The Hidden Power of Garen
One thing players often overlook when using Garen is that this champion’s abilities increase his maximum health. This health interacts strongly with Ability Power, making Garen extremely resilient when buffed with this stat. Consequently, some experts have thought about combining Garen with the K/DA trait due to its ability to buff both health and Ability Power, proving to be quite effective.
Another annoying aspect of this playstyle is that players can reroll to obtain a 3-star Seraphine while upgrading Garen. This significantly increases both the survival and damage output of the team. At that point, Garen will become nearly “unstoppable” in the mid-game with high durability and continuous healing from Seraphine.
Building the Garen “Guardian” Playstyle
TFT players should start with a Solid Fan composition combined with a ranged damage dealer in the early game. Champions like Senna and Annie are good choices to serve as carries during this phase. This will allow players to comfortably assemble items early on and maintain health effectively.
By level 6, players should stop purchasing experience and apply a slowroll strategy to find Superstar Garen. Additionally, Seraphine or Neeko are also strong choices at this stage to activate the 3 K/DA threshold as early as possible. Ekko is also a valuable unit at this stage as it enhances the team’s crowd control.
After successfully upgrading Garen, players should aim for the 5 K/DA threshold at level 8 by adding Ahri and Akali. With the current meta favoring many backline carries, Akali will be a good choice to mitigate the opponent’s ranged damage. If you have enough gold to reach level 9, Sona will be a very strong addition to the team.
Items and Augments
With the free Warmog’s Blood Armor provided by Solid Fan, players should build items that increase armor/magic resistance for Garen. Items like Thornmail, Dragon Claw, or Gargoyle Stoneplate are all good choices for this unit. For Seraphine, Spear of Shojin will be the top priority to help her regenerate energy and cast spells continuously.
Regarding Augment choices, upgrading to Mortal Strike will help Garen deal a significant amount of damage. Additionally, Pandora’s Box and Ascension are very strong options that help players obtain optimal items and boost the carry’s damage further. The Vampiric Augment providing additional health and full lifesteal is also a good choice towards the end of the game.