Irelia Is a Fair and Balanced champion!
If you want to see some examples of the kind of balanced and interactive gameplay that Irelia brings to this game just look at the replay of the Team Liquid vs Team 8 Game that just finished.
The VOD (Found Here) speaks for itself but just for clarity I'll highlight some of the stunning examples of counterplay that Irelia demonstrates in this game, and how it applies to you!
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Irelia is a strong champion but she takes some levels to get going because of how reliant she is on Her W and her famous Level 7-9 power spike. So when the enemy picks Irelia you can pick a strong early game champion to counter her. For example Rumble, who is probably the biggest lane bully that still has a strong enough late game to be picked competitively, you definitely won't get out-traded super hard at level 4! Or even better if you aren't worried about the late game you can pick a champion like Renekton, who is extremely strong early and listed as one of her hardest counters, I guarantee she won't just play passive, let the wave push, CS perfectly under turret with her Q, while sustaining with her W and R, and easily disengaging with her E every time she is even in the smallest amount of trouble. Finally if you want to absolutely dumpster her, pick Darius or Olaf! Just don't ever leave lane because you are a worthless champion!
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But this is assuming Irelia picked first, what if you picked first and getting a good matchup isn't an option? Never fear, if you can't counter-pick you can counter-build. There's one example of counter-building in this VOD, Quas builds Mercs on a champion that almost never does, he does this so that Irelia can't lock him down long for enough to kill him. Irelia's W, when maxed, does 75 true damage on hit for 6 seconds, certainly a champion with that kind of sustained damage won't be able to burst you during her stun while you have Mercs. But If that doesn't work you can always counter-build her damage like you can every other champ in the game. Irelia does significant true damage, physical damage and in short trades even some magic damage, so all you have to do is build HP, armour, and MR!
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Let's say you get ahead of an Irelia using one of the many avenues of counter-play that her kit has built in, you still have to be careful of one thing, sustain. Irelia's W gives her significant health return on hit, luckily it is balanced the way almost all sustain in this game is balanced, it's on hit. So if you can zone them from your minions then they can't sustain. Unless they also have a 1000 range ultimate that sustains and wave-clears and bursts and sets up free Q's all at the same time. But don't worry if Irelia uses her ult to wave-clear or sustain you have a significant period of time where she is weak during which you can make a play, 70-50 seconds...
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Finally If Irelia does get ahead despite all of the wonderful counter-play built into her kit you can always give up on your lane and focus on countering her as a team during the mid to late game! She, like every bruiser, falls off in the late game so all you have to do is group up and extend the game. I won't bother going into specifics on this because TL demonstrated this better than I ever could, or you ever could for that matter. But I'm sure your solo-queue team will be able to kite out an Irelia just as well as one of the best teams in north america running a Sivir, Cassiopeia, Nunu composition.
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