Nightblade Irelia

Got Nightblade Irelia from a chest last week and honestly wasn't expecting much from this older skin. After about 40 games though, I'm actually pretty impressed with how clean it feels compared to base Irelia. The darker color scheme makes her blend better in river fights, and while that's not exactly pay-to-win, it definitely caught a few enemies off guard when I popped out of fog.

The Q resets feel smoother on this skin for some reason, probably just the visual effect being less cluttered than her newer skins. Her E placement is way easier to track with the purple effects, which helped me land a nasty stun combo during a dragon fight yesterday that turned the whole game around. My jungler was getting collapsed on and I managed to hit the perfect E2 between three enemies because I could actually see where my first blade landed through all the chaos. And the ult projectile is thinner visually, making it easier to thread between minions when you're trying to hit that fed ADC in the backline.

Compared to other Irelia skins like Divine Sword, Nightblade feels more responsive even though it's way older. Divine Sword has all those fancy particles but sometimes they make it harder to see what's actually happening in teamfights. Nightblade keeps things simple and clean. The recall animation is whatever, but you're not buying this for the recall anyway.

Is Nightblade Irelia worth it? If you can snag it for 520 RP or get lucky with a chest, absolutely. It's not flashy but the clarity advantage is real, especially if you're grinding ranked and need every edge you can get.