Veteran League of Legends player Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau shared his thoughts on Garen and how the recent runes changes make the champion’s ultimate a game-changer.
“I just think Garen is overpowered right now. He gets like Last Stand (which) works on his ultimate. Axiom Arcanist works on his ultimate. Like this shit does like half your health,” Bwipo said in an interview with Jatt, adding “unironically” if the enemy champion is under 45 percent health, then they’re just dead. Bwipo also mentioned that Garen does well in this lane swap meta—you gain the same amount of resistance stats as a K’Sante by just pressing your W.
The League community was in for a surprise when Bwipo pulled out the Garen blind pick during FlyQuest’s match against Dignitas in LTA North Split One. This was Garen’s first-ever appearance in LTA North 2025, leading to players questioning how this pick went under the radar for so long.
Within minutes of the match against Dignitas, Bwipo got into a duel with the enemy top laner. Camille dropped barely under 50 percent health, and Bwipo hit level six before using his ultimate and securing first blood. His damage and regeneration made him a menace throughout the match, ending with a solid 7/2/8 KDA.
Garen’s usually seen as the easy-to-play, beginner-friendly champion who is great at tanking damage. His ultimate is an execute, installing killing enemies with low health. But with runes like Last Stand and Axiom Arcanist, the champion is much more than just a tank. Last Stand deals five percent more damage to champions, and Axiom Arcanist has 14 percent increased damage on ultimate, forming a great synergy with Garen.
With so much damage on his ultimate, Garen can easily catch enemies way above their execution health range and kill them immediately in teamfights.
Bwipo is generally known for his vast champion pool and for making out-of-the-box picks to surprise his opponents. Just the match before Garen, he picked Swain. Many of his creative picks are also due to the Fearless Drafts, which encourage players to use different champions.
Bwipo shared his top lane meta picks on Jan. 30, which included K’Sante, Ambessa, and Jayce. He also shared details about their counter matchups, including champions like Rumble, Urgot, and many other spicy picks, but it didn’t say much about Garen. With FlyQuest now streaming their scrims publicly, now is the perfect time to watch Bwipo.
Riot has taken note of the Garen situation, and Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison has already announced that nerfs are coming to the champion in Patch 25.S1.4.
Published: Feb 11, 2025 09:09 am