Just compare the previous mastery system from seasons 6 and 7 to today's Runes Reforged system from seasons 7 and 8.
In the masteries alone for season 6 and 7 you were able to make 10 different niche and unique choices to flesh out your options the way you wanted them to. Compare that to Runes Reforged where you only have the choice of 6 runes TOTAL (not including rune shards)
If we compare Old masteries + old runes to Runes Reforged:
Season 6/7 Masteries + Runes:
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10 different choices in masteries with an 18/12 distribution
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4+ choices in Runes (Marks, Seals, Glyphs, Quintessences) and potentially more if you mixed runes
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Total of 14+ choices with more theoretically possible
Runes Reforged:
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6 total choices of runes
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3 total choices of shards
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Total of 9 choices MAXIMUM
We can even take this a step further and compare it to the updated version of the Original Mastery system from Season 5 where you could run a 21/9 distribution or even something super unique that I personally used to do, like a 13/17 distribution or a 14/16 distribution.
Season 5 masteries:
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21/9 distribution gave you 14 choices of masteries
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4+ choices in runes (Marks, Seals, Glyphs, Quintessences)
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Total of 18+ choices with more theoretically possible
Why is less choice a bad thing? Less choices leads to a lack of options in playstyles and strategies due to lack of niche and diverse options that can cater to those strategies. This leads to the entire meta becoming extremely homogenized with the same champions being played in the same roles in the exact same ways. This kills the fun that many players have by doing unique, off-meta things in game.
We used to have so many cool Masteries compared to the few options we have now. We had things like:
Expose Weakness: Your damaging abilities debuff enemies for 3 seconds, increasing the damage they take from allied champions by 3%.
Battle Trance: Grants up to 3% increased damage over 3 seconds when in combat with enemy champions.
Wanderer: Increases champion movement speed by 0.6 / 1.2 / 1.8 / 2.4 / 3% when out of combat.
Assassin: Grants 2% increased damage against enemy champions while no allied champions are nearby.
Siegemaster: Grants 8 armor and 8 magic resistance when near to an allied tower.
Explorer: Grants 15 bonus flat movement speed in brush and river.
Tough Skin: Reduces damage from champion's and monster's basic attacks by 2 after armor reductions.
Fearless Grants 10% (+ 1.5 − 27 (based on level) flat) bonus armor and magic resistance for 2 seconds when damaged by an enemy champion.
Legendary Guardian: Grants 0.6 / 1.2 / 1.8 / 2.4 / 3 bonus armor and magic resistance for each nearby enemy champion.
As well as tons of others. My point is that there's just so few options now. Riot has had this tendency to remove choices where they see that not a lot of people are taking something, but all that does is kill niche strategies when it doesn't hurt them in any way to simply leave those options available as options. In fact, I would argue that it helps the game to leave those lesser-picked options available because then we see more fun, unique, and inventive stuff in game.
