@Riot: Overhaul should have been on Runes, not Masteries

Let me preface this by being straightforward. I am not a fan of the new masteries. IMO, fewer options and an emphasis on cookie-cutter builds are terrible for PvP games.

Having gotten that out of the way, I have been operating under the assumption that the mastery changes are directed at making the game more accessible for new players. This is a laudable goal, but simplicity for new players should never come at the expense of diversity for those more seasoned. I feel that the previous set of masteries were in a very good place. They allowed flexibility for specific champions and offered reliable power for your own standardized builds. Of course, there were boilerplate builds that worked for a general purpose. But, this was not at the expense of specific, carefully tinkered alternatives. I was very fond of 8/22/0 for Tahm Kench, for instance. The new masteries feel inflexible and subjective. Certain champions simply have better options than others and it is frankly making the game less enjoyable for me. On top of that, the far worse situation with runes still exists.

First and foremost, runes are too expensive. Even with the recent cost reduction, a new player needs to save up many thousands of IP before reaching level 20. This prevents them from being able to unlock more champions and is completely counter-intuitive. Without a friend or mentor to tell you to stockpile your resources, there is no indication that it should be done.

Runes are nebulous. Tier 1 and 2 runes STILL exist, despite numerous requests for their removal. A tier 1 Mark of Lesser Attack Damage is 0.53 AD. Tier 1 and 2 runes are not worth the IP spent on them and serve only to bleed new players of resources. Additionally, runes generally have oddly specific decimals in their description. The tier 3 Mark provides 0.95 AD. This can prove to be very confusing. Does it round up? If it says I did 77 damage in game, is it actually 77 or is it 76.95? On top of this, inefficient slot assignments can prove to be a trap to new players, as well. Just bought Lux and find you're having trouble with mana? You might want to buy runes to help. Going into the shop, you tell it to show you all the mana runes and you buy a full set for red, yellow, and blue. These type of mistakes seem absurd to experienced players, but new players can easily make the mistake of burning thousands of IP on something like this, not realizing that magic penetration (or hybrid penetration) marks would have been a better purchase. If you botch a mastery page, you don't lose weeks worth of work in the process.

Runes are very specific, especially for the amount of IP invested in them. Two distinct rune pages often have limited overlap, forcing new players into the position of reusing runes that offer little or no benefit. A player who loves marksmen might have only enough IP to buy a page for that role. When trying to support or play a tank, they lack any alternatives for those roles and must reuse the same set. This leads to the hodgepodge of random runes we occasionally see on an ally's page, where your midlane Ahri has attack speed and AD mixed into her Marks. This could be remedied with rune bundles. By offering premade sets of runes for a low price, new players could easily afford basic runes for each role. Bundles for several basic functions could be created. By preventing the new player from editing these bundles or using the bundles' contents in other pages, new players are prevented from early, mistake-prone tinkering. Did you use the AD bundle for jungle Warwick but felt like you would have been better with more attack speed? You can save up the IP for attack speed Marks/Quintessences and build a specific page for Warwick. An AP bundle could not be mixed with AD Marks to help with CSing, even if you might initially think it is a good idea. This does nothing to limit experienced players, who already have their own sets of runes, but offers new players the ability to contribute meaningfully in teams.

Therefore, in order to make runes less of a barrier to new players, I would recommend the following changes: 1. Cost reductions to make outfitting yourself for normals and ranked more affordable. 2. Removal of slot-inefficient options, like health Glyphs and mana Marks. 3. Smooth the values on the runes to make their effects clear. 4. Offer inexpensive rune bundles.

TL;DR: runes should have been overhauled for the benefit of new players instead of masteries. Because the mastery system is inherently without cost, it is an ideal system for new players to tinker with to learn more of the game's nuances. Crippling everyone with restricted masteries and leaving runes untouched is terrible for everyone, new players included.