I agree that it punishes newer players. Those who make an account right now will be fine, to an extent. I have a buddy whom I got into the game a month or so ago. He just hit 30 a couple days before this patch. He is screwed, he had not been saving much IP because he was buying runes and champs trying to get to the 20 champ limit to play ranked.
Now with this new preseason he got crapped on and has such a low amount of BE. At this rate he will not be able to save to buy champs like he could of with IP gains. Due to him being lvl 30 already he isnt getting "extra champs". He also doesnt have a ton of BE to make the ones he is getting into Perm. I feel bad for the kid, he is much younger than me and in Highschool and he started playing because his school and others in my State are starting an ELeague.
I hate telling him that he would have to spend real money now. If I didnt spend $500 in this last year of playing, I too would be screwed. I feel anyone who started in Season 7 got the shaft hard core at this point.
I am sitting at 99k BE and refuse to spend it on the dumb stuff because I would like to buy more champs with it vs use it for flair.