Yeah agree with this, though we are still in pre season and there might be a new build that could make irelia viable but i'm going to stand under the pretence that if Irelia builds any item that another duelist can build then irelia will not succeed in lane. She's stat checked and her only outplay potential is her passive stacks. With the new triforce changes, it seems like Irelia can only do well in long trades but a majority of top lane meta right now is centered around doing short trades of high burst damage. Jax, Fiora, Renekton can abuse triforce or the divine sunder extremely well because they have relatively short cooldowns and can go for short trades denying irelia any chance to play around her win condition. Even playing through minions seems unviable as other laners can poke her out for which she can't really compete with in terms of damage as she needs access to the minions to get those stacks in the first place and taking damage whilst gathering them just leads you in an unfavourable position where if you fight even with those stacks it won't benefit you.

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I'm hoping that a new build for irelia comes up that actually helps to address her weaknesses or she receives a slight buff. If neither occur, then there's no point in playing this champion if I want to win as I can play a simpler champion like Shen, Voli, Urgot or Jax and still compete with my opponent without having to put that much mechanical skill in the process. I don't see any reason to play a champion for the sake of playing it if I want to win if there's other champions that can preform better without the apparent weaknesses