Introduction:

In the first game of SKT T1 Telecom against KOO Tigers, Faker unveiled a very strange off-meta pick in the mid lane. On the last pick, Faker chooses Irelia, who is usually known as a durable assassin with strong pick and dueling potential. Generally, Irelia is played in the the top lane since she has a very strong laning phase and will scale into an almost unstoppable split-pusher. A fed Irelia can easily singlehandedly take control of the mid game and terrorize any squishies on the map. Irelia tends to fall off in the later parts of the game because Irelia players tend to build tank items after rushing a Trinity Force. Irelia’s flat true damage and non-scaling Sheen procs become less effective as enemy bruisers and tanks start to gain more resistances and health.

However, her mobility and high frontloaded burst damage is always a threat to marksmen, mages and assassins. This article will cover Irelia’s role in a team composition, her laning phase, her transition from the laning phase to other parts of the game and how the average solo queue player can use mid Irelia effectively in their games.

VOD Courtesy of LoleventVODs and Ongamenet

How Irelia Mid Fits into a Team Composition:

In the context of the SKT T1 Telecom versus KOO Tigers, Faker picked Irelia in a team composition with Corki, Rumble, Alistar and Evelynn. The KOO Tigers built a team composition with Azir, Janna, Sivir, Hecarim and Gragas. SKT’s team composition is based entirely around the mid game. Corki and Irelia are both Trinity Force users who tend to reach their highest relative power level after its completion generally around 15 minutes at level 11. In this game, Faker completes the Trinity Force at 15:45 with a creep score of 146, no kills or assists and upon reaching level 11.

Evelynn is an early to mid game jungler with high gank pressure. She is generally known for being used in Korea for heavy ganking and pressure which will create large power discrepancies in the mid game. Evelynn usually falls off the mid game since most of the time she'll build the warrior enchantment and then build full tank items. In the late game, Evelynn does not have the utility or damage to stay relevant. Rumble is a strong mid game force with his extremely high base damages and area of effect abilities. He tends to fall off slightly in the late game since his damage do not scale well enough to overwhelm the late game durability of tanks and he has some problems with marksmen due to their kiting potential and extreme damage. Alistar is generally useful at all points of the game but his high base damages lose relevancy in the late game.

Irelia's damage After Trinity Force completion - Footage courtesy of Ongamenet stream

The entirety of SKT’s team composition completely sacrifices the late game for a gigantic mid game power spike. The goal of this team composition should be to use the heavy pressure from Evelynn in order to snowball the Rumble and Irelia into mid game monsters and utilize a 1-3-1 style split push strategy. The 1-3-1 split push strategy is strong since there are very few champions in the game that can duel a Rumble or an Irelia who are ahead and the Corki in the mid game can siege very well with his missiles. The Alistar is used for strong disengages which augments Corki’s ability to safely barrage the enemy team under their turret. Irelia will push the lane that is closest to the most prioritized neutral monster objective since she will not be carrying teleport. In contrast, Rumble will be pushing the lane that is furthest from the most prioritized neutral monster object since he will be carrying teleport and can use it if necessary to contest.

SKT vs. KOO Pick and Ban Phase - Image courtesy of Ongamenet's stream

Irelia in the Laning Phase Against Azir:

In the SKT vs. KOO game, Faker uses Irelia mid as a counterpick to Azir. While at first glance, this may seem disadvantageous because Azir is well known for bullying melee mids. However, Irelia is particularly strong against Azir since the dash on her Bladesurge ability is almost instantaneous. She can use the dash after Azir repositions the soldier with Conquering Sands to simultaneously dodge the Sand Soldier’s attacks and attack the helpless Azir. In the lane, Faker opts to max Irelia’s Equilibrium Strike first, followed by Bladesurge and lastly Hiten Style. This allows Irelia to use the Equilibrium Strike for its strong front-loaded burst and long stun to inflict a large amount of damage onto Azir and utilize the stun to disengage safely without taking damage from Azir. This pattern is further enhanced when Faker buys Phage first instead of Sheen.

Irelia is able to proc the Phage passive on her Bladesurge and use the movement speed to safely disengage after landing an Equilibrium Strike. In combination, this itemization and skill leveling allows Faker to inflict high damage very safely and continue to be a threat in the laning phase. In the context of this game, Azir is forced to play safely due to the high burst from mid Irelia and the creep score of Irelia and Azir is 136 to 141 respectively. While Azir certainly outscales Irelia in the late game, being unable to punish Irelia in the early game means that she is able to obtain Trinity Force at level 11 which is when she unlocks her 2nd rank ultimate and is at her strongest relative level.

Irelia Using Bladesurge and Phage in lane against Azir - Footage courtesy of Ongamenet stream

Irelia Splitpushing in the Midgame:

When Faker reaches Irelia’s powerspike after completing Trinity Force, SKT opts for a 3-1-3 splitpushing strategy. Irelia is known as a strong splitpusher because of her sustain, dueling potential and fast waveclear. Irelia’s sustain in the midgame comes from her Hiten Style ability which has both passive health restore on-hit and an active which grants Irelia flat true damage and additional health on-hit. Having the ability to replenish health is a moderately valuable attribute for splitpushers to have because it allows them to continue pushing at full health after taking jungle monsters or trading with enemy champions.

Irelia is also notorious as a extremely strong duelist in the mid game since her kit features a lot of burst, sustained damage, healing, tenacity and single-target crowd control. Irelia is able to maximize burst with Trinity Force by proccing it with her Bladesurge ability with allows her to start a fight with a large amount of frontloaded burst. Because Faker maxes Equilibrium Strike, he is able to turn trades around with a two second stun. Irelia also has strong sustained damage with the true damage bonus from Hiten Style and the continuous Trinity Force procs after each cast of Transcendent Blades. Strong dueling power is the most important attribute for a splitpusher to have because the goal of splitpushing is to force the opposing team to divert resources in an unfavorable manner. This allows the splitpushing team to take objectives using map rotations rather than using brute force via teamfights.

The last attribute that Irelia has that makes her such an effective splitpusher is her very fast waveclear. At level 11, Irelia will have two points in Transcendent Blades which means that it will only be on a 60 second cooldown. Transcendent Blades is an excellent tool for Irelia to use for splitpushing because when it is used in tandem with Bladesurge, she can clear an entire wave. Because the cooldown is so low, Irelia’s ultimate will most likely be up for future fights or to push another wave. It is important for a splitpusher to have fast waveclear because when a splitpusher can quickly push the minion wave into an enemy turret, it puts a lot of pressure on the enemy team to divert resources to the pressured turret.

Irelia in Teamfights:

Irelia is not the strongest champion in a teamfight situation. Her lack of impactful area of effect abilities hurts Irelia’s teamfighting abilities. In the context of the SKT vs. KOO game, Irelia’s teamfighting ability was even worse since her ability to assassinate the enemy carry could be mitigated by Sivir’s Spell Shield or Azir’s Emperor’s Divide. However, Faker was able to teamfight with Irelia so effectively that SKT effectively won a four vs. five teamfight with Marin as Rumble teleporting at the end to clean up. Rather than using Bladesurge to dash to the enemy carry and relentlessly autoattacking, Faker weaves in and out of the teamfight using Bladesurge for engaging and Equilibrium Strike for disengaging. He waits for his cooldowns and finds opportune moments to deliver large amounts of burst damage and then disengages with a stun and Phage proc to wait for his cooldowns again.

Faker also times his re-engages with the 2 second cooldown on his Trinity Force, ensuring that he can utilize the full force of Irelia’s burst damage whenever he re-engages on a carry. Not only does this style allow Irelia to efficiently deliver as much damage as possible, but also forces the KOO Tigers to split their focus between Irelia and the rest of her team. This led to SKT winning the teamfight with Alistar as their only casualty. Because Faker’s weaving allowed everyone but the support to live after the teamfight, SKT had enough damage to take the Baron Buff and snowball the game to a victory.

Video courtesy of xJohnishere and Ongamenet stream

Mid Irelia in Solo Queue

Before you go off and try mid Irelia in solo queue, remember that the Irelia pick was chosen by SKT in very specific circumstances. SKT used Irelia’s mobility as a lane counter to Azir, her splitpushing strategy to force objectives and her Trinity Force power spikes to take complete control of the mid game. Irelia should not be picked in every situation in solo queue because while she has a very strong mid game, the mid Irelia pick will most likely leave your team composition without a strong AP presence in the late game. Mid Irelia is a pick where you have to win your lane and win the game before the late game or you will most likely lose. However, if you understand Irelia’s strengths and weaknesses and choose her in the correct context, mid Irelia can be a viable pick in solo queue.

To pick Irelia in the mid lane, there are two conditions that need to met in order to effectively use Irelia in the mid lane. The first condition is that your team needs magic damage in the top lane. The source of magic damage has to be in the top lane since there is no viable jungler who deals enough magic damage to be a significant AP threat and supports require too much snowballing in order to become a true AP carry threat. Tank or physical damage top laners are not favorable with Irelia because it is too easy to stack armor in the current Tank meta and render a full physical damage team useless in the midgame. It is imperative to have a source of strong magic damage so the enemy team must divide their resistances between armor and magic resist. Good top laners that Irelia pairs well with are Rumble, Vladimir and Swain. These top laners are all champions that deal large amounts of magic damage and can fare well in many top lane matchups. Rumble and Swain can be used as a mid game teamfighting presence that compensates for the lack of teamfight power from Irelia. Vladimir can be used as a secondary splitpusher and as a form of insurance for the late game because a late game Vladimir is almost unstoppable.

The second condition that must be met to play Irelia in the mid lane is that you must have mid game focused game plan based around picks and map movement. This implies that in the pick and ban phase, you should be picking Irelia in compositions where there is strong single target damage and crowd control, strong objective control and other mid-game champions. Irelia has a strong and straightforward laning phase if maxing Equilibrium Strike along with purchasing Phage first. Equilibrium Strike is recommended over Hiten Style because the lane is too short in order to fully take advantage of its sustained damage.

It is better to max Equilibrium Strike for more frontloaded and reliable burst damage. After reaching level six, you should aim to push the wave quickly in the mid lane with Transcendent Blades and roam either mid or bottom since Irelia can create very strong ganks with the instant dash on Bladesurge and the stun on Equilibrium Blade. During the mid game, you should not be grouping as five but rather establishing strong vision control deep in the enemy jungle and setting up picks on stray enemies to set up neutral monster objectives or taking down towers.

The recommended splitpush strategies are 1-3-1 or a 4-0-1. A 1-3-1 strategy in useful in two scenarios. The first scenario is where your top laner is ahead and no one on the enemy team can realistically duel him. This will force the enemy team to divert their resources in an unfavorable way similar to the strategy in the SKT vs. KOO game. The second scenario is where your top laner has teleport available, the enemy top laner either has teleport on cooldown or opted for ignite instead and there is a neutral monster to be contested. If this scenario occurs, the Irelia should be closest to the desired neutral monster objective and the top laner should be in the furthest lane away. This will force the enemy to enemy to divert resources away from the desired objective and create five vs. four or five vs. three situations near the neutral monster objective using the top laner’s teleport spell.

1-3-1 Splitpush

A 1-0-4 splitpush strategy is useful when your top laner cannot splitpush by himself, if your top laner brought ignite instead of teleport and the mid Irelia is ahead after winning lane. This splitpushing strategy utilizes the pushing power of the jungle, AD carry, top laner and support in the solo lane closest to the most prioritized neutral monster objective while the mid Irelia should be pushing by herself in the opposite lane. At this point when you start splitpushing, Irelia should be at her strongest point and will require at least two champions to stop her under the condition that you won your lane. This will force your enemy in a situation where they either divert two champions to stop Irelia, leave one champion to deal with Irelia or use five champions to stop your team’s four man push.

If the first scenario occurs, than this creates an opportunity for a four vs three teamfight. If the second scenario occurs, Irelia should be able to solo kill whoever is in her lane while the rest of your team can continuously pressure a turret in a four vs. four situation. If the last scenario occurs then the Irelia will be free to take a tower while the rest of your team should be avoiding teamfight engagements. A 0-4-1 variation can be done to allow easier grouping for jungle skirmishes by sacrificing the advantages of splitting the opposing team’s resources.

4-0-1 Splitpush

Closing Thoughts:

While Faker’s mid Irelia pick was new and exciting, I do not believe that it will become a widespread meta-pick in the competitive scene. Assassins like Zed and Diana are able to fill the same role as Irelia more effectively as mid game splitpushing monsters. However, I do think mid Irelia has the potential in the competitive scene under the sole condition of picking a mid game splitpusher who can easily survive the laning phase against lane bullies like Azir. Most splitpushing assassins do very poorly against Azir and are easily bullied out of lane by his Sand Soldiers. Irelia is the only assassin who currently counters Azir in lane. This is further supported by the fact that the only other use of mid Irelia in the competitive scene was used by Team Roccat in a mid game focused team composition with an opposing Azir. Irelia could also be a strong pick against other lane bullies that are skillshot reliant such as Cassiopeia, Xerath or Ziggs. I do not see mid Irelia becoming a “Flavor of the Month” pick in solo queue because the conditions required to used mid Irelia successfully are too rigid for her to be used in general play. I could see Irelia becoming a niche or counter pick in solo queue but certainly not at the pick or ban status.