I have switched around the abilities because i undervauled Equilibrium Strike previously. Putting points into Equilibrium Strike early means that Attack speed runes gain more usability, while Armor penetration runes become severely outclassed by AD. Maxing Hiten Style is still better.



Guide starting to get revamped.

Let me introduce myself

Hi, I'm Bitpik and I've been playing this game for around four years now. Irelia means a lot to me which is why I've created this guide. I have played over 1500 games with Irelia and I'm pretty sure I am one of the better Irelia players on EU-west. In this guide i will show you the way i play her and what i build. I will go into as much detail as possible throughout the guide, and it will for the most part be about soloqueue.

Bragging rights Season 2:

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1678

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I'm not like Ego Ignaxio. I don't only play Irelia since this is league and you need to master a few other champions. Other than Irelia my mains are Katarina, Renekton and Vladimir.

Anyway, have fun reading my guide and i hope i can teach you as much as possible with it. I hope you find Irelia fun to play but always keep in mind that to play a champion really well, you can't just use the knowledge from guides. You need personal experience aswell and you will have to for example not only build the items i give you, but build things that synergise with your team and against your opponents. Try out different things and see what fits your playstyle the most, good luck.

Irelia is a very unique champion but is relatively easy to pick up. Her kit is quite straightforward for newer players and i don't think you will have a very hard time stomping people with her in lower ELO's and pre-30.

She is however, just like every other champion a lot harder to play the better your opponents get. If you suddenly jumped from silver league games to platinum league games you would probably get dominated because the way you play has to be entirely different. I remember the old days of DPS Irelia where all i did in lane was to last hit creeps and Bladesurge+ Equilibrium Strike my lane opponent and they would always jump away in fear. If i did this now i would most certainly get camped and killed over and over and even without ganks my opponent would just trade back as soon as i combo'd him.

This will be a guide for top league ranked games and pretty high ELO normal games. Keep in mind that there are probably a few Irelia builds who work better than this for low level play, this guide is designed for gold+ players. Once i find the motivation and better net i will probably start streaming, this way i can feature some gameplay videos.

Although Irelia is easy to learn, i believe that all champions are close to impossible to master. You will be able to pull off far more things once you get to know your champion better which makes it even more fun to be a one-trick pony. When i had around 300 games as Irelia i was still pretty bad with her and lost a lot of lanes i should have won, but once i grasped her playstyle and spells i quickly went from 1800 to 2100 in season 2.

Irelia's role in competitive play is actually pretty unclear at the moment since shes not as good at teamfighting than most fulltanks, and shes not as good as splitpushing as some champions like Nidalee. At the moment she's mainly just picked vs Nidalee since Irelia can beat her in a complete 1v1, and snowballs vs her very hard. In soloqueue however, her ability to 1v1 and catch people out is much easier to abuse which has made her one of the top 20 picks for soloqueue at platinum and higher.

In a teamfight, Irelia should rather attack their carries instead of defending her own in a teamfight. Her entire skillset is actually great for diving onto someone, as the only thing she lacks for it is reliable hard CC. When she dives onto the carries she will easily get the full effect of Ionian Fervor. And thats how Irelia is designed, to be incredibly annoying and sticky vs carries.

This means that Irelia doesn't have that much synergy with picks like Kog'Maw and Jinx. These carries lack the mobility and self-peel in order to make swift engages with her. Teams that like picking Irelia also usually go for midgame oriented compositions and its partly because of Irelia being sub-optimal in lategame teamfights. But a big reason is that midgame AD Carries synergise with her much better, and some examples of great midgame pairings are Corki, Ezreal and Lucian. Basically, Irelia works better with utility than straight damage compositions.

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This build is focused on being a tanky assassin, not a tank. Irelia is pretty bad at initiating overall, and you can do far more in a teamfight if you have someone else who initiates it for you. This is why its better for Irelia to have a tank with AoE CC than a tank with damage. If someone like Rengar manages to CC their AD carry you will be able to lay all of your damage on him. Jarvan IV, Zac, Alistar, Lee Sin and Leona are five examples of champions with initiates. There are definetaly champions with better Crowd Control, but these i mentioned synergise with Irelia's midgame power spike.

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Overall Irelia works in a lot of compositions since she pretty much has everything. Competitively she's only viable when picked in function with a midgame composition, but this is mainly a soloqueue guide.

Pros

• One of the best toplaners midgame
• Snowballs ridiculously.
• Good mobility and catch potential.
• descent throughout the entire game.
• Great in skirmishes.
• Good sustain and pretty easy to farm with.
• Even if she's behind she dishes out a lot of damage once she has Trinity Force.
• Good mana pool.
• If played perfectly, cannot be beaten 1v1.
• Insanely fun to play.

Cons

• Sucks as a fulltank which is a pretty big reason to why she-
• isn't a good teamfigher.
• Weak prior to level 3.
• Heavily lacks crowd control after laning phase.
• Can't fall behind in levels.
• "Better nerf Irelia" joke wasn't funny to start with, now its gotten far worse.

You might wonder why she isn't picked more if there are so many more pros than cons, and the reason is that teams know how to abuse her weakness in teamfighting really well. AD Bruisers are also so far out of the metagame that you simply can't carry with them as long as the enemy team groups. Atleast Irelia won't get nerfed again, she's in a pretty good spot now, so don't worry about that if you haven't started playing her yet.

There are a lot of different masteries Irelia can take. I always go 21 9 0 but its not the only viable page.



Offensive masteries work very well just based on how much damage Irelia does in lane. To not get outtraded by her your opponent needs to build some defense, and thats just because of how little damage Irelia ACTUALLY takes when she follows a stun with a combo. Defensive masteries can be better in tough lanes before you get a few levels, and they are arguably better in lategame teamfights but Offensive masteries just give so much damage at your strongest points. Overall offensive masteries benefit from the soloqueue enviroment aswell since they enhance your 1v2 and 1v1 capabilities midgame.

• Now the offensive tree mastery points are VERY straightforward honestly, so I'll keep each explanation quick.
  
  
• Double-Edged Sword isn't that great on most champions in my opinion, but it benefits Irelia a lot again because of how little damage she takes in an initial all-in. 2% more damage should equal around 8 damage in an all-in and an extra 1-2 damage per auto-attack. I don't think the extra minion damage taken is a factor because of Irelia's sustain.
  
  
  
• Fury or Sorcery? I chose Fury because 3.75-5% attack speed can be hugely beneficial earlygame. Even lategame i think Fury is overall much better than Sorcery, and Sorcery sucks earlygame.
  
  
• Butcher + Feast or 1x Fury + Expose Weakness ? I personally thing Feast is to strong to pass up on. If you were to last hit every creep of a wave it means 18 health and 6 mana which in most lanes, can mean a big amount. I don't feel like Irelia benefits enough from Expose Weakness or Sorcery to justify skipping it.
  
  
• Brute Force + Martial Mastery or Mental Force + Arcane Mastery? Obviously you take Arcane Mastery kappa. Kappa stands for irony
  
  
• I really don't like Warlord . Irelia's bonus AD at level 18 with the "vs AD" runepage/item page is 30+10+4+11 55. And 2% of that is literally 1.1. Not just that, but earlygame Warlord provides nothing. That's why i prefer going Frenzy if I'm against a tankier champion. One could argue that Warlord is much better if you build a ton of AD, but the only damage item i tend to ever build(other than Trinity Force) is Youmuu's Ghostblade, which also has the crit. Because of Warlord being bad you can pick Blade Weaving and Dangerous Game for free, and both those masteries are very good.

ASDASDASASDASDASDASDASDD -Sadly, the defensive tree is also very straight forward. The only thing worth thinking about is Recovery versus Enchanted Armor . Generally i think Enchanted Armor is better, because we already have some sustain from Feast, Hiten Style and Doran's Blade/ Doran's Shield. I pick Recovery if I'm versus a heavy harasser such as Ryze or Nidalee. Click here to learn about how armor/magic resist works.

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If you were to go AP Irelia for whatever reason.(not viable). Feast is even more important and Fury is still better than Sorcery. Otherwise this is a normal AP page.

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This section will be about runes and how they work. I personally think that tech(masteries and runes) is a huge part of league and having an optimal one can actually be gamechanging. I recommend buying runes as soon as you start playing, go for tier 1 runes until you reach level 20, in where you jump to tier 3 runes right away. Tier 1 runes are pretty underused in lower levels making a page for level 20 only costs around 500 Influence points. Tier 2 runes are horrible for the most part as they only give the slightest of improvements compared to tier 1 runes, and they're around five times as expensive. I suspect most of the people reading this guide to be level 30 though, so lets jump into some less basic stuff. I currently use 3 runepages for Irelia and they're the ones openly displayed in this section. If i had an infinite amount of runepages i think I'd dedicate maybe 6 to Irelia though since you can tweak some of the runepages to even better fit the game. I recommend having a total of atleast 5 runepages(for different champions), and i think around 10 is mandatory in order to have a wide champion pool.

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These two types of runes can be taken for basically every runepage. Some pro players like running one Greater Mark of Critical Chance and others don't. Running one Greater Mark of Critical Chance pays off in most games, but i think the whole concept of winning a trade from that crit is very boring to even think of. Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration are taken by a minority of proffesional players, and personally I'd find no use for them, but if you feel that you keep going oom(out of mana) in the first 10 minutes i recommend taking 1-3 of them.

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We go for nine Greater Mark of Attack Damage because they're strong in the earlygame and hold good synergy with Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed and Irelia's kit.

We go for nine Greater Seal of Scaling Armor since they catch up to Greater Seal of Armor at level 6, overall they hold far more value.

I really like going for 10% cooldown reduction from Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction here, but going Greater Glyph of Magic Resist or Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist is also very viable.

Being left with little armor in the first levels we run a Greater Quintessence of Armor, one Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage and one Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed. I recommend always taking atleast one Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed in this slot, but the other two rune choices are slightly debatable.

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I run 2x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed versus tanks because of how good the movement speed can be when you're getting ganked, and when disengaging/engaging against these meatshields. I stand my ground in believing that atleast 1x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed should be taken, but having 2x Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed can also be pretty huge, and it's clear that it depends more on matchuos than anything else. I run  Greater Mark of Attack Damage because it synergises well with Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed, and because of the kill potential being low(especially when Teleport is meta). When not running any Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage, Greater Mark of Attack Damage are simply the best.




Because of Teleport and the kill potential being low I believe these are the best seals/glyphs when in a farm lane because of how strong they are in the later stages of the game. I go for 6x Greater Glyph of Magic Resist versus Maokai because of how strong he is AT THE MOMENT, but i believe going magic resist/level will be more legit after he gets nerfed.



Pretty good. Back in the day people used to run these and AD quintessences. But since attack speed quintessences got buffed, and Doran's Blade got nerfed its hard to find room for these. Basically you're too weak with attack speed on both marks and quints, and attack speed quintessences have more value than attack speed marks overall.


Even after the nerf they're still great runes and should be taken vs AD Lanes if you don't have any Greater Quintessence of Armor.


Pretty good, but not nearly as strong as their counterpart; Greater Seal of Scaling Health. Vs AP Laners you don't run any risk of dying unless you overextend against a Ryze before level 6 anyway, and that's where the Greater Seal of Scaling Health catch up.


Although outclassed by Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction, these runes can be great when facing a full AD teamcomp, and they're especially good if you're versus a toplaner who has periodic damage and sustain.


A lot of people like running these in every page, and i understand why. Having <4x of Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration means you can use Bladesurge much more often in lane. It comes down to preferance, but I think I'm personally better off without them. Going Greater Glyph of Scaling Mana Regeneration doesn't make much sense as Irelia's mana problems quickly diminish throughout the game.


I've seen people who always run 3x of these as Irelia and i don't think it makes much sense because of how easily she can play defensively in lane. In laning, they can be great. But if you're ahead or in the later stages of the game, Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed are better in every scenario.


I feel like people haven't picked these up because of Greater Glyph of Magic Resist being very strong. And against most AP champions you want three offensive quints in order to snowball and create more pressure on lane, so they're kind-of contradictionary.

Out of my past 100 Irelia games I've taken Teleport in 84 of them, whereas I've taken Ignite when i carried myself to diamond 1 from platinum 1. Every competitive player and analyst would tell you to get Teleport as a toplaner, but i don't think that holds true for most soloqueue games under diamond 1 level. First of all you need either Flash or Ghost, but the second summoner spell can varie between a few others. Never go for Flash+ Ghost.

• Flash is the most powerful summoner spell in the game for most champions and situations.
• Teleport+ Flash makes you very resiliant against ganks early on.
• To Flash> Equilibrium Strike rather than Bladesurge> Equilibrium Strike if you're both at full health(meaning you stun instead of slow). For more information about this combo check the ability section.
• Is very handy for finishing kills in teamfights. Something which Ghost can't provide.

Irelia benefits much more from Flash than from Ghost and the biggest reason is because she's a burst champion. When i have a gameplay section i can show you how to use Flash aggressively in different situations.

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• Ghost can be more effective than Flash when you clean up after a teamfight or when you're chasing someone.
• Relatively weak in laning phase as it lowers your kill potential and escaping.

Ghost synergises with slows and sustained damage so since Trinity Force got reworked it lost a lot of its value. Even before that it wasn't as good as Flash, but now there's just zero synergy with Irelia's kit.

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• Enhances your already high kill potential in lane and is especially effective versus champions such as Lissandra who lack defensive mechanisms earlygame.
• Can be huge versus health-regeneration champions such as Dr. Mundo and Aatrox in the lategame.
• Should be combined with Crystalline Flask so that you don't miss out on sustain early on.

Because of how much utility Teleport gives, you can rarely actually go for Ignite. ONLY take it when you know you can kill your lane opponent early on.

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• The best summoner for toplane and has been for the entirety of season 4. Gives you a huge amount of map presence if used correctly.
• Can be used for sustain by recalling then teleporting back to lane early, this means you can also be a Doran's Blade or Boots ahead of your opponent.
• The toplane who doesn't have Teleport lategame suffers because his opponent will be able to splitpush in order to farm and force objectives such as Baron.

Teleport is infinetaly better than Ignite on toplane at higher levels. If you have Teleport and face an opponent who has Ignite, you simply shouldn't lose lane if you play it correctly. Just keep in mind to not waste it on teleporting to towers and stuff. Teleport in the later stages is better used after you've pushed so that you can help your team afterwards, instead of Teleporting to the lane you're going to push at once. This means you can pressure a lane, and you're team can still take risks that they would normally only be able to do as 5.


This method only works if the opponent doesn't have Teleport, or he will get minion farm before you arrive at Dragon, and then Teleport as you start doing it. This method is a lot more effective and easier to use if your lane opponent is bad at clearing creep waves quickly (for example Warwick).

• 1.Make sure the lane is pushed towards the enemy. This means he won't be able to take your turret, and you won't loose a huge amount of minions if he starts pushing (he probably will).
• 2.Recall to base and then go towards Dragon, this means you can heal up or buy before going there. Or you just go straight for Dragon, this means you arrive there more quickly.
• 3.Take dragon, if they initiate on you you will win (if not very outplayed) because the enemy's toplaner is still top, trying to either clear the creeps or punish you for roaming.
• 4.Recall back to base and then Teleport back to toplane.

The reason to why their toplaner can't come down and help his team is because you pushed the lane, he will loose a lot of gold and experience if he leaves his lane since the minions you pushed will get killed by his tower.

This is a very easy use of Teleport and it probably won't work against great players, but for those of you who are unsure on how to use it, this is an easy way to experiment.

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• Exhaust is the best bad spell. It's generally very bad in lane as it just doesn't do anything noticable, unless your opponent super overextends. And it's lategame isn't close to as strong as Teleports.
• Revive is bad. But not as bad as the spells bellow in my honest opinion. To be completely honest i think Revive is a bit underrated, and it can be strong if you're in a farm lane, because of how much impact it has in the later stages. I'm currently 5-3 with Revive+ Teleport toplane Shaco, and it shows that the resurrection can be pretty huge in the endgame.
  
• Barrier doesn't have any synergy with Irelia's kit, and it gets completely outclassed by Teleport.
• Heal A worse version of Barrier.
• Cleanse Just.. why would you take this if it doesn't take away supression? You already have your passive and if you really needed to avoid crowd control it's better to just go for Mercury's Treads. Having Cleanse in a summoner spell slot just makes you too weak in lane, and it has no lategame punch.
• Clarity By far the worst summoner spell in the game as it has absolutely no use for any champion. Teleport is better for gaining mana earlygame, and lategame Clarity is useless.
• Clairvoyance. Clarity is the worst summoner spell in the game. Clairvoyance is the worst summoner spell for Irelia. If you find a scenario where Clairvoyance is more useful than a Stealth Ward I'll nominate you for nobel prize.
  
  

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Definetaly a must-have for Irelia. Gives amazing burst combined with some mobility and utility. The previous slowing effect was far more beneficial for Irelia, but the movespeed when attacking helps a lot since Irelia kind-of lacks CC especially when you're chasing someone. Especially in soloqueue, which is what this guide is about.


A great item for burst, it proccs on Bladesurge which makes it a very strong item for Irelia. Its a part of Trinity Force which is why we are getting it, and you will have to choose whether you should have this or Phage first. Sheen is better for more burst while Phage is better for more sustained damage and stats overall. 90% of the time you will want to start with a Phage.


Gives a few great stats to Trinity Force, but its not that strong on its own. Normally you will want to get this after both your Phage and your Sheen. If you have absolutely zero kill potential and you're currently splitpushing it can be beneficial to go Phage into Zeal and trinity force afterwards.

The strongest item in the game for Irelia. All of the stats it provides help her in some way, and some stats are just surreal on her. You need this in all of your games.


This is currently one of the worst items in the game, but would it be buffed i can see it working well in combination with Trinity Force. I'd only ever build it in the lategame, if the enemy team is full of champions who rely on kiting.

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These are in my opinion the best boots for all AD bruisers at the moment just because of how they synergise with health(which you always build a lot of). If my botlane loses i always get these just because of how much pressure their AD carry will have in midgame fights.


The second best option for boots, but they are only really useful if you're againt a lot of crowd control and peel. As long as the enemy team has an AD carry i never get these just for the magic resistance, always get them for the Tenacity instead.


The best boots for 1v1'ing just because of how they work with Hiten Style. At the moment i only build these when I'm versus Nidalee(who splitpushes), but they are good if you're ****ting on a tank toplaner aswell. Biggest downside is that they're very mediocre in teamfights if you're team isn't very ahead overall.


In the very endgame, you can replace your boots with these if you perform the role as a splitpusher.(although it's often not recommended). They are stronger than Berserker's Greaves once you have 5-6 items.

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Yes, this is also a damage item that should be more than enough for Irelia. The suggestions below should rarely be taken because we already have a damage item that costs 4000 gold.


A great item if your composition is based around earlygame while the enemies are based around lategame. For the most burst earlygame you build 2x Doran's Blades, Sheen and then The Brutalizer, but i only recommend building this if you're vs a squishy toplaner. I always built Trinity Force and Youmuu's Ghostblade when i took myself from platinum 1 to diamond 1 at the start of the season. Try it out in combination with the vs AP runes and you'll see how ridiculous Irelia's damage can be.


Building this means you're an absolutely amazing 1v1'er. But in diamond 1 atleast, you NEED tankyness just because of how important teamfights are. In lower leagues it can be very beneficial to build this item together with Trinity Force, but i don't know much about that. At the moment i deeply prefer Ravenous Hydra if I'm not vs a fulltank.


A strong item but is only really useful when you're a splitpusher. It makes you very hard to pick off while you're pushing. Some people build this item when they want to carry a losing team, but the only way this item will pay off(in comparison to tanky items) is if you try to drag people to you on toplane as you splitpush.


I only build this if I'm splitpushing versus a low-damage target such as Warwick. Otherwise it can only be bought if you're fed, but in those games i prefer Youmuu's Ghostblade and Blade of the Ruined King.

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A great item if you're facing an AP top and midlaner, but I'd only save it and upgrade it into Maw of Malmortius for lategame if the enemy team seriously lacked physical damage. Replace it for your 6th item if you're not saving it.


A very overrated item for Irelia, and i think the only reason to why some players still build it is because of how godly it was for her in season 2. Although outclassed by Blade of the Ruined King, it is pretty good for 1v1'ing but it lacks so much impact in teamfights that it's not even funny. I only build this if I'm versus a full AP Warwick.


Overnerfed. It's a descent item if you would have around 4000 health, but even then 70 AD isn't that huge in comparison to what Thornmail or Frozen Heart would do in its place.

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Definetaly not as important as it was in season 2, but strong never the less because of Irelia's dive-in role in teamfights. This has the potential to make Irelia far tankier than she actually is since it takes 4 seconds for you to resurrect, it all depends on how well you and your team positions in the fight. Another thing that makes this item Irelia-core is that you're cooldowns are so low. And during the time you're being resurrected, Bladesurge and Equilibrium Strike's cooldowns tick down and are potentially up again when you respawn.


Being the best armor item for most toplaners at the moment, you will want to buy this item almost every game. 20% cooldown reduction is huge and the passive even bigger. The armor is great at the moment since you always combine it with health items such as Banshee's Veil or Spirit Visage, even before lategame teamfights start. 400 mana is a descent addition to an already strong item, but its obviously not the reason for getting it.


A great and easy to buy item as it gives both health and armor, and a lot of it. The other components of the item are not as strong as lets say Frozen Heart's, but you can never go wrong with them. Going for both Randuin's Omen and Frozen Heart makes you a menace to deal with for auto-attack reliant AD champions. They simply don't deal damage to you in teamfights unless they're far ahead.


An ok item but why take it in front of the other choices here? It gives some magic damage, but the magic damage doesn't scale well at all into the later stages of the game. A lot of champions buy this in order to push faster, and pushing speed is the last thing Irelia needs.

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My favorite magic resist item since Banshee's Veil's nerf. The passive and health regeneration effects are very effective in 1v1's and midgame teamfights, and the stats it provides makes it valuable in endgame teamfights aswell. Spirit Visage's passive proccs on Guardian Angel. Meaning you gain back 36% of your total health instead of 30%.


Good item that gives both health, magic resistance and a great shield. You can take this item if you keep getting caught out by single-target displacement spells such as Rocket Grab and Dark Binding. I think Spirit Visage is generally better at the moment.

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A pretty mediocre item on Irelia, but can be taken as 2nd or 3rd item in order to snowball games. Nothing makes you more unkillable to an underfed AD Carry than Trinity Force, Guardian Angel and Warmog's Armor. Endgame it's sh1t and nothing more, and should be replaced by other tanky items when you can afford it.

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This is the only decent utility-based item for Irelia as it gives herself some valuable stats aswell. I sometimes buy it after my core-items if i have a fed hypercarry, as it becomes protect-the-carry in most cases.






Irelia has a lot of health gaining abilities. Therefore resistances work far better than health on her. Lets say you have a spell that gives you 100 health back.

• The 100 health you just got will be very strong if you have a billion armor and magic resist.
• But it will be pretty useless if you only have 20 armor and magic resist.

Even though resistances are for the most part better its important to have a fair amount of maximum health at the end of the game aswell. In the endgame you should aim to have atleast 3000 health, just because of how quickly damage goes down in teamfights.


Tenacity doesn't add, it stacks. If you have for example 20% tenacity there will only be 80% of crowd control left. Then if you get 50% tenacity from one effect you will have 40% of crowd control left. In other words, the 50% tenacity bonus removed 50% of the already reduced crowd control effect(80%).

Tenacious 15% Tenacity + Mercury's Treads35% Tenacity + Ionian Fervor40% Tenacity

Tenacious 15% > Tenacious + Mercury's Treads 15%+35% = 45% > Tenacious + Mercury's Treads+ Ionian Fervor 15%+35%+40% = 61% Tenacity. If this wasn't the case we'd go for Tenacious every game, but as of now it only actually gives 5% tenacity when combined with Mercury's Treads and Ionian Fervor.

The best starting item atleast for my playstyle. A health potion is mandatory and Stealth Ward is just better than the other trinkets. I go for this every game unless I'm vs a heavy poker such as Nidalee. In those cases i instead go for..



The second best starting item and should be taken in matchups where you can't benefit from Doran's Blades lifesteal and AD. These matchups include for example Kayle, Nidalee and Kennen.



If you for some reason run Ignite instead of Teleport. This start gives you the sustain which you miss out on. And the extra mana helps a lot when you're trying to go for kills.



In order to reliably survive early against Quinn, Jarvan IV, Pantheon and Riven. It can be beneficial to start Doran's Blade versus them if they make mistakes, but otherwise Cloth Armor is far stronger.

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You play defensively with heavy reactive aggression and build 2x Doran's Blades as first items. Follow it with Phage if you're ahead/behind, and Sheen if you're even. Then always build Boots. Finish off your Trinity Force. Afterwards you normally want Spirit Visage or Youmuu's Ghostblade. You can build a Negatron Cloak after boots if you're suffering from their damage.

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Doran's Shield in order to survive the first levels. Follow it with one or two Doran's Blades and a Phage if you're even/behind, and Sheen if you're ahead. Then build Berserker's Greaves to be able to start dominating her in 1v1's and finish it off with Trinity Force. Afterwards you normally want Randuin's Omen, Spirit Visage or Frozen Heart.

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Cloth Armor to heavily reduce her early kill-potential and in order to outsustain her for more favorable trades. Follow it with 2x Doran's Blades to either stay slightly or far ahead of her earlygame. Then build a Phage and a Chain Vest in any order. Build Boots and then Trinity Force. Go Ninja Tabi before Trinity Force if you need even more armor.

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Cloth Armor to heavily reduce her early kill-potential and in order to outsustain her for more favorable trades. Follow it with 2x Doran's Blades to either stay slightly or far ahead of her earlygame. Then build a Phage and a Chain Vest in any order. Build Boots and then Trinity Force. Go Ninja Tabi before Trinity Force if you need even more armor.

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Irelia is a champion that needs all of her abilities to trade well. All of the abilities help Hiten Style which is your "main ability" that you always max first. You will be severely crippled if you cant cast a Bladesurge for example as it will make your other abilities weaker aswell. This doesnt include her ultimate ofcourse as her ultimate is just a strong bonus in my eyes.

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Ionian Fervor is known as one of the best passives in the game. It lets her do crazy stuff without getting much punishment, and makes her a great Assassin mid- to lategame since CC wont stop her as much as it would on other champions. This passive combined with tankyness from items makes her a good meatshield to soak up important ultimates like for example Enchanted Crystal Arrow

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Bladesurge is a very strong ability that only needs 1 point to fill its main purpous. It does some damage, refreshes autoattacks, is a very fast gapcloser, helps a lot with last-hitting and proccs on-hit effect like for example Hiten Style, Wit's End's passive and Sheen. We take it at level 2 to help with last-hitting especially under tower. Most lanes will benefit you early on if you let the minions push to your tower level 1-4.

This spell is very easy to lasthit with but you should try and use it as little as possible, or you will run out of mana quickly. You should always stay at a fair amount of mana if you plan on staying in lane, since you will need it for a trade, gank, kill or escape. If you're at 0% mana you will be zoned against most enemies(if they have mana). If you cant really leave lane without loosing loads of minions and have no mana, wait until you can use your Transcendent Blades and then push out before recalling.

Bladesurge's cooldown resets when you kill something with it. This includes both minions and monsters which means you can more easily make epic escapes and chases with jumps an. You can also abuse this by Bladesurge'ing onto a minion, use Equilibrium Strike on the full health champion for a stun. This means you still have your Bladesurge up to finish the fight with a triple-autoattack resetting-on-hit proccing combo of death.

Most of the time i max Equilibrium Strike after Hiten Style for the long stun but if you run attack damage or Armor penetration runes its more beneficial to max Bladesurge second. Dont Bladesurge someone who is stunned unless its the killing blow, use it once the enemy has gained a small gap between you instead, using it that early just doesnt make any sense unless its maxed (4 second cooldown).

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Hiten Style is Irelia's strongest spell mostly because her other spells synergyse so well with it. Bladesurge makes you stay close to a target longer to make the full use of Hiten Style and proccs on-hit effects. Equilibrium Strike is a stun that allows you to get more true damage off. and Transcendent Blades has the same kind of purpous(sustained damage and sustain). This is one of the two reasons to why we max Hiten Style first. The other reason being that its our sustain spell and even though the nerf it had (Which cut the healing into half) its still a form of sustain which not many toplaners have.

After Equilibrium Strike'ing your enemy you should always cast this since its free autoattacks. Then you should use your Bladesurge before Hiten Style wears off (theres a timer above your spellbar), and straight after an attack. Just to procc true damage twice more ( Bladesurge and autoattack reset). If you dont have any mana after casting Equilibrium Strike then you shouldnt have cast it in the first place. Like i said earlier, Irelia needs all of her abilities to trade well.

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Equilibrium Strike is a very powerful ability for laning. Most of the time you will like to start trades with this. Its incredibly important to know that this will stun if you have the same % of hp, so it will always stun if you're both at 100%. If you want to trade with your opponent you should always start with this spell, and if your chasing or catching someone you should always try and Equilibrium Strike, keep chasing and then Bladesurge after a few auto-attacks. This will make it A LOT harder for the enemy to escape especially if they have flash.

Against many ranged opponents you wont be able to start a trade with Equilibrium Strike unless they make a mistake and walk too close. Here you can use the brush to your advantage so that they cant really cs well without you raping them, just dont get ganked while your sitting in this bush. Against many ranged opponents you should let them push to your tower, if they harass you the first levels your minions will attack him and it will push automatically. Especially champions with long cooldown or short-ranged attacks like Kayle or Vladimir will be at a disadvantage if you're at your own tower.

90% of the time i max this 2nd just for extra burst and stun duration. It actually scales better than Bladesurge with levels damage-wise and the stun is very important.

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Transcendent Blades is a very useful laning tool and you can beat anyone 1v1(except for Rumble) if you use this on a few minions, aswell as the champion in the fight. However, it is not so useful in lategame teamfights since the damage doesnt scale that well into lategame and the healing is very low when only used on ~3 champions.

A lot of people think that Transcendent Blades is only a pushing tool to push the lane and get sustain, this isnt true. Only use it to push the lane if you get a big advantage from it like for example when your enemy laner is going to loose loads of creeps to his turret. It can also be used to push out toplane to prepare for for example Dragon. Most of the time though this ultimate should be used to dominate trades since its cooldown is relatively very low.


The picture above shows an ultimate hit on both minions and Nasus. After this fight my health was around 90% cause even though the minions damaged me i gained loads of health from them with Transcendent Blades's healing effect.

Orbwalking is when you move between autoattacks. You can cancel autoattacks animations by simply moving to cancel it and then autoattacking again. This results in being able to position a lot better in a fight(for example when your chasing someone). Since you skip your autoattack animations, it also results in you attacking faster since the delay between autoattacks is more shorter.

Orbwalking takes time to learn and is easiest explained when used on AD carries. AD carries need to position almost perfectly in teamfights to unlock their full potential and to do so they must orbwalk. This video is a great example of orbwalking:



Last hitting takes a bit of practice for newer players but its quite simple. All you need to do is make sure you do the killing blow with them which is especially easy with Irelia because she has her Bladesurge that resets on killing blows. The video below is a short guide about last-hitting and different ways of last-hitting, you can check out his whole channel here



Cooldown knowledge is one of the most important things in this game because of the advantage you get in lane from it. An example of cooldown knowledge is that if Vladimir has his Sanguine Pool on cooldown you can kill him very quickly. If Riven just used her Broken Wings to clear a creep wave you will always beat her since a huge amount of her damage is gone. Some champions you need to know cooldown knowledge to beat, for example Akali. If Akali uses her Mark of the Assassin on you every time its up you will definetaly loose lane against her, but you will beat her (if its not level 6-8) if its down once you start fighting.

Generally what you want to do is play safely but still reactively against most toplaners. Avoid ganks at all costs and don't die to them. Remember that 12 last hits = 1 kill in gold. More information on how to play lane is in the matchup section bellow this one.


If a level 1 fight is going to break our you should always take Equilibrium Strike because of the chance of stun. You will either want to go first or close to first when you're invading because of this, since a stun level 1 normally leads to a kill. Since they heavily reduced the firstblood gold at <4:00 it's actually rarely worth it to trade a Flash for a kill, but that depends on how your lane. Generally you want to save Flash for a kill if the enemy toplaner has kill potential on you (for example a Riven.


Build items that work well in your matchup by following the "Items part 2" section. Dont build upgraded boots too early since it delays your damage and survivability.


Irelia sadly isnt that great at contesting buffs early on because of her weak first levels. She can jump onto someone and do a good amount of damage but there is nothing that stops the enemies from just jumping away from you. Once you get a few items like Phage you get a lot stronger though so you will have time to contest the enemy Blue/Red that spawns at around 7:15 depending on where they started.

Dragon can be taken this early if you dominate the enemy team in a fight and almost ace them, but dont walk down before around 8:00 even if their toplane cant help since even a 5v4 is very hard when dragon is focusing you. Even though you might get a kill its not worth the risk since your loosing a lot of guaranteed farm toplane.



Its very important to know what your jungler and their jungler is going to do. If they will gank you level 1, if they will gank you level 4 and this is very dependant on both their picks and which side you are on. Since if your on blue side your closest to their red, and if your on purple side your closest to their blue. You can say that if you always know where their jungler is you will never loose lane.

Red start is very common in soloqueue and if your on blue side you should always watch out for this. However, mana hungry champions probably wont do this like for example Nautilus and Amumu. Champions who will do this are Lee Sin, Dr. Mundo, Twitch and Shyvana since they are either very good gankers or not mana dependant at all. However if your on purple side they will probably gank either midlane or botlane instead except if they took your red buff or go for a gank toplane after blue (which they very rarely do). If their jungler goes from red to top you will get ganked at around 2:25.

Blue start is not as common as red start in soloqueue since it gives a lot less gank potential. A lot of junglers need to start blue though because of being mana starved. Other champions like Shyvana, Dr. Mundo or Lee Sin can still start at blue buff if they want to gank you at level 4 instead. If their enemy jungler starts blue he will very unlikely go toplane afterwards (with the exception of Jarvan IV). If your purple side you will even less likely get ganked by a blue starter, but on blue side you will almost always get ganked by them at around level 4.



Having good map awareness is often the key to carrying in soloqueue. The more map awareness you have the higher chance you will have to help your teammates or get yourself fed. Map awareness sort-of has to do with the last section ("Junglers") since its used to track down enemies over the entire map. Wards help with map awareness and we buy them to more easily track down the enemy team. Some examples of wards in the laning phase are:

When you first enter lane you will have to think, What do i want in this lane? You will question on how you should play against their enemy toplaner.

Lets say your against Garen, Garen is undenyably better than Irelia the first levels. But Irelia is a lot stronger later on. So how will you lane against this Garen? Thing is, if you both go even on cs (creep score) you have won the lane since you will be stronger than him later on anyway. So just focus on farming for now, if you both get the same farm you have beaten him.

Another example thats quite the opposite is Nasus. You will want to play very agressively against Nasus since if you both get the same farm he will dominate you lategame. You should ALWAYS try and harass/zone/kill Nasus because of his Siphoning Strike being weak the first 10 levels (for even longer if he doesn't get farm) and you will want to take away as much farm from him as possible. While you would want to play very agressively against Nasus, you will want to play very defensively against Garen.

The most important thing about toplane is adapting to situations with either plays or picks. There is no way that you will make it to a top ELO team if the only toplaner you can play is Irelia. To be honest, 90% of all the champions in the game work top (with the exception of most supports). You can go AP Ezreal or AD Kog'Maw toplane and still do decently or even dominate the majority of champions if you adapt.




A good Caitlyn can dominate a few toplaners but not Irelia. Start Cloth Armor and 5x Health Potion's or just Boots as usuall. Play defensive and dont take too much harass the first levels since Caitlyn is a lot stronger than you at this stage, especially with 90 Caliber Net. Start playing very agressively when you hit level 5-6, here you will kill her almost instantly.

Go Wriggle's Lantern if you want to dominate her at extreme levels, she wont be able to do ANYTHING if you have this item. You can just go a fast Trinity Force, this wont dominate her in lane as much but its a lot stronger mid- lategame. Ninja Tabi is a great pick against Caitlyn, you can sell it lategame for Mercury's Treads if its needed.

Also countered by: Yorick, Akali, Darius, Fiora, Jax, Kayle, Malphite, Lee Sin, Nidalee and Rumble

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Irelia is my go-to pick against Yorick. Yorick is great against defensive laners, Irelia however is an offensive laner who often tries to kill her opponent. You procc on-hit effects on ghouls, such as Hiten Style's healing effect, so try and autoattack them and orbwalk while they are chasing you. Ghoul's will also stop focusing you if they loose sight of you, and push the lane instead, you can stay close to a bush and run in whenever a ghoul is following, this will result in the Ghoul being forced to attack minions instead, which means the lane pushes towards you. After a few levels, you rape Yorick in a 1v1 because of your Transcendent Blades and Hiten Style. You can also gank him early on since he has no escape other than Omen of Pestilence.

Dont ever start Cloth Armor against Yorick since his main damage output and harass is Omen of Famine which deals magic damage. I think even a Regrowth Pendant would be far better in this situation, for an early Philosopher's stone into Shurelya's Battlesong later on. Boots is always the superior choice since it lets you position a lot better and escape Ghoul's.

Also countered by Riven, Cho'Gath and Kennen

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Akali is a very squishy toplaner and needs her spells to function well, so the first levels she is very weak and her only spell would be Mark of the Assassin. Start Boots as usual to handle her zoning better but you can also start with a Null-Magic Mantle or a Regrowth Pendant to regen back her harass.

Akali is very weak pre-6. But she can still outtrade you if she gets the second effect twice on Mark of the Assassin. Dont fight her if she has a mark on you(shiny spinny thingy above you) except when her Mark of the Assassin is on cooldown. At level 6, play very defensively cause she will beat you at this level, then start trading again at level ~9 with a maxed out Hiten Style. Go for her when she uses Mark of the Assassin on a minion, if you dont capitalize on these things you will probably loose lane against her.

Other counters: Garen, Cho'Gath, Galio, Warwick, Udyr, Lee Sin, Darius and Yorick.

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Irelia counters gangplank because he has no sustain. Be a bit careful though since Gangplank is one of the strongest duelists in the game at level 1 because of Parrrley and the highest base health in the game. Put a point in Hiten Style level 1 to heal from his harassing or a point in Bladesurge to avoid getting attacked. Level 3 you can outtrade him with your combo if you have minions to back you up if he fights back. The more you level Hiten Style the easier you should win this lane.

Start with Cloth Armor or Boots. Get Phage the first trip back if your already beating him hard, a Ninja Tabi if your getting out-harassed. Always go Ninja Tabi since it also reduced his Parrrley damage since it counts as an auto-attack. You can get Wriggle's Lantern against Gangplank if you want to dominate him, but i suggest you skip it because of how easily you can beat him without it anyway.

Other counters: Jarvan IV, Darius, Fiora, Malphite, Mordekaiser, Nidalee, Udyr, Volibear, Yorick and Kayle.

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This is a farm lane that Irelia is in favour of. The first levels Cho'Gath is actually a lot stronger than you, but as you get levels in Hiten Style you should beat him more and more. Get Philosopher's stone if your going Shurelya's Battlesong, and go Heart of Gold if your getting Randuin's Omen(which you will do most games) since if its a competent Cho'Gath this will turn out into a farm lane.

Always start Boots to dodge his Rupture's and to run away from his Vorpal Spikes. Get a Wit's End to greatly negate his damage preferably after your Heart of Gold since this is a farm lane. There isnt much Cho'Gath can do late- laning phase against Irelia, you can kill him but he cant kill you. He might pick Teleport, so get it yourself if you dont plan on killing him in lane.

Other counters: Brand, Ahri, Anivia, Ashe, Caitlyn, Cassiopeia, Corki, Warwick, Draven, Ezreal, Fizz, Graves, Vayne, Jax, Kennen, Kayle, Malzahar, Nidalee, Olaf, Orianna, Rumble, Ryze, Sivir, Swain, Teemo, Tristana, Urgot, Vladimir, Viktor, Volibear and Ziggs. In other words, 90% of all the ranged champions in the game and a few others.

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This lane should be ridiculously easy to win since you have the ability to cancel her Death Lotus. Good Katarina's will play very defensively against you in the beginning but if she walks too close to you you can lay an Equilibrium Strike into a combo and take a huge amount of her health. She is also bad at farming under turret so push out as much as possible in the early stages without getting killed or shut down by ganks. Once you hit level 6 your able to turret-dive her with your jungler if you open up with a stun.

Start Boots and then get a few damage items like Phage and Wit's End. If you fight her and she is at a higher % health than you save Equilibrium Strike to cancel her Death Lotus.

Other counters: Rumble, Nidalee, Kayle, Malphite, Darius, Yorick and Riven

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Fiora will beat you in a fight if she lands all of her skills including Riposte. But you have the advantage since all of your skills are guaranteed to hit her. Use Cooldown Knowledge to your advantage. If she has used her Riposte you will always beat her in a fight and your Transcendent Blades has a lower cooldown than her Blade Waltz. Remember to not attack her when she uses her Riposte, and try and bait it since if its down you will win fights against her.

Start either Cloth Armor or Boots. Go Ninja Tabi very early if you need it more than damage since it reduces her damage by a lot. You can go Wriggle's Lantern against her, and if you do you should never loose lane except camped.

Counters: Jax, Malphite, Darius and Olaf.

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I always use the runepage with +20 armor against Wukong because of him being a heavy AD. You can start Cloth Armor and you will dominate, or just Boots as usuall. Go the Wriggle's build if you want to dominate him in lane, standard build(with a less early Wit's End) if your going for lategame. You can win trades against him once you hit level 3, but before that he has a small advantage on lane. Alternatively you can take a point in both Bladesurge and Hiten Style at level 2 and go hyper aggressive (A lot harder if not Cloth Armor).

If im honest i dont know much about Wukong since i have only played against him once or twice in ranked. If someone knows a lot about him then please inform me using the comment section.

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Nasus used to be one of the biggest counters to Irelia back when her earlygame damage was pretty weak since he could just freefarm against her. Since her latest buff however(around march 2012) she got extra base AD from level 1. Go Boots against Nasus and play hyperaggressively the first levels. Start with a point in Bladesurge and then a point in Hiten Style and combo him if he goes for a creep. If you get killed once against Nasus(must be from a gank) you can still pull back especially if your jungler helps you out. Be aware of his Fury of the Sands. Always stay as aggressive as possible against Nasus from level 2 since he can sustain himself with Soul Eater. Be aware of minion damage the first levels to stay at relatively high health.

Other counters: Most ranged champions in the game. Champions that can heavily harass him or kill him the first 9 levels.

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Jarvan IV is a lane bully. Level 1 you should try and harass him when he goes for minions but always be careful from his Martial Cadence which does a ton of damage to you early lane. Level 2-4 he will have his Demacian Standard+ Dragon Strike and a big advantage on you in lane. If you take far too much damage from his harass at this point you will loose the lane. Level 5+ though you can easily punish him for using the combo on you especially if he misses it since he has 0 sustained damage. Level 6 he can deal a ton of damage to you with his Cataclysm but you should keep playing aggressive since you have the sustained damage and sustain that he misses.

I start Boots against Jarvan IV to more easily dodge his Martial Cadence harass and his combo. Overall this lane is easy because if it goes even you will stomp him lategame. If its a gp10 Jarvan IV you just gained free elo.

Other counters: Yorick, Pantheon, Jax and Volibear.

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Swain can be a pain the first levels because of his harass and your lack of damage, but later laning-phase you should be able to just jump on him and kill him. Push him to tower if your not getting ganked early lane because he has almost NO way of farming under tower besides his autoattacks. Beware of his Decrepify, which he will always try to use as escape if you jump on him. Equilibrium Strike if he walks too close, and kill him level 5+ with everything you have, that is if he is low+slowed or stunned. You should kill him EXTREMELY quickly before he has his Ravenous Flock. Try and dodge Nevermove, he will probably max this spell first if you keep pushing to his turret.

Start Boots as usuall. Get Mercury's Treads early if your having problems against him, or you should wait a bit for boots to get more damage. You can run an early Sheen against AP casters like Swain to have even more burst and mana.

If he stacks loads of mana then stop pushing him to turret, and kill him since he wont have many other items.

If he has blue buff and doesnt stack a lot of mana, only fight with him if your sure you will either severely wound him or kill him. If you both end up at 50%, or even you at 70% and him at 50% he will regen it all up again.

Other counters: Fizz, Yorick, Wukong, Riven and Galio

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I will add all matchups soonish. For now check out the Gameplay Video's section!

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Shen is very easy to lane against as Irelia and you should beat him in farm. The reason to why he is on 5 is because its very hard to do more mid- lategame than him. His Stand United makes it almost impossible to outplay a good Shen overall since his team presence is a lot higher. Anyway, the first levels Shen can almost freely harass you with Vorpal Blade and Ki Strike. Take a point in Equilibrium Strike at level 1 and stun him when he comes up to harass you. Ki Strike is melee, so you can land the stun before he reaches you.

Start Boots. Build Heart of Gold and Philosopher's stone relatively early if you plan on building their upgrades( Randuin's Omen and Shurelya's Battlesong). Get Wit's End to more easily regenerate his harass with more Hiten Style proccs and Magic resist. You can get Berserker's Greaves in this lane, since the other options for boots are both pretty mediocre against Shen.

Other counters: Yorick, Warwick, Vladimir, Olaf and Nidalee.

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Darius is honestly a pretty stupid champion the first levels, dont try and fight him until you have your Transcendent Blades. Darius is however quite easy to gank depending on how clever he is. A clever Darius wont push lane, a not very clever one will use his Decimate on you the first levels and push the wave automatically. Darius has no escapes, so he cant escape you easily if you get the upper hand in a fight or if you gank him. Play very defensively the first levels, dont try and trade with him before level 6 since Darius's kit excells at keeping you close to him, and you WILL loose a straight-up fight at these levels. Irelia scales better than Darius so dont be too worried.

Darius has hybrid damage. Magic from Hemorrhage, Physical from his other attacks and true damage from Noxian Guillotine. So if you dont need the two "best" boots you can go Berserker's Greaves. Start with Boots, get a Heart of Gold if your going Randuin's Omen later on, otherwise just a Phage. At level 6+ with a great ultimate you WILL beat him in a fight, so try and fight him as much as possible when theres an opportunity for a good Transcendent Blades since he has no sustain and will have to leave lane once he gets low on health.

Counters: Nidalee, Kayle, Vladimir, Kennen and Orianna

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Teemo is a ****.

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Olaf is by far one of the hardest lanes for Irelia and probably the most known counter to her. Start Boots against Olaf to more easily dodge his Reckless Swing and Undertow, positioning is key here. Olaf is far stronger than you level 1 so be ready to Equilibrium Strike when he walks up to harass you, it has longer range than Reckless Swing and will stun him before he can land it. Try not to walk close to him and hope for your jungler to come help you out. Level 5 however is where Irelia gets advantage over Olaf, i like to trade with him at this point to get him low. Olaf's biggest weakness is that his Ragnarok is very weak in lane, you can win fights against him with a well placed Transcendent Blades. If you get one kill on him you start wrecking.

You can go Heart of Gold since it will help against his flat true damage. Take Phage into Trinity Force like usual, a Vampiric Scepter if you feel like you need the sustain.

Counters: Jayce, Volibear, Kayle, Kennen, Nidalee and Yorick

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Ok, I never pick Irelia against this champion, and this is the reason to why i never firstpick her anymore. Since his recent rise in popularity, and because of 1900 ELO people knowing how to play Rumble against her. It might just be me but i absolutely hate playing against this champion. Start either Boots + 4x Health Potion's or Null-Magic Mantle +2x Health Potion's against Rumble. Get Mercury's Treads and Wit's End early. Heart of Gold if you need health.

Rumble has a few weaknesses you can take advantage of though. He is even weaker than Irelia the first two levels. So go Hiten Style at level 1, Bladesurge at level 2. This will equal in huge level 2 damage combined with Attack Damage runes. Care for their jungler though. Dont even try fighting Rumble at level 4+ if you dont have a lead on him. Get your jungler to gank him ASAP(as soon as possible) since he probably wont have any escape before level 4. Rumble is the only one you wont beat with a perfectly placed Transcendent Blades. However, if you manage to make a big lead on him you can dominate.

UPDATE: After playing Rumble a few games i have realised something. Rumble needs to use spells to get his heat bar up, this sounds very obvious but Rumble used to be my kryptonite. I have now moved him down to difficulty 7. If he uses his Electro-Harpoon simply to get heat you should engage on him with your entire combo. Same goes for Scrap Shield, even though its just a shield and speedboost. If you engage on him after he uses Flamespitter to gain heat you should still be careful since its cooldown is very low. If you engage on him be sure to force him back from a fight or run away fast so that he doesnt just jump back on you when his cooldowns come back.

Counters: Riven, Fizz and Olaf

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Jax used to be even harder to beat before his nerf but now he is quite manageable. Problem is that its impossible to beat him 1v1, even if you land your ult on both him and a few minions he will start beating you again when his Counter Strike comes back up. He also has better lategame than you, so its a tricky lane. Go Boots so that you can kite his Counter Strike more easily, not that you would go anything else anyway. Use "Cooldown knowledge" to your advantage, check "Things you will want to learn" section.

Dont ever attack him when he has Counter Strike up (except for E and ignite) since it decreases both your AoE spells damage( Transcendent Blades) and dodges all autoattacks. You can get Heart of Gold since this will likely turn into a farm lane.

UPDATE: So after both 4PL and go4lol where i played Irelia vs Jax and only Irelia vs Jax i have learnt some things about this matchup. Get the armor page if they have an AD jungler. You will beat him hard level 1 and 2 if you have creep advantage. At these first levels, focus on wasting his Counter Strike. If he doesnt have it up you have a great chance of killing him, you can even use Ignite to force him out of lane. Always be aggressive and harass him with auto-attacks when he goes for creeps, back off if he uses Counter Strike and kill him when he's close to you without it. Always be aware of a gank, if he kills you the lane is lost.

To the left: Jax's ultimate Master-At-Arms. If he uses it too early then try not to fight him since its duration is low. Your Transcendent Blades is stronger if you hit it on a few minions+jax.

To the right: Jax's Counter Strike. Never autoattack him when he uses this since the only thing that would do is make it deal more damage. Yes, it DOES block your Hiten Style's true damage aswell.

Counters: Malphite, Swain, Olaf, Yorick, Volibear and Mordekaiser.

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AP Nidalee is very easy to beat as Irelia. Her earlygame harass is pretty weak and her Takedown still scales with the amount of health you have lost, but both of these things dont scale with AP. The first few levels Nidalee should have an advantage on you but level 4+ you can simply just jump on her and either force her out of lane or kill her. Start Boots against AP Nidalee.

AD Nidalee however is a big counter to Irelia because of the constant harass and kill potential she has. She is like a twice as good Akali with a stronger heal, harass and all around more tankyness. Against an AD Nidalee you will want to start with either Cloth Armor or Boots. Play very defensively in the first few levels since there ia almost nothing you can do here, she will keep poking you once you go for cs. Remember to use brush to your advantage (to break line of sight). Level 5+, if she walks too close to you stun her with Equilibrium Strike

Midgame is known as the most important phase for Irelia. You will do well here no matter farm you got. As long as you are not very underleveled, midgame will go very smoothly because of your maxed out Hiten Style and low cooldowns.


Roam as much as possible without loosing too much farm from toplane, get all of the drake's and win the game. If you dominate fights at this point you will almost surely win the game because of how well Irelia snowballs. Ask for red buff if your a huge threat to both their toplane and their team.

If you have Teleport, start splitpushing toplane more to force their toplaner to defend. You should ofcourse still move towards objectives like for example buffs. But if you manage to create a 5v4 situation for your team its gamebreaking. In soloqueue, be sure that your team doesnt go full ****** while your splitpushing top.

In teamfights you should always go for their carries unless they have a full-on assassin team. If they have a full-on assassin team, focus whoever is focusing your own carries. Since the assassins are quite squishy, you will clear them very quickly resulting in their AD carries being helpless afterwards. Try and prioritize champions that are fed over champions that are under-fed. Midgame you will pretty much be able to do anything, its lategame where it starts getting tricky for Irelia.


If your behind there are two different ways to go, either you will build gp5+tankyness to still provide a lot of use in fights and for the gold per 5(gp5) passive, or you go straight for lategame with the normal build, but your teamfight presence will be weak. You will never want to be in this place as Irelia. In behind i mean around 2000-4000 gold weaker than the carries and their toplane.

For the tanky way you should go things like Heart of Gold Randuin's Omen, Wit's End and Philosopher's stone Shurelya's Battlesong. With a Phage and hopefully a Trinity Force.
This build is focused on utility and tankyness. Meaning you wont do much damage but you will still be useful as a meatshield. The gold per 5 items are bought to provide some sort of gold income since farming is hard if your behind, especially if your building tanky. The other items are mostly just for tankyness and slows/speedbuffs. Dont forget to use the active of Randuin's Omen!


When going for lategame with the standard build you have to be very cautious in teamfights. As long as your carries are safe, dont go in while their cooldowns are up. You are extremely squishy at this point but if a teamfight goes heavily in your favour you are instantly back in the game.





Remember that if you win a fight there is no point in just going back to base. Take an objective instead like Dragon or a turret. You can port back after the objective is taken.

Lategame is the phase i hate the most about Irelia. She scales very well that is true, but she cant really carry through lategame in the same way as midgame. Her teamfighting is rather weak compared to a lot of other toplaners and some compositions can just shut her down.

If both teams are equally good, lategame is all about champion select. The way you play here should be highly dependant on what team compositions you and your enemies have, and who is ahead or not. If you are ahead then Lategame is all about either getting baron freely, or winning a forced baron fight.

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A huge part of lategame is teamfights. By winning teamfights you not only get a gold lead but also have a great opportunity to take any objective's on the map such as Tower's, Inhibitor's and Monsters.

In this sub-section we will go through a row of different things. For example how Open and Closed areas affect teamfights.

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Closed areas

Open Areas: Single target damage, Burst and Mobility is what shines in open areas. This is where Irelia fight's best overall.

Open areas gives the team enough space to spread out making AoE combo's useless. Mobile champions can more easily dodge AoE, poke and could even counter engage if the enemy team's engage fails.

Closed Areas: Closed Areas make it incredibly hard to fight heavy AoE composition's because you can't spread out properly. Anivia, Malphite and Rumble are three examples of champion's who really excell at fighting closed area fights because of their Straight-forward AoE. Things like Anivia's wall can really win a game in closed areas.




Priorities in teamfight's heavily depend on both team's composition's and what kind of AD carry you have. There are AD carries who need heavy protection: Kog'Maw, Vayne, Draven, Varus, Miss Fortune and Ashe. While there are carries who can position very easily themselves without a lot of protection: Ezreal, Tristana and Corki. Here is just a simple list of what to focus for newer players:

• 1st priority: All-in Assassin's and badly positioned AD carries. Examples: Akali, Talon, Kassadin and melee dps Kog'Maw.
• 2nd priority: AD carries and high-threat AP carries. Examples: All AD carries + Cassiopeia, Karthus, Annie and Mordekaiser.
• 3rd priority: Low-threat AP carries and bruiser assassins. Examples: Swain, Vladimir, Sion, Jax and Irelia:(.
• 4th priority: The rest.

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Baron Nashor is a key point in this game to win or loose games. If you manage to take it you get 300 extra gold each, and an amazing buff that gives you Health regeneration, Mana regeneration, Attack damage and Ability power. If you've had an advantage and taken the buff you have almost surely won the game, meaning the enemy team needs to defend it with their lives.

Something a lot of people dont take into account is that the Baron buff actually gives you 3% of your maximum health as health regen every five seconds. Use this health regen wisely and dont just mindlessly dive them as soon as you've taken Baron.



Forcing Baron means two things: Either forcing them to give it to you freely, or forcing them to fight for it.

• Your support or jungler should start by buying an Oracle's Elixir, or anyone on your team if his item build is completed.
• Constantly roam the Baron pit and clear every single ward they place to keep track on you.
• Take Baron and fight if they initiate on you.

Defending Baron when your behind is very difficult. You need a lot of wards to be able to keep vision over Baron. Don't place wards all over the area if they have an advantage(meaning you cant engage if they aren't doing it anyway). Place a ward at Baron pit if your unsure if they're doing it or not.

Another way to keep them from doing Baron is pushing out mid- and toplane. Don't push bot because of how far it is from baron ofcourse. Push out lanes, clear camps and take the buffs that aren't heavily contested by the enemy team. If all of their lanes are pushing they will loose a big amount of farm if they attempt Baron.

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secret trick on how to win every game with Irelia below!

• One of the most expensive items in the game.
• None of the items that builds into it actually provide a lot for Irelia.
• Wit's End > Madred's Bloodrazor because of cost difference.
  

• Fairly expensive item that boosts your damage by quite a bit, but not close to as much as Trinity Force and Bloodthirster.
• No tankyness, no utility. This item only provides damage but not a lot of it.
• Trinity Force > Phantom Dancer

• Big amount of damage, but extremely expensive.
• Crit chance and Crit damage doesnt change much unless you're stupidly fed or splitpushing, and in those cases Ravenous Hydra is better.
• Not worth the cost for Irelia. You can get it if you're playing full ADC Irelia(not viable), otherwise not.

THis section has been taken away due to the big changes in season 3 while all the videos were made in season 2. My computer is too bad to record but if anyone is intrested in perhaps using my gameplay for his/her channel you can just ask, for now though i wont be having any videos until i find one worthy of Studio Daily.

Can you add these stats to a Hall of Fame on your guide?

Blopisn I dont think a Hall of Fame provides anything for a guide. Everything depends on the enemy players and what happens in the game especially early on. Against a few players i think i could have beaten them even with AP irelia. Showing some nice stats doesnt mean the guide is good, atleast not if you dont add that it was a 1600+ ranked game.

I dont know about you, but from what i have seen Hall of fame only shows that a guide is mediocre and doesnt prove anything. I dont give a **** if some level 5 guy got 20-0 with the build against some players who havent played the game before. Like i said in the what to expect from this guide section, the game changes completely depending on the skill of your opponents.

• This guide was first created late august 2012.

Things you need to check out:

• Phsueh's Deviantart page.
• What is an Alot? Well, i killed 54 of them while looking for grammar mistakes in my guide.