There's been a lot of talk about the recent string of 6300 and 4800 champions, but most people are bad at looking at big data sets so I decided to make a couple of plots to visually demonstrate how much IP costs are rising. The plots will be linked to here and also uploaded to the post at the end. A "release" qualifies as an update in which one or more champs were released (there are only two multi-champ releases, the original 40 when the game came out and the update introducing Panth and Gragas). These plots take the recent price drops on Malphite, Morgana and Ryze into account (net change: one additional 450 ip champ, one additional 1350 ip champ, two fewer 3150 ip champs).

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First, a basic plot demonstrating the IP prices of newly released champs, the average IP price of the last few releases, and the total average price of all champions in the game:

http://i.imgur.com/Pcb65.png

Conclusions:
1. The average IP price of all champions has increased fairly consistently (and linearly) since the release of Ezreal, the first new 6300 IP champion.
2. Around the point where the average IP cost increase would have started to slow down a lot (when it hit ~3150 IP champ), Riot introduced the 4800 IP price point, and the average price has continued to increase at more or less its normal rate since then.
3. The current average IP price for a champion is about 3390 IP, so prices are high enough that anytime a 3150 IP champ is released it would actually lower the average price of champions in the game.
4. Total increase in average champion IP price since the launch of the game: ~1190 IP
5. Before the release of Trundle, the average price of recent releases (red line) was hovering around 4800 IP anyway. Since the release of Trundle, the average price of recent releases has hovered somewhere around (very roughly) 5500 IP.

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Second, a plot showing the number of champions at each price point over time. Note: the drop in number of 3150 IP champs near the end was due to the price lowering of of Morgana and Malphite.

http://i.imgur.com/XyAJB.png

Conclusions:
1. The largest concentrated releases of 6300 IP champs have occured after the release of Trundle, with two sprees of three 6300 IP champs in a row.
2. Related, since the release of Trundle and the addition of the 4800 IP price point, the number of champions being released at 3150 IP has dropped drastically (only 1 since Trundle, Karma).
3. There are now more 6300 IP champs than 1350 IP champs, and the number of 6300 IP champs is set to overtake the number of 3150 IP champs within the next few months.
4. Anyone thinking Riot is ever going to release a new champion at 450 or 1350 IP is pretty much insane, but those price points may get filled out a bit more if older champions continue to drop in price (so far 3 have total, all about a month and a half ago).

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BONUS:

INTERESTING quotes:

INTERESTING statistics:

12 most recent champions released before Trundle:
3150 IP: 6
6300 IP: 6

12 most recent champions released after (and including) Trundle:
3150 IP: 1
4800 IP: 3
6300 IP: 8

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Questions?

Yes, this is most obvious on the graph showing the number of champions at each price point.

It's also in the other graph, reflected in the average price of all champions.

The average IP price of champions right now would be 3446 if it weren't for those reductions.

With the reductions it's 3387.

Udyr through Urgot:
1350: 1
3150: 10
6300: 6

Miss Fortune through Vayne:
3150: 4
4800: 3
6300: 11

EDIT: The actual midpoint is Miss Fortune, not Urgot; for those numbers move one 6300 champ from the second group to the first above.

Riot is ignoring this for a reason: they don't care.

I posted the same information (average IP cost of champ going up) with no graphs about a year ago and never got a response from them.

i approve

Interesting. I'm not ready to form an opinion on this yet, but all this data and evidence helps, thank you!

the TL;DR is the graphs. the graphs are incredibly telling, even if you don't bother to read anything else in the post.

It's funny how the 6300 price point started out as the smallest bracket, but it will probably be the largest in just a couple months.

bump

This is pretty stupid on Riot's part.

I honestly think how long they can keep releasing 6300's until it becomes bad business (probably never).

And here's another point. Karma is support and on Guinsoo's Twitter a few days ago he said a new support champion is being play tested.

Sona was 3150
Karma was 3150
<new support> most likely 3150.

Riot is using supports to break the 6300 sprees. Because they know if they release a support at 6300 they'll get hardly anything from it. And with the release of 3150 champions Riot is cowing us to believe they still care.

Riot we want more cheaper champions that aren't support.