Champion guide: Irelia, the Will of the Blades

Introduction

Irelia, The Will of the Blades is a tanky melee solo laner in League of Legends who is very versatile in both build and gameplay. She is most notably known for being played competitively by Wickd in season 2. Her kit compliments an aggressive playstyle that takes advantage of enemy mistakes and out-sustaining the enemy laner.

Runes

The runes I personally run compliment an aggressive early playstyle that focuses on gaining an early lead. I run five (5x) Greater Mark of Attack Speed, four (4x) Greater Marks of Attack Damage, nine (9x) Greater Seals of Armour, five (5x) Greater Glyphs of Magic Resist, four (4x) Greater Glyphs of Scaling Magic Resist, one (1x) Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage, and two (2x) Greater Quintessences of Life Steal. With these runes, you should aim to push an early level advantage and punish the enemy with your true damage. 

 

If you aren't confident in your ability to play aggressively with Irelia, you may opt for a safer option which would be nine (9x) attack damage in runes and three (3x) lifesteal in quintessences with the same armour and glyphs as the first page: nine (9x) Greater Seals of Armour, five (5x) Greater Seals of Magic Resist and (4x) Greater Seals of Scaling Magic Resist. With these runes, you will be aiming to survive the laning phase and farming up your items before your laner.

 

Masteries

 

To compliment this, I run nine (9) in offense and twenty one (21) in defense. This will allow you to play aggressively and not suffer as badly as your opponent will. I would run these masteries regardless of rune set up on Irelia as it has a good balance of sustain and damage. Perserverance and Second Wind are the key masteries on Irelia as they will combo with the Spirit Visage you will be buying and your ultimate, Transcendent Blades.

 

Summoner Spells

Ignite and Flash are the summoner spells I run 95% of the time on Irelia. Ignite is great in a lot of situations for Irelia; it pairs well with her true damage on Hiten Style and it reduces any healing by 50% while of course you're restoring health with Hiten Style. It can also pick up a kill that's slowly escaping your range. Flash is also very versatile - escaping and engaging are two useful situations as well as jumping into a skillshot for a teammate.

 

Ghost and Teleport are two summoners you could also run and are quite situationally specific to run over Ignite or Flash.

Ghost can be used if you're against someone very mobile as it gives you a strong movement speed buff for 10 seconds. Teleport is useful if you want to farm for a whole laning phase or split push in the lategame rather than teamfight. You could also use it to help take down Dragon in the early game.

 

Skill Order

This is the skillset I would use for the first runepage as it would allow me to fight at levels 2 and 3. The reason I opt for the early point in Bladesurge is that it allows me to push the wave for the early level advantage of 2 and 3. 

If you are playing the safer path with 6% life steal, it would be better to level up Equilibrium Strike first and disengage any fight the opponent starts.

From here on out, maxing your Hiten Style first is the best option as it allows you to hit your peak performance at level 9. Each hit with Hiten Style will be chunking your opponent for true damage and you'll be equipped with a slow or stun of 1.25 seconds. Max Equilibrium Strike next as it will upgrade your slow/stun duration by 0.25 per level reaching a cap of 2 seconds. Of course the next spell to max would be your ultimate, Transcendent Blades. Transcendent Blades is a strong utility spell that packs a big kick too! It has four charges that deal a good base damage (80/120/160) with strong scalings to boot (50% AP, 60% Bonus AD) totalling 320/480/640(+200% AP, +240% Bonus AD). Not to mention you heal 25% of any damage done to champions with this and 10% from any stray minions or monsters you hit.

Item Builds

Here are the starting items for each build. The first build is designed to go for an early kill and to snowball the lane whereas the second build is designed for a tough matchup aiming to survive the laning phase and itemize better than your opponent.

After your first recall, you must assess your laning phase. Is there a lot of trading? If so, pick up a phage for an increase in both health and attack damage. If they're engaging on you and the fights are a little longer, pick up a recurve bow for the increased attack speed. It will help with your Hiten Style and later build into a Wit's End.

If the trades aren't in your favour, pick up a Warden's Mail against a physical damage opponent or Mercury's Treads for some magic resist. 

Your next recall should give you your first big item. If you had a nice laning phase with your phage, complete it into a Trinity Force. This will give you a nice spike in damage with a boost in utility too. Have fun dominating your enemy! Did those long trades have a toll on you? Pick up that Wit's End and show the enemy laner you can dish out the damage. 

Physical damage gave you a rough laning phase? That Warden's Mail has hopefully done its job and kept you from dying. Become unstoppable with this Randuin's Omen. Use the active to stop anyone from escaping and boost your engaging power in teamfights.

People are chipping away at your health with their magic damage? Say goodbye to that with your Spirit Visage. You now increase any self-healing, regeneration, lifesteal or spellvamp by 20%. Combos great with your Hiten Style and Transcendent Blades.

Your core build should include the four items listed (Mercury Treads, Trinity Force, Randuin's Omen, Spirit Visage). This gives you the best combination of damage and defense all while reducing crowd control by up to 66.85% (Mercury Treads, Tenacious mastery, and Ionian Fervor stacked with three enemies).

The next two items should be from the list of "Situational Items" as they give Irelia the best bonus per stat. Wit's End has great synergy with her Hiten Style adding a bonus per hit of up to 117 (75 from Hiten Style and 42 from Wit's End). Thornmail gives 100 armour to deal with any fed AD carry or physical damage dealer and also reflects 30% of the incoming damage by basic attacks BEFORE defenses. Banshee's Veil is a top tier magic resist item that can block an incoming spell. This will allow you to block any skillshot for a teammate and can save them from imminent death.

Sunfire Cape is another strong armour and health item that adds to your waveclear and makes any long engage turn into your favour. It now scales with level, too, for a maximum of 43 damage. Since it is also magic damage, Wit's End will synergise very well with it.

Blade of the Ruined King is useful if the enemy team has high mobility champions capable of escaping the fight. It will steal 30% of their movement speed and give it to you. It will also chunk them for 15% of their maximum health before resistances. The added attack speed and passive has great synergy with her Hiten Style.

Ravenous Hydra should be bought if you are the dedicated splitpusher for your team. Clearing a full wave of minions will be a breeze and it is also useful for dueling someone. Very useful if the enemy decides to fight inside his own minions as the active will heal you for a lot of HP.

Lastly, Guardian Angel is is a strong pickup on any champion and that is not any different for Irelia. It gives a nice defensive stat bonus and Irelia can easily restore health up with her Hiten Style or lifesteal if you opted for Blade of the Ruined King or Ravenous Hydra.

 

Conclusion

Irelia is a strong fighter and duelist and doesn't have any hard counters. She can win most matchups by out-smarting the enemy and fighting on her own terms with her high mobility on Bladesurge.

She has strong base stats both offensively and defensively and her kit also highlights that with true damage, an autoattack reset, hard crowd control and sustain. Any item built on her will further enhance that aspect of her greatly.