If you are in search of a safe, blindpickable tank and fighter that can one-shot squishies, look no further than Irelia. In this guide, I will cover everything there is to Irelia, including abilities, runes, masteries, item builds, skill order and general playstyle. I gathered all of this knowledge from playing a lot of Irelia and watching "IreliaCarriesU" stream and Youtube, which I highly recommend. Let's start with her abilities.

Abilities

Passive - Ionian Fervor

Irelia reduces the duration of crowd control against her based on if she is outnumbered or not (allied champions against enemy champions)

This is a passive that you won't be able to utilize very often. It's best when getting ganked to maybe turn it around 1v2. But even in teamfights you'll get 10-25% tenacity at best. Not a great passive by any means, but it can come in clutch.

Q - Bladesurge

Irelia dashes to the target enemy, dealing physical damage and applying on-hit effects. If Bladesurge kills its target, it refunds 35 mana and resets its cooldown.

I love this skill so much. This skill singlehandedly makes Irelia an incredibly easy champion to get creep score with. You can easily let the tower hit the caster minions once and now you can simply Bladesurge at them and kill the creep without fail. Now one thing you must know is that the cooldown in early game is extremely long, being 14 seconds. Missing the reset means playing extremely passive for 14 seconds and causing you to lose a few creeps. In and outside of lane this will be your main engage tool, but we will discuss laning in a later section. You'll want to skill this first, but max it last.

W - Hiten Style

Passive: Irelia's basic attacks heal her. Active: Irelia's basic attacks deal bonus true damage and double Hiten Style's healing for 6 seconds

In my opinion it's a criminally underrated ability. It makes her early laning bearable and lets her outsustain most other top laners. In fact, it's so important that you most likely won't want to trade without it. Once you hit level 5/7 and your Hiten Style already has 3/4 points in it, you'll want to look for an easy kill. Another thing worth mentioning is that it destroys tanks which are often found in the top lane. But once level 11+ comes, the tanks will most likely have at least 2 armor/health items and some way to slow your AS, so 75 true damage per AA won't be enough. Consider roaming at this point to split push somewhere else or one-shot some juicy ADCs with your Trinity burst. Skill this at level 3 and max first.

E - Equilibrium Strike

Irelia pierces the target enemy, dealing them magic damage and slowing them by 60% for a duration. If her percentile health is equal to or less than her target's, she stuns them instead.

This is the ability that tilts many opponents and will make them curse at you in all chat. One important aspect to notice is that Equilibrium Strike also stuns when you have the same health as your opponent. This means you can Bladesurge to a half dead minion, get the reset, cast Equilibrium Strike, and start auto-attacking your enemies with Hiten Style active, and win the trade more likely than not. Furthermore, the stun duration reaches 2 seconds, which is enough time to start "going ham" at ADCs and squishies to kill them with little to no counterplay. Even if they already built Quicksilver Sash, you can just Bladesurge at them afterwards. Skill this ability second and max it second.

R - Transcendent Blades

Irelia summons 4 spirit blades and fires one in a line towards the cursor, dealing physical damage to all enemies it passes through. Transcendent Blades can then be cast 3 more times at no additional cost to fire each of Irelia's remaining blades, incurring a 0.5 second delay between each cast. Each blade heals Irelia for 25% of the damage it deals to enemy champions, and 10% of the damage it deals to enemy minions and monsters.

This ability might seem underwhelming at first, considering it's an ultimate. But despite that it's a very versatile ability. It can activate Sheen in a clutch 1v1, or you can ult a minion wave for sustain or wave clear. My favourite use of this ability is to ult once at caster minions once, activate your Hiten Style and Bladesurge at them. You'll get the reset and unexpectedly close to an enemy champion, with all your abilities except 1 ultimate use up, making it much easier to get that sweet 2 second stun on them. Always level this ability when possible.

Masteries

The standard distribution is 18/0/12, taking Warlord's Bloodlust as a keystone mastery. In the Ferocity tree, we take Fury for the obvious AS. Now with Warlord's Bloodlust, we should already have enough sustain so Feast is unnecessary and, as a top laner, Expose Weakness is generally bad so Fresh Blood is the obvious choice. Next up is Natural Talent since Irelia scales with both AD and AP. Now we have a difficult choice, but Battle Trance is the best in the scrappy top lane 1v1s that tend to happen quite often. Double Edged Sword makes you too squishy and Bounty Hunter is almost useless in the first 20 minutes. I believe Battering Blows an easy choice since Irelia is an AD-dependent champion. Now here comes the interesting part: The choice between Fervor of Battle and Warlord's Bloodlust is the most difficult one. While Fervor gives you great sustained damage during a fight, Warlord's gives you actual sustain not only during a fight, but also when attacking minions. Together with the sustain from your Hiten Style (W) passive, Irelia gets great sustain during laning phase which makes her a safe pick in most scenarios. Now onto the Resolve tree, we will get Recovery to get a bit more sustain, since Unyielding won't have any real effect in the first 20 minutes. Tough Skin helps in trades and Runic Armor gives you much more sustain. Insight is in most cases generally the best option in this tier, and Irelia is no exception to this.

Runes

Despite being the most basic page, it is the most efficient. The flat resistances make laning easier, and AS helps in trades. Now, the best rune page used to be 29% AS, but taking AD marks instead of AS marks makes your ultimate much more useful in terms of damage and heal. Another bonus is that the AD marks make Warlord's Bloodlust heal more. You can of course experiment with AS marks but AD marks make last hitting much easier.

Summoner Spells

I believe that the summoner spells are quite self-explanatory. Flash for... "kill secures", escapes and dodging skillshots.

The only debate is Teleport versus Ignite, but I still believe Teleport is the best option, no matter what rank. It makes you able to get back to lane after a bad trade or death, and lets you split push and still join fights over Dragon/Baron, but we will get to more in-depth tactics later. Now that we have the pre-game topics covered, let's look at:

Item Builds

Despite Corrupting Potion being the recommended starting item, in most of the cases Doran's Blade and a Health Potion is the optimal start. It gives you extra sustain, health and AD in the lane. The only thing Corrupting Potion has to offer what Doran's and a pot doesn't is Mana, which Irelia doesn't have a problem with in the first 20 minutes. Another option is Cloth Armor and 4 Health Pots, but that option is only necessary in your 2 hardest matchups, Darius and Renekton.

It is well known that the most important item for Irelia is Trinity Force. It has cheap components and combine cost, and every stat it gives is beneficial for Irelia. After your first recall, you might find yourself not knowing what item to buy since Trinity Force has so many components. Generally, the optimal first recall would be one big Trinity component. The best are either Sheen or Phage, depending on the matchup. Personally, I prefer Phage because it gives you important combat stats (Health and AD). Sheen gives you great burst against squishy champions, but top lane is traditionally home to tankier champions so Phage is the best first back you can get. After you finish Trinity you'll most likely want to finish your boots. The preferred option is Ninja Tabi since they make you much tankier. If necessary, Mercury Treads are also an option.

Now you'll probably want to get tankier. But what is Irelia if you can't make the enemy ADC ragequit? An extremely good item on Irelia is Maw of Malmortius. Since it now gives Cooldown Reduction it's a much better option on Irelia. Try to buy it every game you can. While the magic shield is obviously great, the extra lifesteal you gain when upgraded to a Maw is very easy to keep up and gives you ridiculous lifesteal. So now you can one-shot ADCs, but without armor they can easily one-shot you back. By far, the most reliable armor item on Irelia is Randuin's Omen. It gives better stats than Dead Man's Plate, and another form of Crowd Control that is more reliable.

These are the core items on Irelia you'll want to buy in almost every game. Next up are some more situational choices. Frozen Heart is only viable if you're against an exclusively all AD team, since it raises your Cooldown Reduction to 40%, making Maw of Malmortius not valuable to build anymore (since the Cooldown Reduction would be wasted). Another item against full-AD compositions is Sterakk's Gage. Beware though, the Sterakk's Gage and Maw of Malmortious passives do not stack! So only buy one of the two. Spirit Visage on the other hand is an item you should buy more often. If you're against 2 fed APCs, it'll definitely be a worthwhile purchase, as it also raises your Cooldown Reduction to 40% if you have already built Maw of Malmortious (which you should, it's really good). If you're far ahead, Blade of the Ruined King might be an option. Since it got buffed last patch it's now worth to build against especially defensively built enemies again. You might not beat a 4 armor item Malphite at level 18, but it helps. Probably. Another obvious possible item choice is Guardian Angel. The passive has the ability to singlehandedly win you games and gives you some nice defensive stats.

Core items:

Possible item options/end your build:

But How Do I Actually Play Irelia?

The key to Irelia in lane is knowing how to trade, back off, wait for your cooldowns, and then all-in to kill them. With this simple combo, you can outtrade most of your opponents in the top lane and subsequently kill them. Beware though, her first few levels are notoriously weak, so want to play passively until at least level 3 before trading, with few exceptions (Nasus being one of them).

Imagine yourself in the above situation with your lane opponent standing just off-screen next to those minions. He will step up and try to last hit your friendly minion and that is when you can bully him out of lane. See that melee minion that is low on health? If you Q (Bladesurge) to that low health minion, you now stand next to your opponent. If he has equal or higher health than you, you can cast your E (Equilibrium Strike) and stun him for 1 second. Next you activate your W (Hiten Style) and smack your opponent a few times while he tries to run away. Finish your combo off with an auto attack into Q and a last auto attack while your W is still active. Now in this picture the Irelia is level 3, which isn't exactly her strongest point (Level 5/7/9 are), but she can still most likely outtrade her opponent. Watch out with your last Q though, as the cooldown is very long at early levels and you might need it to CS.

But how do the minions get to low health? Well there are 3 main ways: First, by minions naturally fighting against each other. Second, by hitting the (preferably caster) minions to low health, but not last hitting them yet. Now you can back away and give your opponent a false sense of security. When they then go towards your friendly minion to last hit them you can Q to the intentionally damaged minion, leaving your opponent vulnerable. The last and previously mentioned method is using your R (Transcendent Blades) to get the enemy's caster minions low. Activating your W and Q-ing to that minion will almost certainly kill it (100% dead if you purchased Sheen earlier).

So, we covered lane and how to kill your opponent and how to CS properly but what are we supposed to do after 20 minutes? If you are able to 1v1 the opposing top laner, you should try to split push and get both inner and outer turret. Don't forget to watch out for missing enemies, and back off when necessary. If you have to back off or your opponent is called Malphite with 2 armor items, you can always roam mid lane. Since the enemy mid laner is most likely squishier than the average top laner, you can Flash-E(Stun) them to kill them if you have Trinity, which is basically necessary when you want to roam. If you manage to kill the enemy mid you will most likely get the tower as well, boosting your entire team's gold. Alternatively, you can ask your ADC if you can split push the bot lane if top is already split pushed all the way. Now you can't forget to utilize your Teleport and do not mindlessly go for wave after wave while your team gets killed. If Teleport is down, stay safe, don't overextend and push near where the currently most important objective is. Meaning when Baron is up you push top, when (Elder) Drake is up you ask if you can push bot. Ask your ADC nicely though, they may have had some bad experiences with Irelia.

To conclude: Never forget your spikes. Trinity is a ridiculously good item if used correctly. Irelia spikes with the Trinity purchase but steadily falls off afterwards. You can't one-shot an ADC at 40+ minutes when they have 2 lifesteal items and the support has multiple shielding items. Remember to stay with your team and peel for your own ADC. You're quite tanky by now, and are still able to dish out steady damage. By now split pushing is only an option, not a necessity.

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