User blog comment:Lykrast/Runes: why I hate them/@comment-3097946-20140327093643/@comment-5256197-20140328105425

This.

Runes are a simple metagame on top of the real game, something persistent to build over Masteries. And Masteries aren't free either, you'll "buy" one for a price of summoner level.

Not buying runes is a decision of your own, so you really shouldn't get upset about crippling yourself. Everyone does everything they can in these competetive games to get the edge over the enemy, be it farming the junge in addition to the lane or buying shitloads of runes, pretty much the same thing but in different scales. You get more powerful the more you invest time and effort. Of course you could buy all the champs with RP, so you could invest yourself for some nice runes to go with them.

I enjoy character building so much that I only have like 30 dudes, but 11 rune pages full of runes (all pages bought with IP).