The Noxian occupation of Ionia produced many heroes, none more unlikely than young Irelia of Navori. Trained in the ancient dances of her province, she adapted her art for war, using the graceful and carefully practised movements to levitate a host of deadly blades. After proving herself as a fighter, she was thrust into the role of resistance leader and figurehead, and to this day remains dedicated to the preservation of her homeland.
Sharing the same domain and a similar play style to OGN-259, Irelia quickly emerged as the new legend for those looking to move all over the battlefield in the Spiritforged set. Indeed, with a more flexible ability, and a more resilient champion unit in SFD-057 with her Deflect keyword, the Blade Dancer already won a few tournament in this new metagame.
Irelia is all about finding the right timing to start using her ability to push for points. Too early and we will lack enough runes to develop, but too late and the opponent will be have too much of a lead.
Fortunately, the new set offers multiple ways to mitigate the downside of power-costs, while the Chaos domain is great to slow down the opponent through sending opposing units back to base or their owner's hand.
Once you managed to get on the board, and start moving SFD-057 all over the board, Irelia unleashes all her potential. Whether it is during her turn to score, or when it comes to derailing opposing attempts to remove our units, the mix of Chaos and Calm offers a multitude of cheap support spells Irelia can rely on to choose friendly units for her ability.
Spiritforged Irelia Deck
Irelia Signature Cards
SFD-057 and SFD-196 have become key cards for any Irelia deck early in the Spiritforged metagame.
The signature spell carries a power-cost, which makes it difficult to use early on without trailing our opponent in runes, but is otherwise the best spell in Riftbound to edge a showdown for cheap alongside SFD-097. The Body card gives a bonus 5 might, but this one synergizes with its legend ability, and can serve as removal if you get a unit to 0 might with it.
The champion unit simply does everything you want alongside her legend. The Deflect keyword mitigates the low might for its cost, while its ability to grow will often mean SFD-057 beats other units at her cost with a bit of help.
As a result, SFD-141 is left behind at the moment, with SFD-048 serving as the staple 4-cost unit in Irelia's decks. Plenty of runes will be recycled through SFD-195's ability eventually, so cards requiring a power cost early in a match struggle to make it into the deck for now.
Irelia Staple Cards and Synergies
The Blade Dancer could be considered a One Trick Pony at this point, focusing on one specific game plan, and pushing its deck to accomplish said plan as well as possible.
The key card is SFD-057 due to her ability to grow in might and challenge battlefields once buffed. However, SFD-048 is a stellar sidekick, allowing the deck to draw plenty of cards.
With these two at the core of Irelia's strategy, it is only normal to see support cards designed to make them shine even brighter. Apart from SFD-196 and other fantastic buff cards from the Calm domain, Irelia will pack SFD-051 to make sure its units are a nightmare to remove. Alongside OGN-077, the new gear will be a solid turn one play to be able to play the 4 or 5-cost unit, and not fear the opponent might remove it as we are tapped out of runes.
Certain its key units are safe, Irelia can now focus on making the most of their ability. OGN-184, OGN-168 or OGN-173, the Chaos domain features plenty of ways to move units around.
Considering SFD-195's ability, it would be only fair to consider SFD-130 a staple as well. However, the card isn't part of all decks, such as the winner of the Guangzhou City Challenge featured on this page. Instead, it seems that developing SFD-051 or OGN-077 for future protection is more valuable on turn one.
