Here we break down the competitive and solo queue uses of a popular meta champion, Galio. Yes, I know how to spell champion, but isn’t everything so much better when you can cash in on some sweet 90’s nostalgia?

Galio – The Colossus

Galio is a supportive tank that excels in the top and middle lane, while also being somewhat viable as a support. With a kit loaded with CC and wave clear, Galio is a must learn champion for pros across the lanes.

Why is Galio Meta

Gallium has always been a metal, but Galio has almost never been meta. His recent rework and high mastery level have allowed him to excel in professional play more than solo queue environments, in part due to his team-play dependent ultimate and safe wave-clear.

Galio’s Q, Winds of War, also known as, “kill the caster minions”, can allow him to safely defend turrets even against 2v1 scenarios. His passive, Colossal Smash, resets based upon the frequent usage of his abilities. In competitive, you are more than likely to see his passive used in tandem with Iceborn Gauntlet procs, to clear waves faster than all other tanks.

Shield of Duran, Galio’s W, provides both a passive magic shield and an active AOE taunt that also reduces damage dealt to Galio. Shield of Duran makes clean dives incredibly hard to pull off on Galio. This adds to his ability to deal with 2v1 scenarios that often arise after the first tower has fallen in pro play.

Galio’s gap closing knock up, his E, Justice Punch, allows for some sweet instant knock ups when cast backwards near an enemy. It is also a substantial gap closer when cast normally. Justice Punch allows Galio to set up his bread and butter laning combo for harass in the Top and Middle Lane. Casting E, into Winds of War, followed by a taunt to keep the enemy in the Winds of War AOE is devastating on its own; but with allies around, the CC duration can often be fatal.

In competitive play, Galio’s ultimate, Hero’s Entrance, allows for the largest AOE knock up in the game. Used alongside divers such as Rakan and Jarvan IV, Hero’s Entrance can decide team fights. Used independent of divers and initiators, Galio’s ultimate can provide disengage and pick denial due to the damage reduction it gives its target. If you see a comp with heavy dive, you better expect the Galio pick and vice versa as Galio meta is more than just an LCK craze.

Who Uses it in Competitive

Galio top lane has been a popular pick in solo queue environments. However, the ability to flex this champion in two and sometimes even three roles makes him one of the highest priority picks. In the LCK, Galio has a 90.7 percent pick/ban rate. This is just slightly higher than his NA LCS pick/ban rate which stands at 86.5 percent. The difference in the win rates Galio has in the two regions is illustrative of how comfortable each region is with the popular protect the carry meta. With a 62.5 win rate in the LCK, Galio is a powerful pick that alongside dive champions can be enough to snowball mid game team fights into a victory. In NA, Galio’s 43.8 percent win rate is something to be questioned. Perhaps, NA teams find better success with him in scrims, or maybe they are just trying to replicate the LCK picks without adopting the entire team strategy to go with it.

Who Plays it Best?

In the current meta, hard crowd control based initiation is just as valuable as peeling for carries, making Galio one of the best picks. That being said, who plays it best? And more importantly, what makes them play the best?

Kt Rolster’s mid laner, Heo “Pawn” Won-seok, is the Galio player to watch. With three games and three wins, Pawn boasts a 11.33 KDA on Galio, proving that if he can get his hands on the pick, he will utilize Galio’s kit to the max. Kt Rolster as a team play Galio better than any other team, picking the champion alongside dive champions such as Jarvan IV, Rakan and Renekton.

Picking Galio first allows Kt Rolster to flex the pick between mid and top, as both Pawn and Song “Smeb” Kyung-ho are adept Galio players. The flex allows for the shuffling of Galio across lanes based upon the matchup, as Galio has much better match ups into magic damage lanes. Austin “Gate” Yu, support player of Echo Fox, took the ability to flex pick Galio one step further by using him as a support into a Zyra/Varus lane matchup. This pick worked against CLG due to the magic damage in the bottom lane allowing Gate to build a very cost efficient Locket of the Iron Solari.

With his base damage, professional players only pick up a couple of Doran’s Rings as offensive items. While the passive on the Rings’ mana regen has been made Unique, don’t expect Galio to fall off anytime soon. Pawn has shown Galio’s base damages to be more than enough through his purely defensive builds, typically rushing Adaptive Helm into Ninja Tabi and Warmog’s. Pawn’s use of Galio’s ultimate ability during laning phase is something you would expect out of a Shen player on steroids. With Heroic Entrance bringing CC in itself and an easier to hit taunt than Shen, Galio is the champion to beat in competitive League of Legends.

Bringing Galio into Solo Queue

Due to the nature of his kit, Galio is a much better champion in a coordinated team composition. That being said, he is still a powerful solo queue menace given the proper conditions. First, make sure your team has dive. While Galio is great at peeling, solo queue is often about killing the enemy carry over protecting your own. This is because protect the carry comps are a lot more difficult to pull off without proper coordination and trust. So only pick Galio if you have a dive buddy, maybe a duo partner, to go ham with. Second, Galio has a lot of bad matchups. What makes this worse is the fact that popular solo queue champions, such as Riven, Tryndamere, Talon, and Yasuo all do really well into Galio’s core itemization. Try not to blindly pick Galio as he greatly benefits from stacking magic resist. Finally, to play Galio correctly in solo queue you need to have exceedingly good map awareness. Utilizing Galio’s best ability, his ultimate, to bail out your teammates and counter ganks during laning phase is why Galio gets picked for mid lane. Hit level six and counter gank the enemy jungler before the opposing laner can react.

If you can manage to do those three things, then cash in on the colossal amount of LP Galio can grant you.

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Featured Image courtesy of Jesse Baron