I have a flu and therefore had some extra time today, so I made this:
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/rune-purchase-optimization-case-of-flat-ad-marks-348054

actually i want to make an eune account now because i want to see those baddies ^^

About the T1 runes: Once again, if they are going to be useless by level 20, there is zero point in purchasing them.

Dr. Mundo top: He's still terrible in top-lane. He beats Malphite because Malphite builds a ton of armor and Mundo does a ****ton of mixed damage.

"hopefully someone who reads this will err less, and the guide will have fulfilled its purpose of existence."

If reading this guide has made you decide not to make an account on EUNE, then in that case the guide has fulfilled its purpose. I just revently made a new account on EUW, and nonsmurf lv 7 EUW noob players are much better players than lv21 EUNE draft pick players. Not to mention that players actually speak English on EUW, not Polish or Slovak! Life is so great now!

EDIT:
Lv7 EUW creep scores in a 30min game are 70+ even for the lowest players (except afk or support).
Lv21 EUNE creep scores in a 45min game are below 60 for average players, below 40 for poor players (and supports...although I have seen supports farm more CS during the time the Marksman is dead than what the EUNE Marksman farmed total in the match).

My wish to Riot:
Please take the N out of EUNE into EUNW, so other Nordic players don't have to go through the EUNE mid level games...

the only thing i learned is that every eune player sux

"saving up 900 IP for 2 full tier 1 rune pages (38 runes)" ... how much is that worth in real-life money?

1 win is roughly 100 IP without any boosts in a medium-length match (not including even First win of the day bonus either)
900 IP required = 9 wins
10 wins IP boost costs 670 RP (more IP than needed, we'll even get some extra)
with 5 EUR you get 840 RP
-> 1 EUR = 168 RP

670 RP (10 wins boost) : 168 RP (1 EUR worth of RP)
= 4 EUR

Is playing vs Lv 20+ players with 20+ tier 3 runes with a full tier 1 rune page (15-19 runes) for all the matches in the range of levels 15->20 instead of going there NAKED EVERY TIME worth a total of 4 EUR? Subjectively, I say HELL YEAH! :D

The mid-levels are an environment where some of the opponents are actually playing only 1 champion and using their IP for hogging tier 2 runes. In this scenario, getting no runes at all puts you at a serious disadvantage on level 1 in-game champion levels. You can imagine marksman vs marksman battle, one has 0 runes, the other 10-18x tier 2 runes....yeah, it hurts!

Also, at at mid levels, you are often vs opponents who have 5-10 more Mastery points and runes than you do due to higher summoner level. Sometimes you get paired as a lv 15-19 player vs some lv 20+ enemies. That's how the matchmaker works sometimes, especially at night / slow times. These lv 20+ enemies have a 20+ runes on their tier 3 runes page. Try waltzing into that at lv1 in-game WITH NO RUNES = NAKED! You can try going completely runeless into one of your lv30 games, and you will very quickly get the idea...trading becomes very painful and sets back your farming A LOT if the enemy can actually play the game. Not fun!

On the other hand, you will be often vs opponents with 5-10 LESS mastery points and runes than you do due to lower summoner level. If you don't have those rune spots filled vs lower level players, you are giving away some of your early game advantage to them for free in every game you play.

Of course, the Offense vs Defense runes (AP, AD vs Armor, MRes vs mix of offense and defense) is a debatable argument in the tier 1 runes.

Also, the 1 standard rune page to fit all champions vs 2 rune pages (e.g. AD vs AP) is also a debatable argument.

Personally, I prefer to focus more on Defense masteries and Offense runes. But that's subjective.


Summary:
The advantage of summoner level difference is the greatest at mid-levels. You will be playing vs enemies with 5+ more or less mastery points and runes than what you have. The difference is only eliminated at Lv 30. -> Mid-levels is a different environment from Lv 30 matches, because the players have unequal status (available rune slots, available mastery points) when they enter a game, regardless of the said players' in-game skills.


tl; dr
IMO "saving up less than 900 IP total (NOTE - current monetary rate: 840 RP = 5 EUR, 900 IP is much less than that...)" is a poor reason for giving all of your enemies an advantage in every match you play from Lv 1 until Lv 20. Keyboards have been smashed for less than the 1 HP your enemy was left with because you lacked that 1 rune.

if the IP cost update of tier 1 runes was tl;dr, here's the summary

Total cost of 2 full tier 1 rune pages (19 runes each): - 1060 IP
rune combiner refund (25 -> 5 -> 1 x 205 IP): + 205 IP (minimum refund, could also be a more expensive rune...but could also be something unusable)
total cost of investment (38 x tier 1 rune): 855 IP. That could have got you 4x cheapest tier 3 runes (4x 205 = 820 IP) by saving up. Or almost 2x cheapest champion in the game (2 x 450 = 900 IP). But not enough for 1x decent Tier 3 quint.

For these two, I meant to say that they require mana maintenance for sustained use of their abilities. I did not mean to say that they are doing Ability-based damage. I communicated this wrongly.



Personally, I have not seen a successful Nunu jungle at low levels on EUNE. His ganks in the hands of an inexperienced jungler tend to either make the target escape (Nunu is somewhat slow at catching up, especially if the ult does not hit) or even get Nunu killed (jungler overestimates his dmg output based on how much dmg Nunu does in the jungle). Warwick has been more successful in the role when the player roughly does not have a clue of what he is doing as a jungler. Since the two champions cost the same, my personal preference goes to WW jungle.



I don't think I have ever seen Kayle played as anything other than support on EUNE. Even as a support, she is extremely rare pick. Most of the time, no one in the opposing team at Lv 20 draft pick even owns her, it seems to me. This is new info to me.


That was meant to be Sivir, I somehow mixed up the two at the time of writing. I hope I have corrected it now.


I should have said "less than" rather than "lack of". Without a decent support, the Marksman needs as much CC as possible + escape mechanism. Most EUNE supports seem to be suiciders who leave the Marksman def 1v2, given that the Marksman can escape to hug the turret in the first place. Bad support players + bad positioning + not a whole lot of escaping or CC = :-(


I have only witnessed Dr. Mundo as a top. Based on eprsonal experience, he seems to do extremely well vs all the Malphites and Volibears and Tryndameres on mid-level EUNE. The Dr. Mundo players I have encountered have all fed the enemy much less than the other tank champions, which I have attributed to Dr. Mundo.


After level 10, the random EUNE player playing solo top seems to have enough patience/experience not to throw the game away if put to play 1vs2 top lane. Also, at that point some of the other team members might already know what "blue" and "helping blue" mean. Before lv 10...no way, unless smurfs.


I have said as much.

Deleted most of my champion info and recommendations from the guide, since based on comments it seemed to be blatantly incorrect. The info was based on the observed plays and builds I have encountered on the EUNE server.

Added info about why Yi is such a popular top champion (dominates 1v2 lanes vs inexperienced players by killing both lane opponents 5+ times in a match and snowball-carrying from there).

Added calculations for the IP costs of the rune pages. For example, AD page: 440 IP for 19 runes. Save much by leaving that much IP in store until Lv 20 and doing less damage in early lane phase in every single match until Lv 20?

Added some draft chat and in-game expectations based on how players usually tend to behave.

Changed the guide name to include EUNE, since other servers may have different matches on Lv 3-20. This guide is meant to help in the kind of environment I have described in the new sections. If your play environment is more positive and less facepalm, you should enjoy that!

Hijacking top comment so people can see:
You can actually buy 25 tier 1 runes that will work for most roles for 705 IP. Buy the following:
6 Lesser Mark of Armor Penetration
6 Lesser Mark of Magic Penetration
6 Lesser Seal of Armor
6 Lesser Glyph of Magic Resist
1 Lesser Quintessence of Movement Speed
Those runes as I said should work decently enough for all roles and they give a little bit more than half the effect of their tier 3 counterparts.
Now when you get to level 20 you can turn all these 25 tier 1 runes into 5 tier 2 runes and then the 5 tier 2 runes into 1 tier 3 rune by using the Rune Combiner.
Worst case scenario you get a 210 IP Rune from combining and lose 495 IP, while still having had that stat advantage up until level 20.
Best case scenario you get a 2050 IP Rune from combining and make a profit of 1345, just under enough to buy a champion, and you still had that stat advantage up until level 20.
TL;DR: Tier 1 Runes are not that bad, get the above mentioned runes, will help enough for how low IP they cost, then turn them at level 20 for a chance to make a profit.
EDIT: Level 20 not 21.
EDIT 2: Fixed rune names to what they were changed to recently.

From: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/13t947/idea_tier_1_and_tier_2_runes_should_be_removed/

Tl;Dr: 705 IP for Tier 1 Page. That is worth it.

If they'll be obsolete when you hit level 20, then no they aren't.