User blog comment:Lykrast/Runes: why I hate them/@comment-620927-20140327061523

" no matter how hard you'll try to convince me, I'll never buy a single rune before I got all champs in the game. "

Theoretically this means that you will never buy runes, even if you catch up to champion release cadence, because they will always make new champions. The reason they slowed down the champion release cadence was to be able to build up champion reveals to the point where they could majorly capitalize on one champion's release to the point where it pays as much as one and a half of the typical champion used to from their first week sales.

Either way, that's not what I've come here to argue, what I've come to argue is the other thing you said:

" about masteries, they are free and I really find them weak, so it's not really that much a problem. "

They are in no way free, and are certainly no more free than runes because runes and masteries are purchased in almost the same way, but with different names regarding what they are.

To that effect, masteries are INFINITELY more powerful than you are willing to acknowledge, all thanks to Runes. Runes are designed to help bring your early game along to the point where your Masteries will truly begin to benefit you(such as scaling amounts of AP and AD per level, or % bonuses to penetration stats, which are guaranteed to give you value as time approaches infinity). It's not a mutually exclusive relationship; They both need each other.

If you bought runes in a way that you filled the slot as soon as you got it and then upgraded it every 10 levels, you should come out every level with plenty of IP to invest in champions and have properly built rune pages. Runes aren't designed to be bought all at once once you've ground your way to 30; You're supposed to invest in them slowly and over time so that you can can grow with the three tiers of runes while receiving the bonuses that will put you on par with others.

Essentially, Runes and Masteries are what are supposed to build your own champion that you then combine with the champion you pick in queue to bring the full force to the game. Playing without runes but with Masteries is like playing 1 and a half champs when everybody effectively gets the benefits of two with both of these combined.

And I can guarantee that playing against nothing but bots to farm runes will not help you in any way, because bots are still bots, even if they're intermediate or not.