite, give it +2|+0 this round. If it was a Champion, Silence the enemy this round.Review
Does a lot more than it might appear. Free Strikes are very good on Garen, as each strike grants extra stats to Garen's units. Unfortunately, the order of operations is as written, so you Strike, then get +2, then Silence the enemy, missing out on many KOs.
- Leverage Free Strikes
Use spells like Single Combat strategically to force favorable trades and scale your units' stats before the opponent can develop a threatening board.
- Beware of Hard Removal
Garen is highly susceptible to spells like Vengeance or Recall. Play cautiously against regions with heavy removal, as losing a heavily invested Garen often results in a loss.