On December 13 (Vietnam time), a clip stirred up the League of Legends community on Reddit. The highlight features T1’s young top laner Zeus, who is set to replace Canna in the 2022 season. In the clip, Zeus pulls off a super smooth Irelia play and scores a Pentakill. At the start of his dash, Zeus’s Irelia had only about 10% health left after taking heavy crowd control and damage.
What’s impressive is that after taking down Sylas, the last enemy standing, Zeus’s Irelia nearly had full health again. Although some teammates were nearby, it was mostly Irelia alone dismantling the enemy team. Besides Zeus’s skill, this also highlights Irelia’s overwhelming power, even though she was only one level higher than the opposing Lee Sin (level 12 versus 11).
When the clip hit Reddit, it racked up over 6.7k upvotes and hundreds of comments from the international LoL community. Many praised Zeus’s talent, but most expressed concern about Irelia’s overpowering strength. Since Irelia was only level 12 in the clip, meaning mid-game and not fully equipped, fans wondered just how unstoppable she would be at full build and max level.
Actually, Irelia hasn’t just recently been considered “broken.” Since Summer 2021 and through Worlds 2021, she’s been a fan favorite and almost always a key ban or pick. Usually played in solo lanes (top or mid), Irelia is versatile and can build tanky or damage-heavy. At Worlds 2021 Main Event group stage alone, she was picked 9 times and banned 45 times.
Despite the community’s outcry, Riot has stayed calm and hasn’t made major changes. With this status quo, Irelia is sure to remain a hot topic when the 2022 season kicks off.
