League of Legends Runes: A History Lesson
League of Legends has come a long way since 2009. The game has grown from 17 champions to 143 in the past decade, undergoing numerous meta changes along the way. Through all these changes, one thing that has remained in the background is the rune system.
The rune system has always been a part of League, allowing players to customize the way they play their favorite champions. Let’s take a look back at the evolution of the rune system over time.
Runes (2009 to 2017)
In July 2009, five months after the release of League of Legends, runes were introduced. Runes allowed players to enhance their champion’s base stats, from attack damage to respawn time. There were four categories of runes: Marks, Seals, Glyphs, and Quintessences.
Players could have up to nine Marks, Seals, and Glyphs, and three Quintessences, making a total of 30 runes on a page. Each rune type had its primary buff, with Marks for physical damage, Seals for defensive stats, Glyphs for magic damage, and Quintessences for general utility.
As players leveled up their accounts, they unlocked more rune slots until reaching level 30. Tier two and three runes could also be purchased at levels 10 and 20, respectively, offering more power than lower-tier runes. Initially, every account started with two rune pages, but it was essential to buy more pages for optimal gameplay.
Each role in the game required a different rune page setup. Supports often used gold per 10 runes, marksmen took critical chance marks, and there were countless ways to build a rune page using tier three runes.
This rune system was removed in pre-season eight, with players receiving refunds for their invested influence points.
The Rune Combiner (2009 to 2015)
The Rune Combiner was a feature that allowed players to combine low-tier runes into higher-tier ones. However, this feature was mostly cost-inefficient and was eventually removed in Patch 5.1.
The Mastery Tree (2009 to 2017)
Alongside the runes, League of Legends had a separate page called the mastery tree from alpha until the start of season eight. The mastery tree consisted of three branches: offense, defense, and utility.
Players had 30 points to distribute in their mastery trees, gaining a point with each level until reaching level 30. Each branch had six tiers of masteries, with higher tiers providing more power. Players could have up to 20 mastery pages, with no cost involved.
The mastery trees underwent reworks almost every season and eventually got renamed to Ferocity, Cunning, and Resolve in 2016. Some early masteries were phased out as summoner spells changed.
Season eight brought a complete overhaul of the system with the introduction of Runes Reforged.
Runes Reforged (2018 to present)
Season eight introduced the Runes Reforged system, merging the mastery and rune trees into one. The new system is split into five keystones: Precision, Domination, Sorcery, Resolve, and Inspiration.
Players can choose a keystone and three runes in the same category, along with two additional runes for their rune page. Base stats aligned to the keystone and a secondary branch of runes are also provided.
The system offers more customization with the removal of traits in favor of shards of base stats in season nine.
New keystones have been added since the introduction of Runes Reforged, and this system is expected to stay for a while.
While some players miss the old rune system and separate masteries, most appreciate the simplicity of Runes Reforged. However, it’s always nice to look back and see how the game has evolved.
* League of Legends, runes, rune system, runepages, mastery tree, Runes Reforged*