If your top was hard counterpicked, my suggestion would be:
* Get a HARD leash on your first buff camp (strong enough that you keep Smite
but still gain a Level); Start with the one furthest from your Top lane
(Red Buff if you're on Blue Team, Blue if you're on Purple)
* Immediately RUSH to your next buff and kill it with Smite. Make sure you use
your Pots and are at 3/4 HP or better!
* Immediately RUSH to top lane to gank. You will be at Level 3,
and if you are a fast enough jungler, the top lane will be just about to
ding Level 2. A gank this early is usually devastating. If you can wrangle
it so your Top Laner gets the kill, the gank was perfectly successful.
After all of that, have your Top Laner stick close to turret and ward his Tribrush and right in front of the Baron pit. This will give enough time to evade possible ganks, and the farming in front of tower leaves the other Teams' Top wide open for ganks.
Gank top about 150% more often than you normally would. This is known as "Camping a lane".
Allow your Top Laner to take your wolves (if on Blue Side) or Small Golems (if on Purple) to get some EXP advantage over the other team Pre-Lane. Help him out with them so he doesn't take too much damage, but make sure he gets the EXP! This provides about 1/2 the EXP required to reach Lv. 2.
Make sure to stress to him how important it is to passively farm WHENEVER possible in lane; Then, when you gank, that he needs to let you initiate but STILL NEEDS TO SMACK THEM IN THE FACE A FEW TIMES! Remind them that even though they got counterpicked, if they get themselves fed (with your help), they basically become uncountered again.
If your Top Laner is unresponsive or unhelpful after these tips and suggestions, then let him be and help your Carry Lanes get fed. Play around him strategically and you can still pull off a win. If the Enemy Top Lane is fed, but the rest of YOUR team is fed, you still can win.
Do your best to give your Mid Champ the Blue buff whenever it comes back up, and to deny the other Mid the chance to get THEIR Blue! If you force the other jungler to smite-steal it, then you did good. (This may not seem like it would help out Top at all, but trust me: getting Mid any sort of advantage over their lane means that they can start roaming and help out Top and Bot sooner, which means more help for you and an easier chance at winning the mid game.)
ALso, ALWAYS REMEMBER: Prioritize Towers and Map Objectives over Kills.
One Tower = 150 Gold per Champion. This equates to 750 Gold for the team. That's more gold than a Legendary Kill streak ending! one or two champions dying for a tower is okay, but not optimal.
Dragon = 190 Gold per Champion, PLUS Last-Hit gold (40 gold) AND global EXP for the team. 1,000 gold total if a Masteried Smite was used. If a tower goes down mid-fight, you still come out on top.
And finally - do your utmost to make sure the kills from your ganks are spread around as much as possible amongst your team members. Share the wealth! You want everyone a little fed, not one or two a lot fed. (A little secret: Supports may not be supposed to get kills, but a fed Support (2-4 kills by late game) is a SCARY thing indeed!)
Hope this helps!
--ccreason
Best Answer
Scarra has been quoted to say "irelia is now underpowered, never picking her again"
Her sustain has been HAMMERED. If you watch matchups today, irelia is losing lane more and more after her recent nerf. She hasn't lost much midgame to late game power though, being able to tank and jump ad carries.
The hit to her early game was brutal though.
Updated answer to new question:
Irelia has been severely weakened now. If you want hard counters, I'd go with warwick, who beats most tops due to his insane sustain. Olaf counters irelia hard as well, since she has no real way to deal with repeated reckless swings. You could also go untraditional and take vlad top.
For a generic champion, you need to quickly determine a) if you can outdamage her sustain and outdamage her. b) you will get any significant jungle help
Quite a few champions can snowball over irelia if they manage to get an early kill. Irelia is really weak early levels so you can fight aggressively here. If you can't straight up outdamage her, engage, bait her hiten style and run away. When she loses her true damage, engage her again.