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Garen Beats Darius Hands Down

Hari Michaelson·3/10/2016, 2:13:23 AM·1 votes·715 views

While Darius is a well known lane bully with a nice heal on hit effect, I would argue that Garen should win this lane 9 times out of 10. Granting that Garen doesn't make any huge mistakes of course. All you need to do is follow a very simple play-style and item build for this matchup.

Item wise, rush a Deadmans first (you won't be close enough to Darius most of the time for Sunfire to be useful), then Ninja Tabi boots, and finally Black Cleaver. At this point you'll be able to consistently outtrade Darius and can itemize more for their team composition.

The actual play style consists of one very simple dance. Wait for Darius to use Decimate, rush in and Q, E, W, and rush out again. You'll use W right before silence ends and start running away halfway through your E so he can't pull you back in.

This sounds pretty obvious but I see this matchup go the other way all the time and it's because people don't follow the dance. I'm only writing a post about this because I just finished my 5th ranked game against Darius in the last week and I've made him feed in every single one of those games.

Try it out and have fun making Darius cry. : )

7 Comments

Verxint3/10/2016, 2:17:48 AM3 votes

And what if Darius never uses Q like that because you're a Garen and he has no reason to?

I know you're proud of winning your most recent Silver IV game, but the idea of going in on someone who wastes a CD isn't any new trick and it's not exclusive to that matchup

Honestly, Darius usually wins that lane if he knows what he's doing.

redniwediS3/10/2016, 2:17:54 AM3 votes

I don't know if it's just my personal play style but, as a Garen main, I always find this matchup to be a skill matchup. Maybe if I used flat runes to keep up with him early it would be easier, but I'll stick to my scaling runes and beat him in the mid game, while only surviving early.

Darius Bøt3/10/2016, 3:05:06 AM1 votes

If you can dodge Darius' Qs and capitalize on the miss it's generally a fairly easy lane. I'd think Garen's general tankyness/Warmog's passive helps a great deal, but imo it's mainly a skill match up. I don't think I've ever lost lane to a Garen, gone even yes, but never lost. On that note my favorite Garen's are crit Garens, they make it too easy :p

GotShivGG3/10/2016, 3:11:50 AM1 votes

Darius only loses that matchup if he's bad, and 10k gold of items has nothing to do with the laning phase

He'll simply hold Decimate until you try to engage or he slows you, starting the cast during your silence animation and then chasing you for a pull when it ends