Zilean vs Irelia
How to Beat Irelia as Zilean
based on 1,168 Zilean vs Irelia matchupsHow We Analyze LoL Champion Counters
Zilean vs Irelia Matchup Summary
Best Zilean vs Irelia Counter Build
Items
Starter Items
Early Items
Core Zilean Items
Optional Items
Summoner Spells
Skill Order
Runes
Guide to Countering Irelia as Zilean
Tips for Playing as Zilean against Irelia
Time Warp is an effective way to enable allies to finish off enemies, or escape from a losing battle.
Chronoshift is a powerful deterrent to attacking your carries, but casting Chronoshift too early in a fight can cause the enemy to switch targets too soon, making it less effective.
You can combine the use of Time Bomb and Rewind to place two Time Bombs on a target quickly. Placing the second bomb will detonate the first and stun all nearby enemies.
Advice to Win Against Irelia
Pay attention to Ionian Fervor stacks and try to engage Irelia when it is down.
Minion waves greatly enhance Irelia's mobility, beware fighting her inside one.
Beware of wasting your high impact spells on Defiant Dance.
Zilean vs Irelia Counter Stats
How to Counter Irelia with Zilean in LoL
The stats provided here highlight several important Zilean against Irelia matchup stats that may help us understand the distinctions between the pair. As an example, Zilean’s KDA ratio ([kills + assists] / deaths) of NaN is greater than Irelia’s KDA ratio of NaN, highlighting that Zilean may be more central to his team's team fighting capacity than Irelia. This observation is largely caused by the differences in assists.
Zilean normally has a significantly smaller longest kill spree than his enemy does. Typically, he takes less damage than Irelia. This often reflects different amounts of tankyness, yet it can also imply that the champion with higher health has less agility and thus is not able to kite away from further damage when poked or engaged.
Differences between Zilean and Irelia
Damage Types Compared
Champion Playstyles Compared
Who is Better, Zilean or Irelia?
Both League champions are great. Both champs have their pros and cons. In League's current meta, Zilean usually fairs equally well when taking on Irelia, with a 49.5% win rate. Therefore, Zilean makes an ok counter to Irelia.
While Zilean does have a lower winrate than Irelia, when they face off with one another, Zilean also has a greater level of difficulty that makes him a more difficult champion to learn and master. You still need to be cautious when picking Zilean into Irelia.
Furthermore, Zilean has a great deal of utility and CC, a similar amount to Irelia. This makes her just as valuable during team fights, especially when fighting champions with a lot of burst damage.
While there isn't one best champion for every situation in League of Legends, in Zilean vs Irelia matchups, Irelia is the better champ with a similar win rate, more champion depth, and a similar amount of utility to help out your allies during teamfights.
Zilean is a somewhat poor counter to Irelia. You will do well by focussing your actions on keeping up your gold income and taking out objectives. If you can do that, you should hold your own as Zilean against Irelia.
Other Champion Matchups Against Zilean
Additional Information for Zilean Players
How We Calculated Our Zilean vs Irelia Build and Stats
Other Useful Resources
Further Insights to Win this Matchup
To truly master Zilean to counter Irelia during both the lane and mid / late game phases of League of Legends, you should keep reading to gather a few extra tricks and insights into this matchup. If you listen to the build and suggestions shown above, you will grow your win rate significantly and be closer to League of Legends pro players.
Zilean on average accumulates a lot less CS compared to Irelia. Champions who on average don't acquire many minion kills typically don't require much CS to be valuable teammates, such as support champions. These kinds of champions are capable of scaling well off of their skills, stats, and first items alone. Yet, champions with large amounts of CS, such as hyper-carries, usually need many items to be effective. In either case, try to exceed the values displayed on this page to do well.
The most crucial items to focus on in your Zilean versus Irelia build include Shurelya's Battlesong, Morellonomicon, and Imperial Mandate. When Zilean used at least these three items in his build, he performed significantly better when facing Irelia than with many other typical counter builds. In fact, Zilean boasted an average winrate of 49.5% battling Irelia with these items in his kit.
To have the highest likelihood of coming out on top against Irelia as Zilean, you should take the Summon Aery, Manaflow Band, Transcendence, Waterwalking, Cheap Shot, and Relentless Hunter runes from the Sorcery and Domination rune sets. Out of all the rune sets players used for Zilean vs Irelia battles, this mixture of runes yielded the greatest win rate. In fact, these runes averaged a 49.5% win rate overall.
If you would like to view Zilean vs Irelia tips and builds for a an individual player tier, please choose one from the selection menu displayed above. By default, the stats and guides shown are calculated using every match with data with these champions.