During yesterday’s pursuit of 150,000 IP, I had a game where I drew Corki. And because I didn’t like Corki, I was game to trade him for just about anyone; much to my delight, there was someone else who didn’t want who they drew, and so they traded me Garen. Despite my occasional displeasure of having to play a melee-tank meat-shield in ARAM, I embraced the opportunity to play as Garen this time, for some reason.
My team won decisively, and despite the fact that I didn’t have a genuine damage item (save for the passive damage by a Sunfire Cape), I still contributed to the killing of opponents, because Garen is Garen.
I don’t really play Garen, as I don’t really play much top lane for the matter, as it pertains to current game meta. But I have a bro that I (used to) play with regularly that pretty much uses Garen in 99% of the games we play together, so I’m fairly familiar with Garen in general.