A full guide of new Runes System in League of Legends for 2019

Riot has revealed the new Runes System inside the pre-season 2019 update three days ago, including both full new Stat Shards feature and Shield Bash Rune.

There are some smaller changes, like a new rune and some stat changes here and there, but the biggest whopper of an update is the introduction of Stat Shards. These shards are a combination of stat boosts that you will manually select to go along with your rune paths, and they’ll be replacing the predetermined stat boosts that you used to receive just for picking a path.

For example, while in Season Eight, you’d be assigned health and attack speed for choosing the Resolve path and the Precision path. In 2019, however, you won’t receive any stats automatically, and you’ll have to manually choose and assign them after the fact. This is all done in your rune pages, and you’ll have access to all of them for free, unlike the old rune system circa 2017 and before.

Stat Shards

These shards, located in the bottom right side of your rune page, are split into three categories. There’s offense, flex, and finally defense. Don’t worry, Riot seems to have sorted them out properly, because there’s still good tank options in the offense category, and there’s good carry options in the defense category.

You have three options for each category, and you can choose any of those three you’d like in any row. In offense, there’s adaptive force, which just gives you 10 AP or AD just like adaptive damage in the rest of the rune pages. There’s also attack speed, and the third one is for cool down reduction. Obviously, a tank would probably want cooldown reduction, an assassin or mage would pick adaptive, and a marksman would want attack speed. Those are just some examples.

In the second row, flex, there’s mixed defensive and offensive options, but still only three to choose from just like the first row. There’s adaptive force again, which does stack if you also chose adaptive force in the first row, meaning you can hit a total of 20 AP or AD from your shard layout. There’s also magic resist and armor as the other two options. As a tank, or if you just want more resistance, you could choose either MR or armor depending on your comp and the enemy’s.

And then finally comes the third row, which is used for defense. In this row, you can choose from scaling health, armor, and MR, so regardless of what type of champion you’re playing, you will need some form of minor defenses in the form of your Stat Shard.

Here are some examples of shard builds per champion type.

Tank (Sejuani, Zac, Ornn): CDR in offense, armor or MR in flex, scaling health in defense. Jungle tank could swap CDR for attack speed.

Marksman (Tristana, Kai’Sa, Sivir): Attack speed in offense, adaptive force in flex, health in defense. Burst marksmen like Lucian or Jhin could run double adaptive force.

Mage (Syndra, Ahri, LeBlanc): Adaptive force in both offense and flex, and either MR or armor depending on your lane match-up. Support mages could run CDR over one adaptive force, or health over a resistance in defense.

New Shield Bash Rune

On the other hands, we have the Shield Bash Rune is going to be a ton of fun for super tanks with self-shielding like Nautilus, Sion, Shen and more.

Tanks with built-in shields

Nautilus really is the poster child for this rune. Not only does he have a long-lasting shield that will work great with Shield Breaker’s resistance boosts, his shield skill already gives his basic attacks and extra magic damage boost. Add in the root from his passive, and this rune could have Nautilus mains maxing W for maximum dueling potential in lane. Here are other tanks this rune could be good on:

• Nautilus W gives him basic attack damage and a shield.
• Shen Q gives him basic attack damage and a shield via his passive.
• Sion       Huge basic attack stats, W incentivizes him to build health.
• Poppy like Sion, Poppy has great level one AD and can use this to zone enemies out of lane with her passive.

Bruisers who bite

But tanks aren’t the only ones who can have some fun. The question is whether this can make the Resolve tree an option over Domination and Precision. Bruisers who can take this rune will have to build some bonus health, so we’re basically looking at Sterak’s Gage users. Sorry, not sorry, Riven.

• Vi Her passive gives her a shield and her kit relies on basic attacks.
• Jarvan IV W gives him a shield and his basic attacks hurt a ton.
• Urgot His W gives him a shield and is also a massive attack steroid.
• Camille Her passive gives her a shield and she’s got attack resets galore.
• Lee Sin players will need smooth mechanics to land all their stuff. But if you don’t have sick mechanics, why play Lee?

The weird Champions

Unfortunately for assassins, this won’t work on the likes of Ekko and Diana unless their build paths change dramatically. But there are a few wonky champions that it could work on.

• Mordekaiser He can proc his shield in multiple ways, though the shields needs to fully refresh for this rune to work. Could we see the return of Mordekaiser bot lanes?
• Tahm Kench TK’s shield isn’t as useful but he already hurts a ton in the early levels. And this rune replaced Bone Plating, which he usually takes.

Multi-shield comps

The last way that this rune could be broken isn’t on a specific champion, but on team comps that have multiple shielders. The ones casting the shields obviously wouldn’t run the rune, but if paired with tanky champions who are also reliant on basic attacks, this could make for some fun interactions.

Can you imagine something like Orianna mid and Janna support with a jungle Jax and top lane Aatrox? Just throw the shields on those two, who are already difficult to kill in teamfights, and watch them go off.

These huge changes are available now in life game so go and catch all the fun with new Runes System for 2019.