Overview
It’s been years since “better nerf Irelia” was a prominent meme in the League of Legends community, but if you’ve run into a fed Irelia played by a good player, then you’ve probably wished for the nerf stick to visit her at least once. She’s a high mechanical cap champion that rewards you the more you learn how to play her, and once she scales, she’s a menace in both side lanes and team fights. Click here for the latest data on her best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Irelia
She is a very mechanically demanding champion both in lane phase and in team fights, where proper use of her Bladesurge [Q] and its resets can sometimes be the difference between a multi-kill or just you dying. She's going to take a lot of practice to learn the limits and extent of her damage so you can know when you should or shouldn't go in.
Flawless Duet [E] is arguably your most important ability, as landing a stun or not is going to open up the rest of your kit and kill potential. Luckily you have a lot of time before dropping the second E, and the range is extremely large, so take your time with it.
Strengths
Bladesurge [Q] can help her be one of the most mobile and creative champions as long as she’s fighting in the middle of a lane, as being able to jump to and from minions will make her hard to track down. It will also help her chase down enemies in long lanes, as even if they get out of your range, you can dash to new approaching minions to quickly close the gap. This mobility enables some creative angles for you to land Flawless Duet [E], which means enemies will sometimes be engaged on and stunned before they even realize what’s going on. And a good Vanguard’s Edge [R] in a team fight will provide both utility and angles for you to jump onto your opponents -- as long as she’s on a carry, they will have a hard time surviving.
Weaknesses
She’s very difficult to master as her dash interactions can be quickly stunted if you mess up where you’re going even once. If you get CCed and jumped on it, it can be difficult for you to fully key track of where you can or can’t dash to. The range on her Vanguard’s Edge [R] is also fairly short in terms of where you can activate it, even if the ability can extend further -- this means you can sometimes get stuck by an enemy front liner if you run out of Bladesurges [Q]. He’s just as capable of outplaying herself as she is at outplaying enemies.
Game Plan
Early Game: You can find a lot of good trade patterns thanks to Bladesurge [Q] allowing you to bounce back to minions. Landing a Flawless Duet [E] can also trigger an opportunity to all-in opponents.
Mid Game: You should still be able to find fights in lane at this point in the game, so be ready to TP into the action if needed, but in general you can continue to split and focus on farming and leveling up.
Late Game: Finding flanks onto even one enemy squishy can open the flood gate for you to Bladesurge [Q] to the others -- it’s not hard for Irelia to delete one champion before jumping another, but a lot of that is going to be tied to how good you are at landing Flawless Duet [E].
