One of the most important aspects of League of Legends is rune selection. It has undergone quite a few changes, but as it is now it seems to be in a good spot. While some prefer the older system, it doesn’t look like Riot has any intention of changing it back. With the current runes in the game, players can select one “Keystone Rune”, which is the most powerful rune selected. While these Keystone Runes have more of an effect on the game, there are also a series of lesser runes to choose from. However, just because they are called “lesser” doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as important. With all of these runes to choose from, it can be difficult to pick just a handful for a champion in any given game. This article will hopefully illuminate these players and give them a few runes that are great for any type of champion. Here, we will discuss five of the lesser runes (one for each tree), what each of them does, and three champions that could take advantage of these runes.

Last Stand

This rune is a part of the Precision tree, which is primarily used for carry-type champions like an ADC or other team fight oriented champions. What Last Stand does isn’t meant for every champion, but it works incredibly well on the champions that can take advantage of it. This rune deals 5% increased damage when you are below 60% max health and can scale up to 11% damage when below 30% max health. Now, this rune seems kind of awkward to want to be at such low health, but here are a few champions that can really abuse it.

Kindred: Kindred is a champion that does fairly well in team fights and has a lot to offer her team with the use of her ultimate (R) ability, Lamb’s Respite. With this ability, she can save her team from certain death in a 5v5 fight and can even make sure they come out on top. By using Last Stand and already being at a low life total, Kindred can make sure that the enemy team is just as low as she is by the time her ultimate expires.

Tryndamere: Tryndamere is one of the best split-pushers in the game. With his high damage and attack speed he can chunk out towers with speed. However, the enemy team won’t always put up for that and may send one of their stronger members to try and keep him at bay. When Tryndamere starts to lose one of these duels, he can easily use his ultimate (R), Undying Rage, to save himself from dying. In this scenario, having Last Stand means that Tryndamere can turn a lost fight into one that was never even close.

Kayle: Kayle is a champion that is almost useless until she reaches her spike at level 11, but once she gets to that point she is nigh impossible to stop. Before her spike, though, she will probably be getting picked off fairly easily. By using her ultimate (R), Divine Judgment, she can freeze her life total low enough that she won’t die, but can take full advantage of what Last Stand has to offer.

Relentless Hunter

The Relentless Hunter rune is part of the Domination tree, which, for the most part, is used by burst champions and assassins. Because of this, the nature of this tree is to take an opponent from 100% health to 0% as fast as possible. However, there are definitely exceptions for what champions want to take this. This rune works off of bounty counters, so each enemy champion can give one bounty counter which gives up to a total of five counters. The benefits from it are that you gain 10 (+9 per bounty stack) of out-of-combat movement speed up to 55. While this rune initially seems innocuous, there are some champions that can certainly abuse this rune.

Lillia: Lillia is one of the newest champions to League of Legends and players are already finding out how powerful she can be. She can be played full damage with items like Rabadon’s Deathcap, to tank with items like Liandry’s Torment, to support by taking Hextech GLP- 800. However you decide to play her, it is obvious that her high movement speed is a characterizing trait. By taking Relentless Hunter and getting stacks from the rune, she can be sure to easily glide from camp to camp even without using her passive movement speed from her Q (Blooming Blows) ability. But with both of them combined, she is a very hard champion to escape from.

Hecarim: This rune is a no-brainer on Hecarim. Because of his passive, Warpath, he deals bonus damage based on movement speed. Players already build items like Dead Man’s Plate on him to top off his damage and adding Relentless Hunter will only increase that. Hecarim won’t get into combat until he has already set up his ghost or E (Devastating Charge) ability, so not using Relentless Hunter to its fullest won't be an issue. With one fell swoop, he can take out any squishy carry he needs to before the buff expires.

Master Yi: Especially at lower elos, Master Yi is a scary champion to play against. With his Q (Alpha Strike) and ultimate (Highlander) abilities, he is hard to catch and can do lethal damage before you can even react. By using this rune on him he can be that much harder to catch. Not only that but if he goes too deep into the enemy jungle and needs an escape, Relentless Hunter can give him the buff before he even gets into combat.

Nimbus Cloak

The Nimbus Cloak rune is a part of the Sorcery tree, which is normally used by mages. However, it has become incredibly powerful with a different type of champion. The power of this rune is no secret, it has already become one of the more used runes for immobile carry-type champions. ADC champions in particular love this rune because they have little way to escape danger or protect themselves from a gank. But this rune completely changes that. Nimbus Cloak is used upon casting a summoner spell and gives you ghosting and 10%-30% (based on the summoner spell cooldown) bonus movement speed for 2.5 seconds. Meaning that these carries can get that extra movement speed needed to escape a deadly enemy.

Jhin: Since his release, Jhin has been a fairly strong champion that sees a large amount of play. However, he does not come without weaknesses. His damage and waveclear are both strong and he even has a bit of crowd control, but his immobility is something that he needs improvement in. By taking Nimbus Cloak, using just one summoner spell can act as using two, decreasing the losses in a bad fight or an overextension.

Vayne: Vayne, unlike Jhin, is a bit more mobile with her Q (Tumble) ability, allowing her to get out of a sticky situation. But, for champions like Vayne, it can go even farther. By using a summoner spell (like Flash) to engage on an enemy, the ghosting can prevent her from being stopped by minions and can even get her over an obstacle an opponent may throw in front of her.

Ashe: Ashe, similar to Jhin, is a fairly immobile champion, while she may have more crowd control in her kit, she is easily defeated by any enemy that can manage to get past her barrage of movement reducing abilities. By taking Nimbus Cloak, however, Ashe can (similar to Jhin) cut down her losses in a fight and can escape from any danger she may be in.

Unflinching

Out of all of the runes on this list, Unflinching is probably one of the most powerful for its class. This rune sits in the Resolve tree, which is primarily used for tanks. While this rune may work best on tanks, it can give a much-needed power boost to any champion that chooses to take it. The rune was recently nerfed, but I found this rune to still put in a lot of work. This rune gives 10% slow resistance and tenacity which increases based on missing health, going all the way up to 30% slow resistance and tenacity at 30% max health of below. So, by taking Unflinching, champions that have any sort of engage can have a much higher likelihood of escaping.

Mundo: While Dr. Mundo doesn’t offer as much as other champions, he still is a champion that is very hard to kill. With his gamut of self-healing abilities as well as his tanky base stats, he can provide a strong frontline for his team. By taking Unflinching, even when he is at low health he can run back into a fight without as much fear of being slowed or crowd controlled by an enemy.

Rakan: As a support, Rakan has some of the strongest engage in the role. With his W (Grand Entrance) and ultimate (The Quickness) abilities, he can jump onto an unsuspecting enemy and have his carry take them out with no issue. However, if he happens to get caught out by crowd control or goes too deep into a fight, Unflinching can get him out of there so that he doesn’t give up a free kill.

Rek’Sai: Rek’Sai is another champion that has strong engage with her ultimate (Void Rush) ability. However, her disengage isn’t as good. Her E (Tunnel) ability only gets her so far and is on a decent cooldown. But while using Unflinching, she can use the tenacity and slow resist to escape enemy crowd control and get back to her team to regroup to finish off a fight.

Future’s Market

The rune Future’s Market is a part of the Inspiration tree. Because of that, it would be assumed that it works best on a support-type champion. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Future’s Market allows champions to enter debt to buy items, up to 145 gold (+5 per minute) plus a 50 gold lending fee. What makes this rune so good is that it allows assassins or early-game champions to get their spike items earlier so they have more time to have an effect on the game.

Talon: As an AD assassin, Talon thrives in the early game, but falls off hard when the late-game comes around. Because of this, getting his spike items (like Umbral Glaive) earlier means he can have a more profound effect on the game. This means that once he gets his core item/s he can make roams to other lanes and give them a lead to work around so that, when Talon falls off, his team won’t.

Ekko: As an AP assassin, people may assume Ekko works similarly to other assassins, but that isn’t true. This is because he doesn’t fall off in the late game. In fact, Ekko isn’t as strong as most assassins are in the early game, meaning that the more items he has the more he can impact the game. Because of this, getting items like Protobelt faster means that he can make a difference in the game early so that he himself can be a carry in the late game.

Akali: Akali is a fairly unique champion in the aspect that she deals a hybrid of AP and AD damage. However, she works similarly to Talon in that she is stronger in the early game, so getting her Hextech Gunblade sooner means that she can defeat her laner with more speed and roam to get other lanes ahead. It is important to know that she does scale better than Talon, so if she gets a big lead she can have a bit more of an impact. Which, again, means that she can become a carry in the mid-to-late stages of the game.

There are plenty more unique and powerful runes to talk about, but these 5 are some of either the strongest runes or some of the more underrated runes. But whatever it may be, the next time you find yourself playing one of the champions on this list, definitely try out these runes for them. Although, it is important to remember that no rune is set in stone, so if you want to try something crazy, go for it! The way to discover new rune paths is to brew and test them, again and again, to see what works. With enough time and effort, you could be the one to define a new meta of gameplay.