The Legend of the Poro King game mode has returned and once again I’m having an absolute blast playing it. One of the best things about the mode is that the snowballs make certain champions (and builds) actually viable on the map. While these snowballs are also available on vanilla ARAM, using the Poro King as an escape tool opens up even more opportunities for these builds to flourish. My personal favorite? Crit Garen.

But... Why?:

So what makes crit Garen so strong? Well, crit is fun on just about any champion, even more so on one with an AoE DPS ability that is capable of critting. His Q damage is absolutely crazy with a bit of AD, making those Statikk Shiv + Sheen procs absolutely disgusting later in the game. And after getting your Trinity-Force, you can just about two shot any squishy in the game, with just a Q and your ultimate. This game mode gives literally every champion a gap closer and an escape, which are the biggest weaknesses in playing crit Garen on Summoner’s Rift. With the snowball you’re able to just dash in, do your damage, then run away (or dash to the Poro King if you have it up).

Build:

TL;DR: B.F. Sword -> Statikk Shiv -> Boots of Swiftness -> Infinity Edge -> Trinity Force -> Personal Preference -> Personal Preference

The build path is pretty standard (for an AD carry). I like to buy a B.F. Sword with my starting gold and then get Statikk Shiv as soon as possible from there. As soon as I get shiv, I go to finish my IE, and then my damage really starts stacking up. After IE you want to get some boots of swiftness so you can charge down any enemy of your choice, and from there you get a Trinity Force. Why Trinity? Well, the Sheen proc does absolutely stupid amounts of burst damage when combined with Garen's Q. Once you get one, you’ll be able to bring any squishy to less than a quarter of their health with just a snowball and a Q; I promise. As for the last two items after Trinity Force it's really up to you to decide whether you want some defensive item(s), more crit, or some lifesteal item(s). If you’re going defensive what you should buy is 100% dependent on your personal preference and what is best for the situation that you’re in, but some good picks are generally Sterak’s Gage for the extra health while spinning in the middle of the enemy squad, Dead Man’s Plate for the extra movement speed and damage, or Spirit Visage for the healing on your passive. If you want a lifesteal item, I personally go for Bloodthirster 9 times out of 10, but Mercurial’s is a good situational item, as is that Death’s Dance. If you really want to reach 100% crit at this point; Phantom Dancer is definitely your best choice. Not only does it allow you to hit 100% crit on the dot, but it also gives you a bonus 12 percent movement speed while running towards your foes. That is absolutely bonkers when paired with your boots, Q buff, and Shiv movement speed; you simply can’t escape that; and if you can, that’s what the snowball is for.

Runes/Masteries:

Runes and masteries are pretty standard AD carry pages. You’re going to want 9 AD Marks, 9 armor Seals, 9 MR Glyphs and 3 AD Quints. You take AD Quints over attack speed because Garen really doesn’t benefit from attack speed that much. The vast majority of your damage is coming from your Q or E so you don’t have a massive reliance on auto attacks, and you aren’t going to be able to stay close to an enemy long enough without dying for more than a few autos anyways. The masteries that you're going to want look like this:

The above masteries maximize your damage and ability to assassinate enemies while also giving you a little bit of sustain in a team-fight situation. Garen benefits more from extra ability damage on his Q and E than he does with attack speed, which is why you choose Sorcery over Fury, and while you probably won't be last hitting a lot, you would be much better off having the option of healing off of Feast than you would if you took the extra damage taken from Double-Edged Sword; crit Garen is squishy enough as it is!

Abilities:

TL;DR: R>Q>E>W

As for what you want to max, the path that I've found that gives me the most success is R>Q>E>W. My reasoning for this is that while your E might be the basis of this build, your Q gives much more burst and frontloaded damage than your E which really requires you to stand next to enemies for the full duration until you get a few items. E is maxed second because by the time you reach level 10, you'll have the items to be able to burst someone down from the damage on your E.

Playing as the beast:

So now that you know how to build him, how do you play him? The answer is pretty straightforward; go in. It’s as simple as that. Land a snowball? Go in. A friendly Cho’Gath lands his knock up? Go in. The enemy Miss Fortune looks at you funny? Go in, go in, go in! All you really need to know with crit Garen is that your Q does a crazy amount of burst damage, and that your spin should finish the enemy off. Just be careful not to die, as the most glaring weakness of this build is that Garen is disgustingly squishy when he isn’t built at all defensively.

I urge you to try out this build. It’s ridiculously silly, stupid, and has genuinely given me some of the most joy I’ve ever had while playing League of Legends.

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