Talk:Irelia/@comment-2112140-20140108083235/@comment-8468980-20140113061142

"Irelia was a very divine champion when she was released, she was considered pretty weak by normal players, but she was quite strong in the competitive scene. The competitive scene wasn't very well know when Irelia was released so not many people actually picked up Irelia as they didn't know about her insane hypercarry potential."

Irelia was advertised early by riot as an AD assassin / melee carry. Players built her this way originally and basically had no luck succeeding. She was considered by the community (including competitive players) as the worst champ in the game, I can remember seeing HotshotGG streams where he referred to Irelia as a dodge worthy (he frequently called her "suck-dick-chan"). Then, players began building her super tanky with a TF and her success exploded.

She was difficult to kick out of top lane and even if you did manage to get an HP advantage she'd just stun then restore it back. Building armor didn't feel all that great against her due to the free true damage on hit and trying to counter it with HP wasn't as effective as you'd imagine due to attack speed's (at the time) incredible gold per stat efficiency.