Ryze vs Garen Counter Pick

Garen is the rare opponent who never runs out of resources. Perseverance regenerates a percentage of his total health each second whenever he has not recently been struck, and Courage passively stacks armour and magic resist from kills, so a Garen left alone recovers everything he lost. Keeping that switched off is the whole job, and across 256 games on patch 16.13.1 Ryze has managed it well enough for a 53.5% win rate.

The stat lines invert as the game runs long. Garen starts with the larger pool at 690 health and finishes with the smaller one at 2,356; Ryze starts at 620 and reaches 2,728. Armour follows the same shape, 38 to 109.4 against 22 to 93.4, though magic damage bypasses that concern entirely. Base attack damage runs 69 to 55, which only matters inside 175 units.

Decisive Strike breaks free of all slows and adds move speed, so Rune Prison cast as a slow tends to be wasted; Spell Flux applied first converts it into a root instead. Both champions move at 340 base speed, so neither escapes the other by walking. Courage also grants a shield and brief tenacity when activated, shortening any root that does land. Demacian Justice executes rather than chips, meaning the 372-point health advantage Ryze holds at level 18 stops counting below a threshold.