Question

How on Earth are do you win a game against an Irelia? I mean, back before the Zeal was removed from Triforce and replaced with a Stinger, I never really seen anyone play Irelia, let alone went up against one. Then, BAM, Triforce is changed and all of a sudden, here comes Irelia. She's been in the situation of being banned in almost every single game. So much so that I never really have the chance to learn how to face her and on the rare occasion in which she doesn't get banned, I get pretty much murdered by her, no matter what lane/role I'm playing.

What bugs me the most about her is that I've had friends of mine say that to beat her, you have to beat her early. Now, that makes sense until I remember that she has built in sustain with her W, a slow/stun with her E, and resettable mobility with her Q that also does a lot of damage. [This is all ignoring her ult.]

What doesn't help at all is that she starts with the Corrupting Potion, making it even harder to push her out of lane due to the additional sustain she gets from it. On top of that, I usually see her with Grasp of the Undying, which is again more sustain. Like, no matter what I do, I can't push her out of lane.

Because of this, I've tried the alternative: Just don't let her kill me and keep her in top lane for as long as possible, as safely as possible. Now, this all works out until she finally for whatever reason, decides she's ready to recall. When she does this, I set up wards around myself, ping "MIA" a few times, and then farm up/shove the wave up while I freely can. The problem here arises when Irelia suddenly shows up in another one of the lanes and jumps one of (or two if bot lane) my teammates because they were pushed up and not paying attention to my "MIA's", picking up a kill (or two) and then returning to my lane with more items and gold than before.

Things I tried and their results are:

1. Shoving her out of lane early on. (Result: She out-sustains anything I do to her due to her W's heal and the Corrupting Potion stacks.)

2. Stalling her as long as possible to keep her top lane. (Result: She disappears for a brief moment [mostly after a random recall] then shows up in another lane and gets a kill or two.)

3. Attempt to match her roaming, by non-Teleport roaming to other lanes, to try and snowball them. (Result: Irelia hard-shoves the lane and grabs my tower, then travels around herself.)

I truly want to know how to beat her. Hell, even if the method of beating her doesn't involve winning lane against her. I just want to know what her Achilles Heel is. I don't want to be forced to ban her solely because she's THAT overbearing, over some other ban that might be more beneficial to whatever team comp I'm in.