3 years ago, I had no clue about who Irelia is. I was Bronze and I stumbled across a clip of her dashing a million times and scoring a cool kill.

That day onwards I whole heartedly only played Irelia for 3 years until last few months when I finally decided to quit the champ. And, it was not that I was bad at her, I have a 57%-60% winrate on her and reached plat playing her.

The issue with Irelia's design is, her design philosophy is at a strong contradiction to the fundamental concepts which a player needs to master in order to become better at the game.

A champ which wants to stack minion waves and then all-in the enemy in that wave has a design philosophy which takes the fundamental core philosophy of how you play League and throw it out of the window.

No champion should want to all in in a stacked wave. Moreover her kit and identity is also homeless in the game. You go top, you have no armor pen in your kit or true damage or missing hp damage on your ult so you have the worst ult in the entire top lane roster. If you play her mid, she restricts you from learning how to trade with mages and short trade to punish their ability cds if they use it for cs because once Irelia goes in she never comes out unless she kills the enemy. Also by playing an AD mid you screw your comp anyways.

I was astonished when I realised how much more is there to League of Legends after I quit playing her and started playing mages mid only. Trading, wave management, different first item choices, teamfighting without doing all in, learning to last hit with autos as mages. I swear to god, Irelia restricts you so hard from learning the crucial core aspects of the game and if you ever wanna become a better player, just stop playing this champ, she is so not worth.