If you've played League of Legends recently, I'm sure you've noticed the immense strength of a handful of recently reworked toplaners, catagorized as: juggernauts. In short, juggernauts are champions with tons of damage™ and innate tankiness, but struggle with reaching their targets, and commonly lack an escape mechanism. The juggernauts I'll be covering in this guide are as follows: Darius, Olaf, Garen and Fiora (despite not technically being a juggernaut herself, she shares some counterpicks and is another pick/ban worthy champion in solo queue).

Firstly, let's look at what makes these picks so strong.

Darius:

Darius's rework rekindled and strengthened his love for long, extended fights. With sustain from his Decimate (Q) and buffed damage on his passive, he can more confidently take the type of trades that will tend to drag out. A much overlooked part of Darius's new kit is the fact that his Hemorrhage damage was changed to physical from magic damage. This means, an already great item for him, The Black Cleaver, makes his presence in the toplane that much more fearsome. once Darius does manage to land all 5 stacks onto his target, not only does his ult double in damage, but he becomes an absolute monster in teamfights by gaining bonus AD and putting 5 stacks onto any target hit by his damaging spells. On top of all of this, Darius has the ability to stick to any target he catches with his high intensity slows and Apprehend (E). With all this it's no wonder he's picked or (more commonly) banned in 97% of games.

Olaf:

Seen as "the original juggernaut", Olaf has a much safer laning phase when behind as well as the ability to escape ganks with his ultimate if need be. One of Olaf's biggest strengths is his immense kill pressure he can put out in the early game and unpeelable backline threat if he gets ahead. Before the juggernaut patch of 5.16, Olaf was in a really good spot balance-wise, and with the addition of Dead Man's Plate, Sterak's Gage, ect., he's only become stronger.

Garen:

Out of all the reworked champions, Garen was the least changed as far as his kit and playstyle go. In short, Garen traded a little bit of his early game damage and bully presence for a truck load of damage through his Judgement (E) and villian passive in the later stages of the game. This, coupled with his insane regen after he hits lvl 11 and more notably 16, cause him to be both a massive threat to the backline, and a solid tank.

Fiora:

Although not a juggernaut, Fiora has experienced the same pick/ban priority and strength in recent patches. A large part of her rework that made Fiora such a power pick is her passive synergy with her new Lunge (Q) that prioritizes vitals to deal true damage and provide sustain throughout laning phase. Being a hard to gank lane bully due to her Riposte (W) and Lunge (Q), makes her an incredibly strong Solo Queue pick, due to her ability to snowball out of control into the mid game and take over games.

Despite being incredibly strong picks, each of these champions do have their fair share of weaknesses as well.

The Counterplay

These champions share a fair ammount of weaknesses in both lane and teamfights. Most notably these weaknesses are:

Kiting - Possibly the most important out of the five, proper kiting makes any juggernaut next to useless because of their inability to fully tank damage for their team and their need to be up close to deal damage.

Hard CC - Continuing with the last point, a juggernaut's all out burst is fairly low, requiring them to be constantly dueling the enemy to be able to make a difference in the long, drawn out fights. Using hard CC on them not only reduces their overall DPS significantly, but gives opportunities for your team to get out of, and stay out of their fairly close range.

Focus in teamfights - From a design perspective, juggernauts are the "jack of all trades" of League of Legends. They're not as beefy as tanks, and not as much of a damage threat as an assassin. Not only are they easier to kill than a Mao'Kai or Malphite for example, but they aren't as much of a multi-kill threat when jumped on by multiple members like a Yasuo or Jax would be. Although the "pile on" strategy is quite effective, you also have to weigh the opportunity cost of letting a ADC or midlaner go unfocused for a few more moments. Due to this, a very common effective way to deal with these champions is to get a pick onto them, take them out due to their general lack of escapes, then start the fight.

Early ganks - Piggybacking off the last point, a large portion of weakness in a juggernaut's laning phase is because of the fact that they generally lack escapes, or use these moves as a big portion of their damage in trades. When these champions push up, a simple gank can lead to easily burning a Flash, resulting in more lane pressure for your toplaner and the opportunity to make return ganks and pick up kills.

Falling behind early - Once juggernauts get behind early, they have a really rough time getting to that point in the game where they're seemingly unstoppable and too much to deal with. If you've watched a fair bit of the World Championship games so far, we can see how these champions struggle to even be relevant in games after disadvantagous lane swaps or heavy focus from the enemy team. Although this type of targeting and coordination is rare in Solo Queue, these champions are still very "feast or famine", meaning they either become unstoppable or end up falling behind and never being useful.

The Counter-picks

Gnar

Seen as the most flexible of the counter-picks, Gnar has a lot of kiting potential, as well as %max HP damage from Hyper (W) to whittle them down in lane while scaling into a decent tank/initiator late-game. Another important point to note is that Gnar requires very little in terms of items to be successful in fights due to the posibility of landing a multiple person stun/knockback with Gnar! (R). Do be careful of picking him into Fiora though; she has a lot of kill pressure on you in the early game while you're still fairly squishy.

Lissandra

Excluding an Olaf running at you with Ragnarok, Lissandra handily beats all of these champions in lane with her non-stop slows, roots, and relativley low-cooldown ultimate. Because of her Glacial Path (E) and all of her CC, Lissandra is a difficult champion to gank, thus making her a safe pick into a lot of these toplane matchups.

Kennen

As a non-mana user, Kennen has the ability to provide unrelenting poke onto his opponents in lane and become a huge presence in teamfights later with his ultimate. In most cases, juggernauts simply have to take these one-sided trades because of their lack of range. On the off chance Kennen does get caught, a well timed stun along with Lightning Rush (E) will insure that he stays safe in lane as well.

Irelia

Seen as a skill matchup by many, Irelia has the ability to win a lot of trades and net solo kills against these champions while also becoming a toplane terror herself. In lane, Irelia has the ability to sustain with her Hiten Style (W) after trades, as well as do an unexpected ammount of burst damage as soon as she reaches level 6 and completes a Sheen.

Although juggernauts are very strong picks, they aren't without their own weaknesses and counterplay. Through general game knowledge and perhaps a few counterpicks, you too can see that even gods bleed.