Your Win Condition
Your ultimate win condition is centered around movement speed and forcing short, non-committal engagements. Darius hates short trades because he relies on extended fights to stack his passive. Therefore, your primary goal is utilizing Phase Rush to enable quick entry and exit. At Level 2, if both of you are already at half health, Garen, especially with Ignite, is almost guaranteed to win the fight due to his front-loaded kit. Overall, if you can keep Darius below 70% to 80% HP, he is forced to base, as he cannot effectively play out the wave bounce against a Garen who is ready to beat him. Once you have your ultimate and Ignite up, this health threshold becomes kill range for Garen. Finally, obtaining Stridebreaker immediately puts the game into "easy mode," as Darius can rarely chase you down unless he has his Ghost available.
General Strategy
We always want to prioritize Phase Rush in this matchup. While Conqueror can offer high damage and surprise potential if you think you are mechanically better, Phase Rush is required for the specific high-leverage combo and provides much-needed safety. For secondary runes, Second Wind is insanely strong against his passive damage, helping you survive when he ults you at five stacks and leaves you at low health, especially when paired with Doran's Shield. You should also grab Nimbus Cloak and Celerity for maximum speed, and usually Gathering Storm (though Scorch is an option if you want to bully early, but it relies on him misplaying). Start the lane by walking with your minions; they are your bodyguards. As long as you are sitting among them, he cannot easily approach you. You must rush boots due to the extreme importance of movement speed. Regarding ability leveling, placing a few early points in E for wave clear is fine, but maxing Q is always the best choice in this matchup. In the mid-game, you can opt to trade your starting Ignite for Ghost, which makes your mid-game safer and stronger, though you lose some early lane kill potential and might not snowball quite as hard. When split-pushing later on, if you have Stridebreaker and Phase Rush ready, Darius generally cannot catch you unless he uses his Ghost, so be careful of that specific summoner spell.
Trading Patterns
The key to victory is executing short trades. You want to trade every time you have Phase Rush available. The First Wave Trade: You should stay close to your caster minions and wait for Darius to walk into Auto Attack range. The ideal Level 1 trade involves an Auto Attack, followed by E, and then a final Auto Attack to proc Phase Rush, allowing you to immediately run away. You must keep distance afterward so he can't just flash on top of you for a potential kill. If he doesn't engage, just let the wave bounce back toward you. The Core Combo (Phase Rush required): This combo forces the short trade Darius hates. It starts with an Auto Attack, followed by E, and then you instantly use your Q to remove his W slow. You then move toward him to ensure he doesn't hit you with the sweet spot of his Q. With the last of your Q movement speed, run away. He will likely hook you back in (E), but because you connected the Q, you will proc Phase Rush. With Phase Rush active, he cannot stop you, as he has already used his E and W. Crucially, do not try to extend the fight with extra spins on your E; you must try to leave instantly. If you mess up and Phase Rush doesn't activate after the Q connection, use Ignite instead of Flash to escape. If Darius makes the mistake of initiating a trade with his E, this is the worst-case scenario for him because he can no longer extend the fight or hook you back in. When he starts with E, you just Auto Attack, Q, E, proc Phase Rush, and get the easiest trade of all time. Finally, never fight him 100 to zero. Get him low with short trades first, and then go for the kill. Once he has five stacks, you must immediately get out of the way.
Wave Management
Your goal is to manipulate the wave so that Darius cannot freeze it and run you down. Initially, walk with your minions and ensure you get the experience, but do not push the wave early on, especially if Darius is late to lane, as pushing allows him to engage on you at Level 2 and make things messy fast. If he is just last-hitting, let the wave naturally come into you. The key to controlling the wave is exploiting Darius's Q. When you trade and slightly walk into your own minion wave, Darius's Q will automatically hit and thin out your minions. This makes the wave push back toward you every single time. This is how we prevent the wave from ever reaching his turret side, where he can easily run you down with Ghost. When Darius is forced to reset because he is low health (around 70-80% HP) and the wave is bouncing into you, you can farm all the minions under your turret for free. After this, you should typically look to slow push. Slow pushing means pushing as slowly as possible, which ensures enemy minions have more time to kill your minions, denying Darius XP and making the next wave crash easier. If the wave crashes slowly and you reach Level 4 by the time he recalls, you are safe to hard shove the next wave, as you will have two points in E and can one-shot the backline minions. After shoving the wave, basing is safer than proxy farming, as Darius has Ghost and can run you down, plus you risk the enemy jungler showing up.
Their Win Condition
Darius's primary win condition is forcing extended trades so he can achieve five passive stacks and execute you with his ultimate. If he can't get those five stacks, he is severely neutered. A major concern is if he successfully establishes a freeze near his turret, allowing him to run you down. Darius can also look to win the lane by landing his E (Apprehend) at Level 3, which results in substantial damage. Finally, Darius relies heavily on outspacing your abilities or hoping you "turbo over extend" and misposition, particularly at Level 2. In the mid-game, if he still has his Ghost available and you are far away from your turret, he absolutely still has the potential to catch and kill you.
!["](https://lolmatchups.net/Garen".png)
!["](https://lolmatchups.net/Darius".png)
