Another great thing with the old rune system.

Not only did the old runes give really great synergy with specific gameplay plus a more diverse pattern (debatable) and strategic gameplay (actually thinking about going offensive or defensive)

(a mage's poke scaling, (flat mana regen, flat mana, flat cdr, flat ap if you're worried about early trades and their scaling counterparts if you're comfortable enough that you can get even or ahead) - You can even toss in defensive runes if you feel like you got countered in champ select with draft or utility runes like movement speed or gold regeneration.

Also we had way more magic and armor penetration and even HYBRID penetration, but still having defensive options to go for.

(a tank offering decent frontline, (flat armor, flat magic resist, flat health, flat health regeneration (I'm not sure if we had scaling health regen, i think we did, but can get corrected.) percent health. (Had this for support in mind) (This also applies to the top lane people giving them options on top of flat physical damage, but we also had scaling attack damage and some flat attack speed)

Assassins could go full penetration or ability power or be strategic and go and invest for some defensive, but they would lose potential damage.

And don't even forget on top of that, we had some great masteries too. We had that one where it gives scaling ability and attack damage where it doesn't outright give you major power. We had one where it increases spell damage, but it's universal so even classes you wouldn't expect it to get like a tank with acceptable base damage could do something other than just tanking damage.

To cut it short, almost everyone felt like all have equal power in the role that they do and to the playstyle that they do.

But that wasn't all of it.

Old runes actually had very good synergy with items too.

You want to survive at least 3 consecutive all ins? Against ap, (What I usually did before for mid) ap vs ap, you can surprise people with flat magic resist quints for the early trades plus scaling magic resist glyphs and then if you are trying to be even more strategic and ending up relying more on what your mastery can provide damage wise to make up for a more defensive route in runes, you can do either flat or scaling health, then lastly magic pen marks.

Now if you build a banshee's veil on top of that and even more if you're the type to do it, you can also add abyssal. Rod of Ages also was a hit with this build pattern, now I rarely see people build it. Heck I even do this with my main which is and I had like 17 rune pages alone on her. But this is much ideal for the likes of bonus her damage reduction . Those are the champs that I had in mind, but I know that there are way more that can pull a build like this with the old rune system bonus the mastery system.

With ap vs ad, you can only imagine the amount of armor you'd get with Zhonya's and plus Frozen Heart which I feel too that it isn't built as often as before.

With ad vs ap, you'd then amp your resistances with hex, but before, you can feel a little more safe with your built in resistances and you could go for more damage without having to resort to hex.

I'm not too sure about ad vs ad other than tabi's because most of the time, ADs would usually just go straight damage.

That's another thing. BOOTS actually mattered even more with old runes. Bump your MS from said boots with movement speed quints, plus I believe we also had some flat movement speed mastery. And then merc with magic resist runes and tabi's with armor seals.

Remember boot enchantments? Yeah that's another additional bonus. I know they were removed way earlier, but it made boots even more exciting to purchase.

I apologize if some of them doesn't make sense, I just usually straight up write my current thought. But I really do miss old runes and I know some people do too. I think it would be great to consider to make major game reversions for the sake of gameplay balance than just individual champion. Sometimes, it's not really the champion's fault that got it to an unnecessary state. It's what's been added and ''tweaked'' that heavily affects said champion.

Share your thoughts down below.