User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Item Concept) Fixing Mana/@comment-3974211-20151208054314/@comment-1330314-20151208110120

One of the core problems with mana itemization right now, imo, is that it's always going to incur some excess either way. If needs mana items to not go OOM every five Qs, then his mana costs are too high or his natural mana is deficient -- by contrast, if a champion like, say,  has satisfying enough mana gating on his own kit that he can do his thing without feeling excessively constricted, then a  ends up removing that little constraints remain altogether. Removing mana itemization forces champions to have gating that works, so for the Varus example his Q should likely cost far less mana relative to his pool than it does, at least over time. The intent is not to nerf casters here, quite the opposite, and I want the end result to be a better overall innate ability to cast spells, and the freedom to do so without becoming dependent on resource items. The above changes might homogenize mana champions to a degree, but that's also sort of the intention, at least with respect to their resource gating. If there's not enough choice to differentiate champions otherwise, then there's likely a deeper problem with itemization, though the example you mentioned doesn't really hold up in that regard ( is already different from in that he dips into CDR itemization whereas she prefers to go for more "traditional" AD, attack speed and crit builds).

As for mana restoration effects, I should probably reevaluate them, as many of them, like Blue Card, aren't really that necessary or rich in gameplay. innate is a good example of mana restoration done well, as it forces him to put himself at risk from time to time in between waves of poke, and other restoration effects should likely have similar kinds of justification, and shouldn't just exist to lessen a champion's mana gating (that's the job of the new standardized system).