The next few guides will be on more popular champions stuff like: Renekton, Darius (decent grounds to write from after some games), Nidalee, Wukong, and Olaf. Irelia was one of my first "mains" (along with Akali Mordekaiser and Olaf.).

Champion Overview:
Irelia is a very strong champion that can ,come late game, carry a game on her back. She is a Mobile Tanky-Dps Assassin champion capable of destroying the enemies back lines in team fights. She exerts a very strong presence in a game and is hard to keep down, she can sustain in lane and has a very fun way to last hit. BETTER NERF IRELIA!

Skill Overview:

Passive: Ionian Fervor- Each nearby enemy champion (to a maximum of three) reduces the effectiveness of Crowd Control on Irelia. 1Champion: 10% 2Champions: 25% 3Champions: 40%

VEERYY Nice passive for when your getting ganked or teamfights, its just an overall great passive like free merc treads not much more to say.

Q: Bladesurge- Irelia dashes forward to strike her target for 20/50/80/110/140 (+1 per Attack Damage). If it kills the target, Bladesurge's cooldown refreshes and refunds 35 Mana. Cooldown 14 / 12 / 10 / 8 / 6 seconds. Cost 60/65/70/75/80 mana. Range 650

Strong move, your gap close refreshes the CD and 35 mana if you get a kill. Does strong damage and applies on hits.
Note: To gain ALOT of distance you can lasthit a minion from almost max range and with the refreshed cooldown jump at your enemy champion, good if they are trying to stay back and play passive because you are ahread. this skill resets auto attack timer if your within range of the enemy auto them then Q.

W: Hiten Style-Irelia is skilled in the art of Hiten, passively giving her physical attacks 10 / 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 health restoration. Activating Hiten Style adds 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 true damage to her physical attacks for 6 seconds. Cooldown 15second. Cost 40mana

A very nice skill for laning, gives you sustain off your auto attacks, and when you activate you get a very nice little boost of true damage on your auto attacks. This applies to blade surge to when its turned on. Giving it extra damage as well.

E: Equilibrium Strike-Irelia's attack balances the scales, dealing 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+50% of ability power) damage and slowing the target by 60% for 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 seconds. However, if the target has a higher Health % than Irelia, then the blow stuns the target instead. Cooldown 8 seconds. Cost 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 mana

A very nice skill that gives a feel of I can win this fight. The slow is pretty big as well and it has a slightly longer range allowing you to use this on fleeing targets.

R: Transcendent Blades- Irelia summons 4 spirit blades that she can fling to deal 80/120/160 (+60 of attack damage) (+50% of ability power) physical damage to enemies they pass through. She heals for 25% of that damage against champions and 10% against minions. Cooldown 60 / 50 / 40 seconds. Cost 100 mana.

Sustain wave clear, and a little bit of nice extra damage all on a low cd so you can use it for whatever purpose you wish.

Combos/Skillorder:

Skill Order:
Max R>W>Q>E

Combos:
W-Q(Q to minion then Q again to champion for distance Q initate)-E-(Ult for more damage and heal)

Matchups:

Irelia is generally like a riven there is no real "counter" to her, but she does have lanes that are harder.

Easy:

Jarvan IV (You can out damage him past lvl 5 and kill him), Akali ( do not try and trade with her until ~lvl 4, at which point your combo will out damage hers), Tryndamere (get cloth 5 engange him at lvl 4 and get lucky and hope he dosn't crit 5x), Poppy (Your true damage ignores your passive allowing you to put ALOT of damage off on her), Gangplank (when he comes to parley harass you can dash up and kill him) Shen (You survive him, and when he ports away you get freefarm and carry late), and Sivir (she cannot escape and you can win in a 1v1 committed fight.)

Hard:
Garen (He spins to win and screams demacia how do you beat that?), Renekton (Has alot of harass and can just generally beat you, also hes an interior crocodile alligator), Riven (This lane is a match of skill, the better player will come out on top here.), Jax (He is the champ, and will win any direct straight up fight to prove it), Olaf (True damage to true :(.) and Rumble (Another matchup of complete skill and timing.)
Warwick (can outsustain you and will win in an open fight).

Playing As/Vs:

As:
-With sheen and your W on you can 1 shot minions with your Q, use this to your advantage.
-At level one you can get a very strong trade off against average trade champions, you let them hit you then as soon as you take damage E them and get in like 2 autos.
-Your job in fights is to zone the enemy carries, but do not get carried away and try and run in multiple people v 1.

Vs:
-Watch your minions in order to prevent her from jumping to you.
-Do not trade when her W is turned on.
-Never underestimate Irelia even at low health she is VERY deadly.

Big Item Choices:

Trinity Force- All the stats help you, and this item makes you a carry monster

Warmog's Armor- Gives you tankyness

Atma's Impailer- Gives you damage off your tankyness

Force of Nature- MS , MR, and hp regen

Wit's End- Strong item for dmg(Magic which they probably wont itemize against, this plus your true damage means a good bit of your damage is almost unaffected by resistance), Atkspeed, and Mr.

Ionic Spark- Good for split pushing

Randuin's Omen- Good item in general for tanky DPS

Gametypes:

SoloQ:
Strong pick here, if you know what your doing you can outplay alot of players and carry yourself. If you can get an advantage early you will become a monster late and wreck thier team. Irelia can be picked early on in the draft although she is good to be picked later on in.

Ranked 5s:
If you coordinate with your team Irelia can be a GREAT pick. Your team will know your strengths and your weaknesses and fill them in. They can let you farm to late where you become a beast and pick comps that synergize around your fighting style.

Conculusion:
BETTER NERF IRELIA. Irelia is a very strong top lane champion that is fun to play as well as being able to lane vs almost anyone. I hope this top facts taught you something about this beast of a champion. As always have a good day and see you on the fields of justice.

SERIES UPDATE:
I plan on releasing these every day/other day until I get all of the top lane picks in the league ( about 50-60 of them) if there are any requests leave in the comments below and ill work on them. I want to make this series for others to better understand the champions of top lane. Once I am done (Or once I have a few top facts out) I will release some Facts about top lane mechanics, eventually I will probably put everything into one generic top lane guide, however until I do that I will continue to watch and update my blogs as needed. Tips and tricks I missed under my Top Facts would be helpful if you put anything I don't have in the comments I will be sure to add it. I will be forming a guide called The complete guide to Top lane or something in that nature. The intention of this series is not as a "Build guide" or a "play guide", these are more like facts you should know about the champion. These are to inspire people to think of new champion possibilities they might not have thought of or to help a new player with the champion. I do not list runes masteries or a set build ( I give a kind of recommended items) in here due to the fact I want people to think of that for themselves and try new things. This series is an attempt for the LOL community to try new things and have fun in a fun game. Thank you for reading and have a nice day:P