Why runes mattered

They gave strategy to the matches/faceoffs, sounds absurd right? let me explain, runes are raw stats when you get down to them but they highlight the strengths, weaknesses of the champion your playing and the opposing champion. Depending on how you built your runes you would have a very different playstyle in laning phase. This is one of the few aspects that allowed players to come up with a unique playstyle. This allowed unique builds to come into play especialy early game and allowed some champions which wouldn't be considered meta to survive (sucks early game but good late).

From my viewpoint, having runes allowed a players unique sense of playstyle and strategy come forth rather than me being told to select from five generalized builds. I feel as though with these changes it has played a heavier emphasis on simplifying the gameplay and forcing individuals to play what is meta rather than what isn't meta.