How Irelia’s Rework Took League of Legends Betting By Storm

Irelia’s rework was possibly one of the most impactful moments of this season. It’s created a whole new aura of League of Legends and has made the game more competitive in more ways than one. Before her rework, Irelia had a low pick rate on the competitive stage but now, she’s a top priority pick or ban.

What changed? Simply put, her kit was so outdated that the design team did an overhaul on her, reworking three of her four abilities while implementing a whole new passive for her. Afterwards, Irelia went on to become one of the most dominant champions in the game in exchange for a much harder skillset to master.

We’ll be taking a look at how her rework has influenced the different playstyles on the map and why you should look to prioritize on her pick in the upcoming season, provided she’s still a meta pick. What are we waiting for? Let’s get started!

New Irelia versus Old Irelia

I’m not going to get into the specifics of how the old Irelia worked but essentially, she was a one-hit wonder before her rework. Her job was to get in and do as much damage before dying. In team fights, she was near useless unless she managed to get ahead in the early game.

However, this made her very one-dimensional. All she had to do was jump in and auto-attack while weaving in abilities until her opponent was dead or she was dead. Now, her kit has evolved past that. Irelia has completely changed in playstyle and use.

She can still be a split-pusher in many ways largely due to the fact that the design team still put her in place as a dueler but the way she can utilize her duelist potential can be put into many different variations.

Her ability, Bladesurge, can instantly have its cooldown reduced if she either kills a target or if she dashes to a marked target. That being said, using her two main reworked abilities, Flawless Duet and Vanguard’s Edge, help her dash around as much as possible.

Her Flawless Duet shoots out two blades one at a time wherever Irelia wants it. Once the second one has been shot out, the two blades will connect together and stun whoever is in their way, marking them. This allows a stun and an extra dash for Irelia but landing the stun in the first place is the hard part.

Her Vanguard’s Edge shoots out a storm of blades at an opponent and once they connect, the blades expand, creating a wall around the champion or champions hit. Each person hit is marked. This can allow for some pretty sick combos on Irelia where she dashes around with no one able to predict her next move.

An Irelia expert can turn this champion into the biggest threat one has ever seen. By using her mobility to literally be the hardest person to target and then using her variety of spells to hold the opponent down, a truly great Irelia can take down anyone.

How Has This Changed the Competitive Scene?

The competitive scene is always evolving and looking for new aspects to put in their game in order to make it more exciting. Teams are always looking to find the best pick or the best strategy so that they can use it in their game to their advantage.

But now, with Irelia, the entirety of the top lane has shifted into something completely different. Because of the utility Irelia brings, she can take down literally every single top lane that is in the meta right now.

However, her appearance has also shifted her into the mid lane. It isn’t uncommon to see a mid lane Irelia. She changed the mid lane from mages and assassins to mages and bruisers and as you can see, the game is now shifted more towards building strong skirmishes rather than winning the early game outright.

She’s made the game much more fast-paced and if a player is lacking, then Irelia can easily come in and take them out. That means there’s a smaller margin for error on the competitive scene and the games are going at much faster pace now, all thanks to Irelia.

What Does That Mean Betting-Wise?

Irelia has shaken up the competitive scene so that obviously means that there are going to be some changes when it comes to the betting scene. It’s not going to be so easy choosing who’s going to win and who’s going to lose.

Therefore, two teams go against each other and you see someone—whether it’s the mid laner or top laner—pick up Irelia, this can either be the breaker or maker of the game. For example, if you have someone like Lourlo, who specializes in playing champions like Irelia, then his Irelia pick will be more favored towards his team.

But if you have someone like Fnatic’s Caps who has been known to flop on Irelia, then an Irelia pick on him might not be the best choice. In the end, it always comes down to who picks the champion and if they have the ability to home in on the potential that this champion holds.

From a bettor’s perspective, as soon as you see that Irelia pick come in, you need to know who’s playing it because that player will dictate a large portion of whether or not they win that match. They can also be the same player that throws that match away.

Now, does this mean that he’s a bad player? No. In fact, he’s one of the key essentials to Fnatic and he loves playing carry champions. In the past, he’s clutched out several matches for FNC but the fact that Caps, a mid laner that specializes on carry champions, single-handedly lost matches for Fnatic due to his poor performance on Irelia goes to show critical a good performance on Irelia is.

So, in the end, it comes down to the player playing Irelia because if they know what they’re doing and they know how to player her and they execute well, your chances of winning that match are doubled. And if your chances of winning are doubled, then it’s most likely a good choice to go for that team betting-wise.