Counters for Garen in League of Legends – How to Counter Garen

LoL Esports

June 5, 2025

Davide Xu

We get it, Garen is one of the more annoying champions to play against in the top lane. Especially with the fact that most of the Garen kills are from losing track of his ultimate, so you don’t even feel like it’s fair. Don’t worry, we have some counters that will put him in his place.

Image Credits | Riot Games

The five best Garen Counters in League of Legends

Garen is by far one of the most popular champions in the top lane for League of Legends. His kit is so easy to master, he is tanky, and he can one-shot you from one 100-0 in the blink of an eye. He’s just so annoying to play against, because unless you kill him, his passive is going to regen the health back!

When you go up against the better players, they are going to know how to deal with Garen, but for a lower elo player, he is their worst nightmare. But this isn’t just for the low elo players, there will even be some higher elo players who are encountering this terror in the top lane for the first time in a while and have no idea how to counter him. Well, don’t worry, we have you covered for the five best counters to Garen in the top lane in League of Legends.

Vayne – The best but also the toughest counter

If you’re going to beat Garen, and I mean, really beat Garen in the top lane in League of Legends, then we advise going with an old reliable, Vayne. This champion is a nightmare for Garen players to play into, because she literally counters him in every way.

Yes, Vayne is a very squishy champion, but she is able to ensure that Garen is within arm’s distance at all times. So, unless the Garen flashes on you to close the distance, you’re going to have no problems playing against Garen in this lane.

It is a risk to play her, but she will also annoy the hell out of Garen players. So it is definitely a risk versus reward type deal.

Image Credits | Riot Games

Vayne can easily harass Garen with her passive, which will chunk him and force his passive to start ticking upwards. The more items you get, the easier your life will be versus Garen. You can always make sure he is taking damage as soon as he walks up to take a creep. This is a vital strategy when playing a ranged into melee, because you have to ensure that they take damage when farming otherwise you will eventually lose out on that lane, you have to be winning it from the start.

Here are the best tips when playing Vayne against Garen:

Garen will likely run Flash and Ghost in this matchup. Do the same so he cannot chase after you with the Summoners’ spells.
Always use AA-Q-AA combos to apply the W passive and chunk a big part of his health bar.
Play with the minion wave and try to stack multiple waves and crash them at once. While Garen is busy farming under turret, harass him with auto attacks.
Make sure to use the E well before he approaches you with Q. If you get silenced, you will lose half of your health bar since he will be able to connect the E as well.
Get movement speed boots early for better kiting and in case you need to escape from ganks.
Ward the nearby areas and try to track the enemy jungler’s movements to know if he’s coming to punish you.

Read more: Best Champions to carry early game in League

Kayle – Playing slowly and outscale

Image Credits | Riot Games

While her early game is rather horrible, Kayle is one of the best champions in the top lane at dealing with Garen in League of Legends. The late-game outscaling is absurd, and Garen will have no way of dealing with Kayle once she starts to add a little range into the matchup.

Pre-level six, the game definitely is rough for Kayle, because she doesn’t really have that range and or the damage to handle Garen, but as those levels go up, that’s when Kayle becomes a massive problem for Garen. He simply doesn’t have the capabilities to deal with her once she gets into the late game. She will rip through Garen like a knife through butter. Here’s some of the important points to look out for in this matchup:

Kayle struggles the most early on. Don’t engage in trades with Garen and make sure to hit level six as soon as possible, even though it might mean giving up some minion farm.
Use Q’s slow and W’s movement speed bonus to run away if Garen attempts to go for a Q-E combo. Be aware, however, to not run out of mana.
Always run boots early against Garen.
Since you’re looking to kill Garen anyway, get a Cull so you can increase your economy later in the game.
If Garen is stacking waves, make sure to ward surrounding areas to know if the enemy jungler is coming to dive you as well.

Darius – One overpowered champion to another

Darius is definitely one of the better champions to pick against Garen in League of Legends. The lane does essentially go into a big slugfest because both champions are very hard to kill. However, Darius does have the level 2 advantage, and that is when you should strike.

Image Credit: Riot Games

Even though Garen is pretty strong in the early game, Darius does have his number. His passive, which does an absurd amount of damage early on, is another to turn the tide, and put Garen on the back foot. You need to make sure that Garen cannot freeze the lane, because that is where Darius will be vulnerable.

When Garen goes in with his Q, Darius can use his E to counter the move, leaving Garen in a vulnerable state because he has used his mobility, so he will either need to flash or ghost out before he is in deep trouble.

That being said, the matchup can go either way in the late game, as Garen does still have a lot of burst damage, while Darius’s takes a few seconds before it comes online during a fight. Here are some of the key details:

You have the advantage in the level 2, so make sure you try to ghost aggressively to force his flash or ghost in return.
Your E can stop Garen’s engage pretty easily, leaving him in a vulnerable state.
In the late game, you’ll be fine as you would have stacked up enough items to counter him.

Read also: Best Darius counters in LoL

Camille – One of the most underrated counters for Garen

If there was ever a champion that would counter Garen in the top lane, it is Camille. This is a champion, like Fiora in the past, that simply has enough to deal with him in the lane early, while outscaling him later as the game goes, also being able to lock him down if he is pushed up too far in one of the sidelanes.

Camille in the first couple of levels can be rough, and Garen will be able to be quite aggressive, but that will simply change once you are able to get a footing in the lane, and this comes with proficiency over the champion. Garen can simply silence Camille, leaving her useless for the next few seconds, but that will be okay once you can learn a few mechanics that will make the lane a lot easier for Camille players. By the end of the game, you can simply beat him in the 1v1, and there’s not much Garen can do about it. Let’s take a look at how you should play this lane:

Use the second cast of Q to deal true damage on Garen whenever he walks up to farm minions. The same can be done with the W, especially if you need to heal up.
If he tries to cast a Q-E combo on you, make sure you position yourself close to the wall so you can hook to it before the silence comes in and dodge the rest of the combo.
Trade with Garen if you have your passive ready to neutralize a part of the damage.
Camille usually needs at least the Mythic item to really start dealing considerable amounts of damage. Focus on farming and not looking for kills.

Shen – Want to kill me? Try if you can.

Although he is getting nerfed into the ground soon, Shen, at the time of writing this article, is an excellent counter to Garen in League of Legends. Many players will underestimate the amount of damage Shen can do in the early game. In a few auto attacks, he can take you below half health, especially if he is able to taunt you.

There isn’t much Garen can do to Shen in lane really, Shen’s Q brings him a shield with better auto attacks, his W if inside it can block all incoming damage, and his E taunts, which allows Shen do to free damage for a couple of seconds.

And once he gets his first item, Garen is never killing the Shen in lane, probably the other way round. On top of that, Shen will be able to play cross-map because of his ultimate. While this does leave the lane open, because Garen won’t be running TP, you would think your ultimate should be able to provide enough kills to make the loss of gold worth it.

Image Credit: Riot Games

Garen is a very good champion in League, but if you have a Shen on your team, you’re going to want the Shen in your composition rather than the Garen. Garen will have no kill pressure in the lane, and he won’t be able to shove you in and force turret plates. Here is how you should play the lane as Shen into Garen:

If Garen runs at you, you can use E to dash away if you don’t have enough energy to scrap.
Your W can block all of his damage, so make sure to time it wisely.
Shen has more early game damage than many realise, he can hit Garen hard before he has his ult.
Still take TP into this matchup, he won’t be running it, so you can do cross-map plays while he will have to move first.

Read more: Best Jax counters in LoL