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A proud and noble warrior, Garen fights as one of the Dauntless Vanguard. He is popular among his fellows, and respected well enough by his enemies—not least as a scion of the prestigious Crownguard family, entrusted with defending Demacia and its ideals. Clad in magic-resistant armor and bearing a mighty broadsword, Garen stands ready to confront mages and sorcerers on the field of battle, in a veritable whirlwind of righteous steel.
Spinning into action, League of Legends' resident beyblade, Garen, mixes the Might and Body domains. That legend is all about amassing large numbers of units, while scaling up and playing larger units too.
Garen is fairly straightforward, caring mostly about units and winning the good old-fashioned way. The mix of its domains allows playing both token based cards, or large units the opponent should struggle to remove.
The token approach is a solid direction for a beginner, as that deck is very affordable to craft and simple to learn. However, that strategy tends to struggle in tournaments, outshined by Viktor and rarely able to trigger OGS-023's passive ability.
Then, the few players using Garen tend to rely on the other strategy in a high-stakes environment.
Refined Garen Deck
Budget Garen Deck
Garen Signature Cards
Both of Garen's yellow signature cards pair really well together, and point at a deck based on summoning plenty of units. On the other end, OGS-007 is a weak card struggling to find its identity in Riftbound so far.
Overall, none of these cards typically make it into a competitive environment, but the fairly simple nature of the gameplay they encourage is well suited for a beginner.
Overall, Garen was designed to be a first step into the game, and those cards achieve that goal very well.
Garen Staple Cards and Synergies
Garen is the weakest legend in the game for most of the community. It is only logic, as Riot stated they were considering the four starters as a first step into Riftbound, not competitive options. I guess the others didn't get the memo, while Garen followed that order meticulously.
Then, deprived of signature cards designed for the competition, playing Garen in tournament means relying on OGN-160, orange's best card.
There are enough tools in the game to build a deck without cheap units, especially as the Order domain features plenty of good removal cards (OGN-209, OGN-213) alongside the ability to summon tokens to serve as targets (OGN-212, OGS-015).
Once your key card is in play, impair your opponent with OGN-244 to trim their resources.
It is a very gimmicky gameplay, but one only Garen or Sett can achieve based on color combination, and Sett is busy doing its own thing.
