League of Legends’ Kleptomancy Rune and the Return of BankPlank

League of Legends’ new Kleptomancy rune already has players thinking about some unique playstyles, and Gangplank mains are seeing dollar signs at the prospect of BankPlank returning.

For those unfamiliar with Kleptomancy what it can do for the orange-eating pirate, the rune is a Keystone option that works similarly to the current Bandit mastery. It causes your next auto attack to grant a bonus 5 gold, but the real kicker is its chance to spawn a consumable item for you as well. While players can hope to get a range of items such as control wards and more gold, mana potions are also back. The rune is currently only on a roughly 2-second cooldown, so for Gangplank, that means more gold, items, and if he can score a mana potion, more frequent Parrrley, which leads to more gold and items and so on.

This will likely remind players of the popular build for Gangplank that became known as “BankPlank.” The build changed over time – Avarice Blade previously being core before its removal and Spellthief’s Edge even finding a spot in the build – but Kleptomancy might be an attractive new option for those sticking to the build.

However, Gangplank still has plenty of other options at his disposal that’ll allow for multiple playstles – but that’s Runes Reforged working as intended. One of Riot Meddler’s goals that he outlined was that there wouldn’t be many runes that certain champion always have to take or should never take, and Gangplank will have several choices within the new runes. Choosing Kleptomancy means giving up Phase Rush, a reimagining of Stormraider’s Surge, as well as other damage-dealing Keystone Runes.

One user on the League boards pointed out that the Kleptomancy rune might become a prime pick for supports, almost a must-have. Meddler said that they’d likely reduce the gold income and give looted item options that wouldn’t benefit supports as much (combat Elixirs) if that happened. When Gangplank was brought up in the same vein, he added that there’d definitely be a trade-off for the pirate.

“In terms of counterplay Runes are fairly reliable, some exceptions, so GP getting gold like that consistently isn’t necessarily inappropriate relative to the other effects he could be getting,” Meddler said. “If needs be though could push more of the power into the items looted again and ensure they’ve got appropriate counterplay (e.g. windows of power).”

Kleptomancy was recently disabled on the PBE to go resolve some issues, but during its testing and after its release, expect to see plenty of creative, loot-riddled builds.