I don't think I have ever won a lane against Irelia. After her first back I always have to play defensive, in fear that if she dashes on to me once, I will get stun locked by her ridiculously overloaded stun, then die. But yeah if you guys can give me pointers on how to lane/play against her, that would be much appreciated!
The trick is to leave her at 100% health, so that she can't stun you. /gg
Pretty sure Garen will hold her down and shit all over her while getting her to yell "uncle"
Wukong can do well with his "tricksies"
Mundo, Lux, Renekton, Nasus.
I think the biggest counter she has though is Olaf, that dude will straight up wreck her even at lvl 1, just take your E with ghost and all in her at lvl 1, she'll either flash out or die.
Then of course there's the Riven option, but I don't give a shit what anyone says, Riven is very hard to master.
she is broken as fk and needs harsh nerfs
Nasus beats her extremely easily and you can often get 400 stacks on Q by 15-20 minutes against her. It's pretty much a guaranteed victory in lane if you don't screw it up horribly or die to multiple ganks.
Olaf, Renekton, Darius, Dr. Mundo and Garen are good picks against her since they can outdamage her in fights while being too tanky to burst down.
While her passive reduces tenacity, this doesn't affect knockups, knockbacks, or suppressions. Champions like Cho'gath, Janna, Lee Sin, and Alistar are all good choices to disrupt her in teamfights.
As far as counterpicks go: Nasus and Olaf are likely the best. Olaf only if you know how the matchup works(see below). Nasus either needs to get camped non-stop or play terribly to lose the lane. (Like, REALLY TERRIBLY.)
More general advice:
Try to position your self so Irelia cannot hit both you and your creeps with her ult. If she can, it will heal her for more, give her easy Q targets she can use to either juke or chase, and eventually kill the caster minions, reducing the minion damage she is taking.
Irelia is really really weak lvls 1-4, and doesn't really get going until lvl 7. (lvl 9 against tough opponents) Try to gain an early lead, especailly an experience lead. Her W is flat true damage, which really wrecks if she gets an extra rank in W before you level up. (Assuming she is maxxing W, maxxing E was popular for a while, but is now only popular against squishy kite mages.) Oh, she also has mana issues (even with flask) and cannot trade frequently in the earlygame.
Generally speaking, champions that are tanky with some form of damage (even moderate sustained damage) are good picks. Irelia's kit and early build path have very-much capped damage potential. Once her W runs out, and she cannot continuously proc sheen/trinity, her damage output drops off a cliff, to the point she often cannot finish off a target at 150 HP. This is part of the reason Olaf is considered a good counter. You can survive her damage, then pop ult and W and Irelia is not capable of beating your lifesteal while you are doing absurd damage.
If you do pick a squishy toplaner, avoid standing close to low-HP minions, she can Q to the minion (Q CD refreshes if it kills the target) to close the gap, and still have her Q to chase once you get out of range. Movespeed is also really important in these matchups, to the point at least some Vlads run MS quints.
Armor with some HP is your best bet if you want to build defense. Irelia's true damage is less substantial than her AA/ult/Q/Sheen procs. (Unless she goes some odd all AS build)
Run away when her w is active, punish her when its on cooldown. She has no escapes, and beyond her stun no real stickiness.
Irelia's pretty dedicated to winning 1v1s, so if you're not using your own duelist she'll probably grind you into powder regardless.
Depends on what you are playing. I can guide you through most matchups if you name them.
