A single rune page can be purchased for either 6300 IP or 590 RP (hello, IP dump), while a book of pages can only be purchased using RP, at a price of of 2600 RP. I should also point out that once you buy one page, you can no longer get the 7-page bundle, which would still be a reduced price over buying them separately. A little message appears that says, “Purchasing this Bundle will put you over the Rune Page Limit.”

Despite the high cost, this is still a good thing. I’ve been sitting on 25k+ IP for months now, buying the new champs whenever they drop, including the recent 6300 combo of Vladimir and Galio, so it’s nice to have another place to spend my IP. Honestly, though, I don’t see myself buying more than two pages. I’ve picked up one for now and I can’t really think of another option I’d like to have around.

For now, I focus on CD reduction and a little mana regen and some armor. The last is because I was playing an armor stack Rammus for a bit (lot of fun if you haven’t tried it – just make sure you itemize properly against mages). With my 9/0/21 mastery, I’m sitting at almost 20% cooldown reduction, which is great for someone like Alistar or Rammus. I tend to use this page for toons like Blitzcrank and Nasus if I’m playing support as well. The real frustration comes from the red runes. There just isn’t much that makes sense for a lot of toons. Most of the support/utility marks are such low percentages that spending the IP doesn’t make sense.

I’ll probably continue to mess with various setups using Tier 1 or 2 runes, just to see what I like. I would hope for a mark buff, but I don’t think that’s very likely. What do you like to go for? Magic Resist? Armor? The scaling buffs?

If you like to play mage toons – Fiddlesticks, Karthus, Ryze – magic penetration can be a cheap start for your runebook. For a lot of mages, though, it’s a tough purchase to justify because of the way magic penetration works. Penetration only affects magic resistance your target currently has. It’s also the last debuff applied in a string of magic resistance debuffs. It works like this: fixed resistance is applied first, so Karthus’ wall, for instance, which gives a -35 magic resistance debuff. Then comes percentage based debuffs, like Void Staff. Then, after all that has been applied you get your magic penetration debuff.

The real kicker is that penetration can’t take your enemy’s resistance below zero. Only flat resistance can do that. If you’re in some higher tier play and you’ve got enemies stacking up MR, then penetration is a great choice. It adds a level of damage you can only get from Abyssal Staff in game. If you’re a more casual player like myself, then you might see more benefit from flat AP, mana regen, or even flat health.