Thinking about the new rune system: Is there variety?

So I'm looking at the new rune system and really I'm not super psyched about this...

The current Mastery system gives us basically 9 Super-effects we have to worry about, and the new rune system instead gives us 15, which is supposed to increase the variety.

That's a good start, but from there it goes downhill.

You are actually choosing one of 5 categories that will always have the same effects.

PRECISION: A sustainment rune, the LEGEND Rune, and a situational damage boost 5-8%. DOMINATION: Vision rune, the BOUNTY HUNTER Rune, and the "situation control" set. SORCERY: the most variety, 3 sets of 3 varied advantages RESOLVE: A defense focus rune, a sustainment rune, and a "utility" rune INSPIRATION: A gizmo rune, an economy rune, and a statistical advantage rune

Then you choose a second category and pick 2 of those headers.

So if you want BOUNTY HUNTER, you can't have defense focus runes, or economy runes. If you want to scale up with a LEGEND rune, you're stuck either taking a situational damage boost or one of the Precision sustainment runes.

If you want a GIZMO rune from inspiration, you have to pick from a dull statistical advantage or an economy advantage of some type.

And there are glaring omissions. There are solutions but they are taped to the INSPIRATION tree, which means either you spec into INSPIRATION and get a slow or summoner cooldown - who's gonna swap spells, except to smite fight for baron?? - or you use your secondary on it, so something that normally could have been carefully set aside to seals or glyphs or whatever, now instead takes up the second half of your flexibility.

To build up your max mana you have to get the Total Biscuit rune for 160 more mana. It's your only option. You can run Sorcery's freecast rune for a similar effect, as long as you're willing to time your expensive spell around it...

If you want CDR 15%, you're taking Sorcery and Inspiration. At least you can build up additional cooldown on your ult with this setup, so offtank Karma isn't completely boned, but she won't be getting any toughness advantages, so she's mostly boned. You're not getting 20% CDR.

Did you want Lifesteal, or Spell Vamp? Precision - Legend is your source of Lifesteal, but a weak one -and it starts at 0%. You could run Domination - Bounty Hunter which gives you 2.5% Spell Vamp that rises as you kill champs. And as long as you want something that scales terribly, you can take the Domination rune that heals you when you damage any enemy champion, a tiny amount, every 20 seconds. Maybe pair that with the Resolve Earthen Rune effect.

There are very limited ways to improve gold gain, they are hiding in the INSPIRATION Economy rune and basically if you want to get the 200 bonus gold for running GP5, you have to do without shoes for 10 whole minutes. Also what about Cass? How's she gonna deal with this mysterious rune? Is she simply not going to be able to opt in?

Or you can burn 50 gold and go in debt to buy "one last thing"... which I can only classify as, similar to time dead runes, a "cancerous mistake engine" that sounds good on paper but usually will add up to disaster, because the more you use it the more you lose.

And forget about Experience gain. It's just gone.

Were you playing a mage who relies on Magic Pen due to low AP ratios and high base skill damage? Enjoying a +15 Magic Pen starter kit, so you have a wider item pool or just a bit more early power?

Better find something else to enjoy. There's no magic pen anywhere in the runes.

And that's a real shame, because there's plenty of Magic Resist in the Resolve Tree, lots of defenses including heal and shield boosters in lots of different trees, and just to make your life a little harder - anything you can do, an AP mage can do better: The spell damage runes all have AP ratios.

Bye, Cass. Bye, Zyra. It was nice while you were around. I guess it's big ticket AP all day now.

Pardon my hyperbole. I am aware I am exaggerating.

But we have YET to see the real problem. It'll be even worse than what I suggest here. I can't even perceive the train-wreck we are about to experience, and plenty of champs are gonna hit the scrap heap from it, guaranteed.

When you cut this much flexibility out, in a game where champions rely on flexibility to succeed... you'll wring the success rate of certain champs down to the dry cotton.