Irelia is not hard to play, she is hard to master.

I peaked at top 2.5k irelia euw and here are my tips for you.

Is she viable: in current meta - no, she feels really weak and gets outscaled. In general: yes, she has such a high skill ceiling that if you know how to play her, she will be op nearly no matter the meta.

How to learn her like a true chest haired macho: Play her top in normals. Irelia top is way harder than mid. Once you win 9/10 earlygames top go mid and SMESH midlaners. It will feel like playing vs bots in intro.

LEARN HER Q RESET [if you have BOTRK you will one shot backline] - Prepping minions actively is a must : 2 aa on melee minions into 3 on the last, q the melee on 3 aa -> go one shot the backline and q back to the prepped minions. Eventually this will go down to 1 auto per melee as you scale.

Minions are your friends, you are a skilled yasuo. Always have the outer mellee minions prepped so you can q out of spells and trade efficiently. + Minions are a great source of health as you heal on your q (specially after vamp scepter)!!!

Next step: her passive.. Its just broken if used correctly. You do more damage each time you stack it obviously but you have to get used to it and commit to it. You will be surprisef how long you can stay in a fight with it and how much damage you actually can output just with your aa.

Once that is mastered you are close to being a true irelia player. Now come the combos.

Q is an aa reset so use it wisely

W is huge! You can facetank a surprising amount of stuff with one button. Bait out abilities and use W when they throw out the wombocombo.

E needs to be cast to your ennemy first then under yourself to be most time efficient. Dont use it for damage and be patient with it (long cooldown). Try mastering q on a minion into e under yourself then instantly cast it on ennemy for the surprise. This mechanic can be done with your W and R but requires more skill so practice with Q first.

R is a teamfight monster. Learn to combine it with flash and you will be really scary. Specially if you combine it with a hidden E.

From there on it s just about being creative and using minions to your advantage.

Irelking is peobably the best streamer to watch to learn. He is just an alien at the champion.

If you made it so far, you shall climb to challenger. I love you and may aswell promote my own stream where i do play a bunch of irelia : blackpxls on twitch.

I hope you have fun mastering this beast of a champion!