User blog comment:Lykrast/Runes: why I hate them/@comment-16737371-20140326150842

Runes can have a huge effect on the game. For example if you are running Mag-pen Marks you will have 14 mag-pen, Jungle camps have 0 MR, Riot has said befor that for ever point under 0 a unit is brought by Mag-pen or armor-pen your moves will do 1% more DMG.

If you are jungling with an AP jungle you will be doing 14% more dmg, that is a big deal.

You wont do as much but you will still do 3-4% more dmg with AD DMG if you are running armor-pen Marks.

on top of the starting jungle item, AP's will be doing 25% bonus DMG lvl 1 and AD's will be doing 13-14% bonus DMG. You cant afford to not have these if you want to rank any higher then low silver as a jungle.

I thought the same way you did when i first started; My friend let me play on his account with runes with the same champion i had been maining back-then, and i did so much better every game(against more skilled opponents too.).