(edit: FINALLY UPDATED FOR SEASON 12 BABY LET'S GO)

Hello guys, I am an Irelia main (only bronze, so take this guide with a grain of salt and practice it in norms a lot before you even CONSIDER it in ranked), and I've been practicing this build a lot lately and I've had good results so I'd like to share it with the absolutely wonderful MOBAFire community. This part of the guide is not going to be in-depth by any means, and it's going to be written in the pretext that you (the person reading this guide) has already played AD Irelia a fair number of times and has a somewhat decent feel for her playstyle before looking at this build, because this is not, by any means, a beginner's guide to playing Irelia. So without further ado, I will just highlight a few small points.

DISCLAIMER: By reading this disclaimer, you are acknowledging that the creator of this guide (Playboi Kazii on NA) is not responsible for your team's LP loss if you build this in your ranked games. This build is just for fun. Play this in normal games only, please.

Have you ever wanted this already gutted champion to go from a 40% winrate in all roles to 5%? Well, in that case, this build is for you!

Even though this build is extremely fun to play with I will admit in most cases, you probably shouldn't, as AD Irelia has insane carry and 1v9 potential that her AP variant does not have. If her AP scaling on abilities were at least 100%, this would be a completely viable build, but sadly, her AP scaling ratios are very low compared to any meta mage.

In lane, you will max Q first, because it will help tremendously early game to do this and even more so after you get Lich Bane. Most mid-laners you can kill at level 2 easily with your full passive stacks, E, and double Q reset combo + ignite (with autos in between obviously). Once you get your first kill in lane, or you are very confident you will get one after your current reset, is when you want to grab Dark Seal. Once you get Gunblade, your dueling is great and when you finish Nashor's Tooth, it is even greater. If you have a few kills on your laner and a few Dark Seal stacks, you have great roam & map pressure, but unlike the typical AD Irelia build, I would not particularly advise trying to 2v1 with this build unless both targets are very low HP (you can clean up with ease in that case). You have insane AOE damage and you can blow up squishies with a quick combo but keep in mind you will be MUCH MORE squishier than typically with this build. Also keep in mind that this build is extremely snowball-reliant, so if you fall behind early game it is best to not fight anyone and farm up until you get at least 2 of your core items.

You want to mainly focus split pushing midgame, but you need to do it very carefully. Keep a watchful eye on your map. If anybody goes missing or you see them heading up towards you, immediately run, and always assume it is more than one person come to catch you out. For teamfighting it is highly recommended that you play similarly to an AD assassin, in which you want to go for single-target picks and backline flanks. Use your R as a single-target execute (the bonus AOE damage and marks helps a lot too) and use your Q to run circles around the other squishy targets after that if they are marked, but be very careful not to get hit with any hard CC or you will be dead in .2 seconds unless you buttonmash Zhonya's.

You want to either start corrupting potion or long sword in 100% of matchups. NEVER START DORAN'S RING OR DARK SEAL! It will ruin your early game! Corrrupting potion has amazing synergy with your time warp tonic and gives you plenty of sustain for easy first bloods, but the early AD on long sword is great too for an even earlier vampiric scepter rush. The reason you would want to grab dark seal before any other AP is because not only does it give you another easily abuseable healing steroid on top of your time warp tonic, but it makes your snowball potential that much greater if you manage to fully stack it, so there is absolutely NO reason not to get a dark seal on your first back. Gunblade is an amazing first item because it gives you hybrid damage and also makes you even stickier so that the enemy you are chasing will never get away from you (and the slow also makes it much easier to land your E if you start your combo by using your Gunblade active). Your core will be gunblade, nashor's tooth and lich bane, so that you can 1v1 anyone generally the same way you would as an AD Irelia, but your dueling is much stronger because on top of your auto attacks dealing crazy damage with gunblade + nashor's, but your abilities will hurt that much more too, since all of them but Q scale with AP. Regardless of this though, you will still want to max your Q ability first as it is Irelia's bread and butter, but it will not deal any magic damage until you get a lich bane, which will be a huge powerspike.

Level 2 first blood cheese combo:
Get 3 stacks of passive by last hitting minions with Q and then E, Q, then auto them and ignite when they get low. You can use your Q reset in this combo for extra damage but if they are walking too close to their tower, use it as a disengage by Q-ing a minion to avoid any possible tower damage.

Your main 1v1 dueling combo:
R + Q + E + Q + AA + Q + AA + short charge W + ignite (usually no ignite will be needed and depending on how squishy the target is they could very well just be nuked after the third Q.)
(quick and bursty variant): R + Q + E + Q + Q + W

Easy squishy 3v1 combo/tutorial:
first target -- E + Q + W + ignite + autos if needed + R as execute (position it so it spreads to the other two targets and marks them)
Q another marked target once, then jump to another one (save your second Q reset, do not dcuble Q either of them) and auto until E comes back off of cooldown (you should have 40% CDR at this point so it should not take very long). Then E stun both of these marked targets if possible to get 2 more free Q resets. Single one of these targets with one Q and auto attack (you will have full passive stacks by now, which synergizes amazingly with Nashor's Tooth), and then use your Q as an execute so that you get another Q reset that you can use to jump onto the third target and kill them as well.