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How to play Garen vs Aatrox

TehNACHO··4 votes·15,271 views

So I've been playing Garen pretty nonstop recently trying to grind out that S or S+ for my third Mastery 7 Token. As a Jungle main however, I've quickly come to realize I'm not that good at laning, or handling awkward matchups. I've kinda adopted the strategy of:

  1. Test out the opponent laner
  2. Die
  3. Shove lane when the enemy backs/when I can
  4. Abandon top lane and do something somewhere else

GREAT strategy for losing lane winning game. Terrible strategy for getting an S. Long story short, I want to see if I can get any advice for more specific matchups.

A really awkward matchup I don't know how to deal with at all is Aatrox. Garen and Aatrox trade evenly over long trades but Aatrox sustains far better than Garen and oftentimes, the lane is in Aatrox's hands of whether he wants to fight, farm, or poke. What should I build against Aatrox? What's the strategy going into this lane matchup? Anybody who plays Aatrox or Garen, do you have any advice for me?

7 Comments

DaCurtis4 votes

A lot of weird matchups can be solved by either -

  1. Playing the opposing champ so you realise their weaknesses
  2. Play against a lot of the same champion

I suppose because Aatrox is an off meta pick atm, my best advice would be to try play him a game.

Personally from playing Aatrox I can tell you his weakness lie on his blood well. Because Aatrox's blood well drains over time without hitting his abilities, he becomes really reluctant to fight you without keeping his blood well relatively healthy. So always engage him if he doesn't have any blood well, and especially if he doesn't have his W ready, and then exploit his weakness by zoning him off minions and hard pushing the waves into his tower.

Gl friend.

redniwediS2 votes

I'm not particularly good at that matchup, but I do play fair bit of Garen. In that matchup I start with a longsword just so I can get an executioner's calling on my first back regardless of what happens in lane, and from there on I build armor and the standard health/damage items.

If you really want to beat him in lane you have to zone him from the minions, and to do that you have to get him low on health and keep him there. If you let him attack anything he will heal, so freeze the lane near your tower and keep him under 50% health once you learn how to trade with him.

I also like to spend any extra gold I have every time I go back on health potions, up until I hit level 11. It really helps in that early stage of the game against high sustain opponents.

RastaBrotha2 votes

as an Aatrox main I want this post taken DOWN!!!

Slave Knight1 votes

I play Aatrox.

Here's what you do on Garen.

  1. Grasp + Ignite/Exhaust on Garen and start Doran's Blade/Longsword? (You're going to be going for a risky aggressive start).
  2. Start Q, Q proc with Grasp when he's overextended and zone him off getting stacks.
  3. Build Bramble Vest
  4. Call for ganks when you can.
  5. Focus your efforts elsewhere instead of winning the 1v1 mid-late game.

You have to realise that Garen isn't really a duelist champion, he'll kill squishies marked with the villain passive but against Aatrox who will out dps you and out-sustain you, you can't fight him in prolonged battles and early on, be extremely careful about his passive.

Good luck.

Eternal Torment1 votes

As a Garen vs an Aatrox you can do the following:

  • Spare your W until he engages. Those 2 seconds earlygame in a trade can mean life and death

  • Rush Thornail. Aatrox unlike you needs some damage items for his sustain to scale. Means build armor and Grievious wounds.

  • Max E first. Aatrox early cannot outheal those destructive Ticks.

  • Masteries, i would go either for the new Grasp and rest full focus on resistances with either Wizardry or the Yellow mastery whatevs that one is and put points into extended damage or scaling. OR you skip all that sauce and take Focused attack, learn how to AA-Q-AA reset and all in the darkin.

As the game grows you will lose damage ofc and probably become a Q bot for the silence. Try to apply it on Aatrox before he can Ult or Q anybody.

Honestly the matchup is very linear and both picks have just a handful of options to win with vs the respective other.

I Love Roses1 votes

Just get item 3076

ObscureParticle1 votes

Get Bramble Vest (Grievous Wounds), do not finish it into Thornmail until later on as the passive is already there and you could spend the gold into getting Ninja Tabi and Black Cleaver (start with Kindle Gem for the cooldown reduction, do not start with Phage). Once you have those, if he's not significantly ahead you should be able to win trades with ease. Do not use your ult until after he has used his. Take Ignite.

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