User blog comment:CCoville/So many Runes... so little IP/@comment-3325853-20110427184615

I think in general, these are your basic runes you want to have covered:
 * Red: Insight (mpen), Desolation (arpen)
 * Yellow: Clarity (mp5/level), Evasion|Resilience (dodge|armor)
 * Blue: Focus|Celerity (cdr|cdr/level), Warding|Shielding (mr|mr/level)
 * Quint: Fortitude (hp)

I feel like with those...you have a solid base...you can build a decent but not perfect rune page for every single champion if you have those. Basically every champ should use either magic pen or armor pen for Reds...even tanks really to boost their damage. Exceptions are attack speed (jungler but pen works too) or crit (specific champs). On all mana-based champs, Clarity yellows are at least an acceptable choice. You may not necessarily NEED them but they are still a valid choice. On non-mana or where you really don't need mana, yellows are good as defense with either dodge or armor. For blues, CDR is good on basically every champ and so is magic resist so those are valid choices for anyone. Quints are expensive, but HP quints are a viable choice on anyone...more HP especially early game is strong.

So with those runes, you can have these basic setups:
 * Caster: MPen, MP5, CDR, HP
 * Ranged DPS: ARPen, MP5, CDR/MR, HP
 * Melee DPS: ARPen, Armor/MP5, MR, HP
 * Tank: MPen/ARPen, Armor, MR, HP

That's going to be an acceptable page for any champ. From there, you can expand into the more specific builds. You may more want quints so you can use more arpen, more mpen, flat AP, etc. You may want AP runes for champs like Vlad. You may want HP yellows for some of your tanks instead of armor. I have the Clarity (mp5/level) in both yellows and blues...so that I can use it in blues when I really want dodge yellows like for mana-based melee. There are obviously tons of possibilities but it's nice to have a good starting point. As you've seen, if you buy a bunch of specific runes for one champ, then you can get in a bind. Some of the runes are just more broadly applicable.

As a starting set, 9 each of both penetration marks, armor seals, mp5/level seals, cdr/level glyphs, flat mr glyphs, and 3 HP quints is not that expensive...it only adds up to 22,755 IP... None of those are the expensive 820 IP runes...half of them are the cheap 205 IP runes.