[Kameron8]

The engrave of magnet/illuminated are old levels of hit/evade power.  Engraving razor/elemental is damage efficient compared to normal attacks assuming you don't need the extra 1m (fleur or something equivalent).

Putting two-three rune size 3+ runes around yourself as a rune mage makes melee or close-range engagement suicidal because of rush or swap position.

Waiting out runes doesn't work when they eventually grow to 100+ damage beyblades and 1200 damage AoE bombs.

The soft counters are very specific -- long range bow users with Smasher, a small map and a very angry VA, immunity to the element of the rune, or full on global damage -- and even then they aren't free wins, they just sometimes give the class a hard time.

So yes, in summation:

rune mage