The Expansion That Almost KILLED Hearthstone

[@43bg1]

I think the weakness of TGT also influenced the power creep in Hearthstone. The developers really understood that each new expansion absolutely had to have impactful cards, so you started getting crazier and crazier effects.

[@johnj4471]

Except that has had the opposite effect. We need more tgt and rasta not more of the current idea of one upping everything. It literally shows they have zero creativity if two expansions in a row we had a neutral that was meant to blow up face.

[@555Soupy555]

tgt sucked so fuckin much

[@Apolloshot]

100% agree. I think they tired again with Rastakhan’s Rumble to make a lower power expansion and it also almost completely killed the game, it was TGT but even worse.

[@arnowisp6244]

@@Apolloshot And I heard they were rebalancing the game power level with the upcoming expansion. Sounds like a repeat.

[@turgid4391]

I loved TGT. Everyone else is wrong and the reason for awful power creep

[@Existentialfreebread]

Rarran is slowly becoming an hearthstone history channel and im not gonna complain

[@nathanbienias2761]

Funnily enough. He started off more as a history channel and that's what initially got me here.

[@Existentialfreebread]

@@nathanbienias2761 i didn't know that, i guess it explain why he's so good at it

[@seilamano3974]

Yeah, he did some documentary style, if I recall correctly one of them was about firebat, for example

[@nathanbienias2761]

@@seilamano3974 Yeah it was with the sciency looking frog.

[@KraylebStudios]

As someone who is trying to design a card game with similar mechanics to hearthstone, it actually really helps me because I like talking about game theory

[@Wisdomball]

One of my most clear memories of hearthstone was when I was doing a friendly match with a buddy. I had lethal on board, lethal in hand, and 15 health as jaraxxus. He played Nefarian and got sacrificial pact and blew me up. Loved Black rock Mountain.

[@Insharai]

leggit ran into someone at a bar that played and was excited to play only to run into my full golden wild mage xD

[@frankbenderii322]

Sacrificial impact on jaraxxus is to this day maybe one of the best comeback scenarios ever. Ran dragon priest/pally a lot back then and had that happen on a few occasions.

[@kaykemarlon9238]

Dude, as a guy who plays for fun, I love discover, I can use cards I dont own and won't probably ever own

[@lordmatz3435]

you play hs for fun? wtf

[@kaykemarlon9238]

@@lordmatz3435 yeah, I'm happy

[@nickyates4375]

​@Kayke Marlon Ayo don't mind that dumbass. HS has its peaks and lows, but you can still have fun with it

[@lordmatz3435]

@@kaykemarlon9238 nah dude dont lie to me

[@kaykemarlon9238]

@@lordmatz3435 nah, for real, just got my subscription to a public exam accepted, so now I'm employed and I can play wacky decks that sometimes work or sometimes doesn't, you just gotta live the life you want to live

[@parkerhahaha]

The league of explorers main four characters are so fucking iconic. I mostly play battlegrounds now and seeing them makes me happy and nostalgic

[@sallomon2357]

They were so iconic they ended up being added to WoW. That really means something.

[@Aethryl]

United in stormwind still makes my spleen expand in many painful ways

[@awesomedayz3465]

Came here to say the same. UiS was the worst expansion.

[@youvegoattobekittenme6908]

Was my favorite expansion, super skill expressive meta, with some of the most fun decks being the strongest (garotte rogue & lifesteal dh).

[@N12015]

@@youvegoattobekittenme6908 You are a monster.

[@leonjakobsen272]

@@youvegoattobekittenme6908 it's funny that you say that, because i remember it as exactly the opposite. Quest mage, garrote rogue, and especially quest warlock, are some of my least favorite decks ever. Lifesteal dh was kind of cool, but i basically never ran into it on latter. And then there was the wild meta, which was its own level of shitshow.

[@recusantvessel]

@@youvegoattobekittenme6908 skill expressive like waste to get my OTK first? Is solitaire skill expressive?

[@olivierdurand7557]

The reason why, when Naxx came out in HS, we were spamming in chat "Naxx out" back then, was not because we was excited by the expension but because, back in WoW, the release of the Naxxramas was a mess and much waited :D it's was a WoW meme before the HS meme :)

[@chrayez]

Another factor was how long it was between Curse of Naxxramas’s announcement and its actual release. It was announced 1 month after the full release of the game, but wasn’t released for almost 2 1/2 months after that.

[@Insharai]

I mean the delays on it was still a good meme too lol! I remember being in kripps chat and him getting trolled every half an hour lol!

[@professional.commentator]

Oh wow! I didn't know that. So kind of like the Leeroy meme.

[@tknik]

no. As simply as it is, Naxx expansion was delayed by Blizzard by 2 days ... and people loose their minds. So a lot of them start to troll others on Reddit, or Twitch by saying "naxx out" every hour on these 2 days. There were no reference to Wow or anything.

[@dolod777]

Nobody cares about wow. Thats a separate meme

[@fiskenesvenn4895]

In terms of the amount of players who played the game, the most popular expansion was Knights of the frozen throne. But I remember how much hype there was around the game when TgT came out. The nostalgia is real

[@Insharai]

knights was fun, the hero cards were so cool to play and build around rip my golden jaina xD

[@Xevo234]

and I remember playing from LoE to Ungoro, then I had a break through KoFT, K&C and Witchwood only to return during Boomsday - it was so weird to learn about hero cards during Boomsday

[@mikehazard3945]

I still watch old HS videos, especially WOTOG, LOE

[@professional.commentator]

I thought it was Karazhan? I remember there were a lot of Hearthstone players around that time too.

[@LamunesADV]

I love Frozen Throne. So many viable decks that format, except for Shaman. Shaman had to wait some expansion in the shits till Shudderwock took all the fun.

[@goldfox35]

I remember being in Highscool during the mobile Hearthstone launch and it turned into a lot of people just playing friendly battles during classes and breaks. I think this time was peak Hearthstone for me!

[@khadajhin5130]

Omg, same for me, i remember that half of my friends used to play hearthstone, compare decks and etc

[@jacobluneberg597]

yeah me too, made one of my best friends to this day cuz we were ripping hearthstone during grade 10 english

[@professional.commentator]

Bruh that mobile launch had everybody talking about Hearthstone in my high school! I was already a senior about to graduate, but I remember kids on the bus asking each other's tag name. And then even the teachers were like, "what's this Hearthstone you guys keep talking about?" Good times!

[@rowrowflo]

Bro you unlocked memories thanks m8

[@MollymaukT]

Same here, I think I spent a good 80% of my school breaks of 2015-16 playing Hearthstone

[@silva81]

Rarran talking about the game and things is really cool

[@CalamityVirus]

The random stuff in GvG also made sense thematically in the WoW universe because goblin and gnome engineering items have (had) a random chance to do something else (explode, fail, different effect, teleport you 100 meters into the air)

[@meiswaffle101]

Magic the Gathering had a similar phenomenon in 2003-2005 they release three sets all themed together called “blocks” and a super powerful block was released in the Mirrodin block and that was followed up by an incredibly weak block called Kamigawa. The designers have mentioned that Mirrodin’s power level was a bit of an accident and they were instructed by management not to have any cards nearly as powerful in the new block and that basically killed an entire format in MtG for years

[@cephalosjr.1835]

Mirrodin was bad, but it wasn’t the block that nearly killed the game. That was Urza’s Saga block. Urza’s Saga was originally designed as an enchantment-focused block, but also included powerful artifact synergies like Tolarian Academy, combo enablers like Windfall, and a group of free spells that untapped lands equal to the mana spent to cast them, most notably Time Spiral. This was a huge mistake. The combo deck that formed around Tolarian Academy destroyed all 4 formats, with notable success at the December 1998 Extended Pro Tour (Pro Tour Rome). Wizards saw their mistake and reacted quickly, banning or restricting Tolarian Academy, Windfall, and Stroke of Genius in all formats. It wasn’t enough. New combo decks popped up. Dream Halls, Earthcraft, Fluctuator, Recurring Nightmare. High Tide was especially powerful. Urza’s Legacy released Memory Jar and Tinker, creating a deck that needed to be emergency banned. All of those decks except High Tide were banned, and High Tide was nerfed heavily by the banning of Time Spiral. It wasn’t enough. Urza’s Destiny released Academy Rector and Yawgmoth’s Bargain, and all 4 formats continued to be dominated by combo decks. It would take until the fall of 1999 for the last remaining Combo Winter decks to be banned, which happened at the same time as Yawgmoth’s Will was finally banned. None of these decks were fun to play against. Many weren’t even fun to play. Attendance at tournaments and sales plummeted, and R&D made changes to ensure that such a mistake would never happen again. (It indeed has never happened again.) Legend has it that the R&D team was threatened with losing their jobs if they ever made a block that powerful again. Mirrodin was bad, but it only wrecked Standard and was enabled by lax banning policy. Combo Winter was almost a full year of every format sucking despite multiple banlists.

[@spacedoutgaming7532]

LoE was my intro to Hearthstone, which made me fall in love for the game. The entire year of the Kraken (WotOG, Karazhan, MSoG) + Ungoro was my favourite time with this game - ever. Played every single day for 2 years straight. I miss that time.

[@Ceracio]

Agreed. Gadgetzan was the only "weak" point of the year, and weak is in quotation marks because the issue was quite literally the opposite: everything was too strong. Patches the Pirate and Pirate Warrior in general, which was and remains to this day one of the most frustrating decks to play against that the game has ever seen, Highlander Mage and Priest with Inkmaster Solia, Raza the Chained, Reno Jackson and good ol' Kazakus, and let's not forget the absolute hell that descended upon Hearthstone with the advent of .... *shudder* ... Jade. Un'Goro, especially quests, brought something really fun to Hearthstone that no expansion since has managed to replicate, imo, and for all the good new stuff we get with proper balancing patches, improved rewards and an actually fair battle pass system, I miss the time when Demon Hunter didn't exist. I mean seriously, who thought that giving a hyper-aggro class the best draw in the game (during Nathria I played against an aggro DH who hit fatigue on his turn 10 draw for turn) was going to be a good idea? All this to say: I agree with you. That whole period was peak Hearthstone, and I think that we'll unfortunately never get an experience quite as fun as that year/year-and-a-half, except for maybe, arguably, Dungeon Run in K&C.

[@denzel4189]

I think the main reason why naxx was so good was also because it was the first time we could actually buy S tier cards w/o the RNG from buying packs. That was for me the best thing ever.

[@cfdj43]

Undertaker actually wasn't nerfed due to Apple's policy for app store updates at the time. (basically a month's long approval process) There was a point where they changed how hearthstone was built to allow changes to happen without an update (and eventually Apple abandoned the policy)

[@lolwutizit]

Apple and Google both still have an update approval policy

[@JacobWrestledGod]

@@lolwutizit yes but it’s not as stringent in terms of certain updates anymore

[@TJPesce420]

Damn that's crazy. Following apples policy when you're not even on ios? Das crazy.

[@JacobWrestledGod]

@@TJPesce420 they are! mobile updates were notoriously different and also every update costs admin costs

[@Insharai]

That's actually really cool to know, I know app stores have plagued them for a while due to simply the amount of languages that they have to support...

[@alexanderjamesaustin]

I've mourned the grand tournament since it rotated out of standard. Inspire was such a great mechanic to encourage use of the hero power and it was never touched again

[@Boguinnn]

Lol no inspire was garbage. Either your opponent could kill the minion immediately or you started snowballing. There's a reason most of the inspire cards were bad, because they are near impossible to balance. Team5 has even admitted this themselves.

[@FriendShadow]

They actually did touch it a couple of times after, just without the keyword. Off the top of my head there's the hunter ballista legendary, and I think there were more

[@mrcx6142]

It is by far the worst mechanic ever made, but at least it was interesting.

[@ninjanikstudios2280]

Inspire sucks because the cards that used it suck. On the custom site, there are some really really good inspire cards, and while the mechanic didn’t do great, I think it’s one of my favorite keywords based on its potential to be insane if done right (which obviously didn’t happen in TGT

[@robertpuch8938]

​@@mrcx6142 really saying inspire is worse than overkill?

[@mrcx6142]

3:08 It wasn't my first game, but I agree that Hearthstone was brilliant in the beginning, especially for newcomers in terms of card games. That also has to do with how ridiculously easy it is to learn. Compared to Yugioh, especially younger Yugioh, and magic as well, Hearthstone is ridiculously easy to get into because you basically go from "I have no idea how this card game works" to "Got it, I now understand everything I need to understand in order to properly get involved and even play ranked provided I have the cards" within like a day.

[@fedenicolasacosta509]

Funny that the worst expansion in HS (TGT) introduced us to Justicar Trueheart...which was one of the most beloved cards on the expansion...and ended up leading to another hated expansion such as Witchwood due to the upgraded hero powers :P

[@JacobWrestledGod]

I remembered True Heart giving a great boost to control warrior, truly loved the game then with the upgraded Warrior HP

[@drewchafin5480]

I thought I was too young for nostalgia, but this video hit me in the memories way too hard.

[@Adramha99]

Goblins vs Gnomes was AWESOME miss those days

[@MagnetTheSteven]

Just to summarise it TGT was the pivot expansion because its cards power level was balanced so Blizz decided to go the way of power creeping after that and ruined Hearthstone balance forever Right?

[@christopherIF]

Yes

[@alexisz7]

Yes.Also it was all Ben Brode's fault or am I mistaken?

[@GucciestCuzOutThere]

I played from 2013-2017 free to play and managed to hit legend a couple times. Only time I ever spent money was naxx. I remember grinding so much arena to save up gold for the new adventures and expansions. (700g for one chapter out of five for each adventure wtf) 😂

[@MollymaukT]

I remember I was in high school at the point and it was a matter of honor not using irl money for expansions. Most of us managed to grind through all Naxx and Blackrock and I think the only time someone spent money on it was one guy who bought some packs in his bday

[@argenis9518]

I had a silver hand deck at that moment and I won a lot of games vs my nemesis, the secret paladin. The cool thing is that I made that deck entirely Oh and I did that because I didn't have the mysterious challenger in my collection lol but I enjoyed it so much

[@Snipfragueur]

"Naxx out" is a WoW reference first

[@professional.commentator]

I'm just gonna say that the mid-2010's were like the best years ever mostly because of Hearthstone. Idk why but the vibe was just so good back then. I noticed things started to go downhill in like 2017-ish and ever since then, it's just been plummeting. I don't just mean Hearthstone, I mean like everything. I wonder if things will get better again.

[@erikvestli6485]

Would love to see you keep going with this, talking about the expansions after the grand tournament

[@alexwheatley541]

Man what you’re saying makes sense but I loved the grand tournament. Sure secret paladin was annoying, dropping the best 1 2 3 4 etc drop on curve guaranteed the win almost every time but my little inspire mage deck that I made was so much fun. Seeing my opponent pause to read that 2 mana 2/4 that couldn’t attack unless you inspired it never got old, and when it carried my early games it was just so satisfying. It wasnt a great deck but it was a blast

[@NSACinder]

To add to the undertaker topic. Back then competitive used a King of the Hill format. So if you’re deck won you would use it again and the opponent would select a new one. And whoever beat all the opponents decks won. So a lot of the time both players would just lock Undertaker Hunter and whoever won the mirror would 3-0 the series.

[@Undeadnightmar3]

Grand Tournament was a lot of fun. "Who am I? None of your business." "Stop asking questions." What a time to be alive.

[@JLacan]

Good review. I don't play anymore but it's refreshing nostalgia to see this. Can't believe you neglected to mention My Man Piloted Shredder. Loved that card with a passion. =P

[@darthskixx2263]

Maybe I'm weird, but I liked witchwood :D They added the best keyword there - Rush - which is super important and healthy for the game

[@MagnetTheSteven]

you wish

[@skuty4882]

We got a lot of awesome cards in witchwood, but unfortunately Shuderwock ruined it completely

[@vijaygarv]

@@skuty4882exactly what I was gonna say, the first day was literally all “MY JAWS THAT BITE, MY CLAWS THAT CATCH!”

[@Isabelle-mp8rk]

I feel the reason random stuff is so popular is that it's something that's really hard to do in a physical card game.

[@ruukinen]

Also everyone wants to see what's in the box.

[@SoulAcid1]

Just role a dice. One of the oldest game-ultilities: a cube to determin randomness. Or flip a coin ... you can just add any mechanic, that is not a card. Or you shuffel your deck and the order is random. Randomness is easy for a physical card game.

[@Isabelle-mp8rk]

@@SoulAcid1 ok how do you "add a random spell to your hand" in a physical card game? Do you have a deck full of a copy of each you randomly draw from. And do you do that for every unique type of card you can generate?

[@SoulAcid1]

@@Isabelle-mp8rk I have never written that. But "random stuff" is possible. It was your wording. And yes, you can have a sideboard to do "random stuff", too.

[@professional.commentator]

​@@Isabelle-mp8rk Someone actually tried making a physical version of Hearthstone once. I'll see if I can find the video again.

[@shelbymcelyea4831]

Unfortunately you can't really play on mobile anymore though. The last like three or four patches that made it where you can't load your collection at all. So I can't build decks... And being a truck driver it's a little harder to get a laptop up and running and playing. I would really like to ask a favor and for you to talk to your contacts at Blizzard... Because spending $4,000 on a game and I'm not able to play it on my phone. Kind of makes it sad. I've been playing since release and I haven't been able to play in like 5 months because I just can't load my collection. I can't change cards out or build new decks or anything. I've sent them several support tickets. I've reinstalled the game. I've done everything I can try to do on my end and not a single acknowledgment in my area.

[@christopherIF]

Tried to change the device?

[@shelbymcelyea4831]

@@christopherIF yeah I have a pixel 6 pro and a Samsung s22. My friend who has an iphone 14 also has the same issue.

[@Anhyzer]

Weird. I have never had that kind of issue on my OnePlus phones. 🤔

[@nikospyridis9579]

I started playing in Un'Goro, so I haven't experienced everything in this video. For me, Kobolds and Catacombs was the most impactful set. It really powercreeped the game and noone seemed to complain about it, so they kept on doing it. It was also the first time they did non-minion legendaries which were very well received.

[@juliandacosta6841]

Mean streets did the big powercreep thing first imo

[@kourii]

I mean, the Un'Goro Quests were also non-minion legendaries

[@PKD145]

Playing GvG on my phone during high school was the experience. It was awesome. Seeing Dr. Balanced today just makes me happy. Massive nostalgia trip

[@olhristov]

I'm getting tiered of people confusing google trends with a satisfaction metric. If I am enjoying a game I have all the support sites bookmarked or already showing in quick access.

[@PoLanka65]

You guys wondn't see an elephant even if you had it in front of your eyes. Yes TGT WAS actually the expansion where the game started to go down. I had exactly the same experience as Rarran. I preordered the TGT bundle back in the day, only to found that the cards weren't so great, and after that not a single expansion was as exciting as the first three ones. But the question is, why was that a problem at all? I mean, the playerbase was complaining about the powercreep every single expansion, so they gave the players an expansion with NO powercreep at all. Then, why was everyone so disappointed? The truth is you people don't even like the game. There is no need to "balance" a game that has regular expansions. The expansions THEMSELVES are what balance it. But the players are always complaining and crying because the latest "balancing" was not the "balancing" that they wanted, so they demand for balance over the balance, and then more balance over the other balance. They don't want to play the game, they want to control it. They just want the power to dictate who wins and who loses, and then go on to arbitrarily declare themselves as the champions of the game. Even Rarran here admits that the game was super fun back in the day when they didn't made balances changes, and yet he goes and concludes that what ruined it was the lack of them. 20:55 "Imagine if a lot of these cards were just more powerful". Well, you probably wouldn't had liked them either. TGT was just what the players asked for, the most balanced (and thus unfun) expansion ever.

[@chandlermiller3944]

The year of the Mammoth was the most bonkers year for Hearthstone. I think you could honestly talk about how ridiculously pushed the power level and new mechanics. Quests, Death Knights, and specialty weapons all played a hand in having to tone down the power level of sets afterward due in part to how the design space was centered around single card game plans. Your decks were all built around one card instead of a cohesive synergy. Gen and Baku took that single-card game plan to the most extreme but even before them, the design philosophy was centered around decks focused on a single powerful card. I will say though 2017 and 2018 was a damn good time to be playing hearthstone.

[@fil2662]

what u said made no sense... If you think classic heartstone need no engagement or investement ur out of ur mind I had friend that were playing 8h a day for a whole year and everytime they release new card they could not finish unlocking what was beford without investing money in it.... It was literally hs biggest problem and this is the very reason it never became as big as it could have been...

[@unowno123]

9:17 no, its because you have control over what you get, instead of having "add a random X card to your hand" constantly fail and we forget them because its not fun to get bad cards from random effects

[@exk4]

I remember having loads of fun with Control Warrior in TGT. Justicar Trueheart just made you feel unkillable.

[@getting_smaller]

Man I love the Witchwood. I main Shudderwock in Wild, I loved Lady in White. I love odd and even decks. Calling it the worst hurts my innermost Hearthstone player

[@Marc017]

Funny that you didn't mention the Legendary card for 6 mana that upgraded your hero power

[@kristianfagerstrom7011]

I really, really miss the adventures. These days it's just booster packs in expansions. The adventures was what made Hearthstone expansions exciting for me.

[@ulthii]

I would argue that League of Explorers, despite being widely loved, was a huge issue for the long term health of the game. Introducing Discover (reliable random card generation) essentially lead to the death of the classic Hearthstone experience and the continued path away from minion-based gameplans.

[@Kevmane_the_bird]

100% agree

[@mudkipmilk]

To be honest, classic hearthstone had Miracle rogue Leeroy combo and Druid Savage roar + Force of Nature. I think "Minion combat" is a pipe dream that only exists in Arena.

[@SpeakerTerenus]

​@@mudkipmilk Don't forget how burn-centric Mage was.

[@johnj4471]

Discover literally is why Highlander which was also introduced there is literally overpowered.

[@Xevo234]

dont forget about brann, he was really bad for the future balance of the game, make it so much more difficult

[@arturiaemiya3877]

The idea that hearthstone was someone's first card game makes me feel old because I was already an adult when it came out.

[@Begeru]

I mean, not everyone played Magic, Yugioh, or Pokémon as a kid, regardless of age.

[@arturiaemiya3877]

@@Begeru I suppose it being digital and free made it more accessible, although I knew very few people who never in their life had at least tried one. And I don't just mean pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and magic, you had so many card games getting made in the early 00s that they were hard to avoid. It felt like every company was trying to hit it big with some card game. I think most people had at least one friend who tried to convert them to this or that card game. Not to mention that things like baseball cards were still popular back in the 90s and 00s(not sure about the 2010s or nowadays). Obviously not all, but if you were playing video games in 2013, there was a good chance you had at least tried a card game at some point. Personally the main reason I tried hearthstone in the first place is because I had hoped it was like the WoW TCG.

[@pacmanpanda9557]

That was prolly my favourite year in hearthstone I didn’t play too much but have fond memories of witchwood, rastakans, boombsday, catacombs

[@TreeFugger]

Baku and Genn were mistakes Honestly I can't believe you only talked about Baku, Genn is way more of a menace in wild

[@Skullhawk13]

Historically Odd decks were more impactful. Even shaman and warlock were the only ones that made Even a threat for a long time and now you can add death knight. For odd, It had hunter, mage, Paladin, warrior, Rogue, Demon hunter all as competitive decks for big stretches of time. Even hunter and Paladin had a small splash but questlines were better than both now. Odd decks are on a decline now but the only classes that never really had an even or odd deck function were priest and druid. Both are extremely good. They weren’t targeted to rotate early for power though. They were targeted for consistency issues. Matches felt too samey

[@SoulBro12]

@@Skullhawk13 My first decks that helped me see some success were Odd Rogue and Odd Paladin, one of the reasons why they saw a lot of play is that you really only needed one legendary to have a reasonable chance to compete, though, Even decks are more value oriented with the cards they provided so they tend to be more on the expensive side. (I quit around Dalaran Heist cause burnout)

[@benjiusofficial]

4:58 The assertion that adding cards changes necessarily adds power creep is incorrect. Complexity and Power are tangent to each other and if draw complexity out by adding obfuscations of previous mechanics (or start with them) you could create expansions with permutations of those mechanics whose design space could spiral near infinitely without treading the same ground. MTG is experiencing this (partially; it's not perfectly designed so there has been alot of power creep in recent years) and has been skirting around power creep by making alternate modalities that collapse to base mechanics since... well, since Urza's or maybe Masques

[@KraylebStudios]

When people think of "the worst expansion" they always seem to think of expansions with very low winrates as opposed to cards that made everything unfun to play again

[@realpongking]

I joined after Grand Tournament too. I didnt feel like I lagged behind too. Grim Patron, Freeze Mage, Reynad's Beast Hunter comeback. What a great time.

[@gosha305]

I honestly don't understand what the point he's trying to make here is. Like, besides being bad and overhyped, what did TGT itself do that fundamentally impacted the game in the long run?

[@christopherIF]

Make paying customers pissed off for the first time

[@arise3865]

20:13 the classic Dr. 6 into Dr. 7 into Dr. 8 play XD

[@dominequemccool2359]

Haven't watched it yet, but it's either going to be about un guro or league of explorers for introducing discovery or goblin vs gnomes I think it was that introduced a decent amount of rng with things like the shredders and sneeds. Those changed the game fundamentally I think. Edit: after watching the video, grand tournament is way more impactful than I thought. I would love a video where you talk about the most impactful decks, like the undertaker one. Some more examples might be Baku and genn decks, shudderwock, first quest rogue

[@petrie911]

League of Explorers introduced discover, actually.

[@dominequemccool2359]

@@petrie911 thanks I couldn't remember. I only started playing when death knights came out

[@Begeru]

I don’t get what was impactful about TGT at all. In fact I don’t understand this video’s point.

[@carbon6111]

@@Begeru Basically, Blizz learned that people are very happy to throw money at them so they made sure that each expansion is stronger than the last one, leading to huge power creep.

[@presidentmaniac2123]

Lesson Learned: Never Pre-Order

[@TheWarick]

Not sure why but the advertisements near the end of the video once I skipped them it said the video was over. Had to rewind to get the last 2ish minutes. Glad I did too cause I wasn't satisfied with the none ending. Another awesome video. Looking forward to what is next for Rarran once the new set comes out.

[@erithanabonngrace4695]

It's funny such an impactful set was themed after an equally impactful raid in WoW. For those that don't remember; the trial of the crusader/TotGC was the end of when Blizzard made entirely separate gear sets for different raid sizes/difficulties. Instead opting to add additional text and stats where appropriate. It may sound small, but putting variable stats on raid gear opened the door to the warforged/titanforged system in later expansions that made the game into an infinite grind. Before then you would set your sights on a particular drop, farm for it, get hyped when it finally dropped, then move on. After those systems were added, it meant you would always be farming for a higher level version of the exact same gear every reset, fighting against ever increasing layers of RNG to stay competitive, it turned the game into a job.

[@octorok]

Wow, he completely ignored Goblin Shredder in GvG. Wasn't that an auto-include in almost every deck, or am I just misremembering how ubiquitous it was?

[@calebbarnhouse496]

It was everywhere, to the point people would assume if you didn't have it in your deck, it was because you didn't own it

[@momchilhlebarov289]

I don't agree with Rarran here. The fact the he personally hates the Grand Tournament doesn't mean it is the worst expansion. If we talk about "going in the wrong RNG direction" then GvG was the worst one with Shredder and Boom. If we talk about completely killing the game Shitterwock or Shitterwood was the sole reason i left this game years ago. Justicar brought life to Priest and Warrior, before that it was all aggro no IQ smorc. So no, TGT was a good expansion and way better than others. Top 3 for sure for me.

[@icekiller1594]

Oh man I just saw Flame Leviathan when you pulled up the cards lol, god that brings back memories of winning with that card and my opponents being so dumbfounded lmao. I played this game for like 7 years before I stopped but man was it fun while it lasted

[@timbawden2577]

Funny as soon as you asked the question about the worst expac i thought the grand tournament, but my opinion was formed by how low impact most the set was so im curious to see the rest of the analysis

[@Begeru]

Sorry I don’t understand how it was the most important set. What was the thesis here? You never explained it. What did it change?

[@JoshSweetvale]

12:00 The actual Expansion Upvote me, fools

[@micfijasan217]

This hits my nostalgia hard. I started Hearthstone right around the TGT card reveals. Fortunately I didn't have to deal with the weak releases too much as I was too busy farming casual and arena to get the gold to buy Naxx and build the 0-dust decklists I found on hearthstoneplayers (who remembers that site?). And while it didn't work out in constructed, sticking an inspire card in arena was often game-determining. Also, this was the set that laid the groundwork for Shamanstone that came the following year, with powerful cards like Totem Golem (2 mana 3/4 was nuts at the time) and Tuskarr Totemic (eventually nerfed) being released since Shaman was basically unplayable as a class around this time. And despite these it was still bad throughout TGT.

[@EddieUsedYawn]

Hearthstone on my iphone is the only reason I am playing this game to this day. Got it on the day it came out for it and instantly fell in love. I had a garbage pc for many years and couldnt run it so I played on the phone for a LONG time. Some great memories.

[@Arcavi0us]

GTG Murloc Paladin will always be my favourite deck, first deck I got into Legend with.

[@anthonyrodriguez9232]

Im gonna put some thoughts into this as well. All my life ive played card games from MTG to Yugioh, to Digimon and FnB, of course with that I played Hearthstone up until the end of the frozen throne. For me personally, I ended up leaving the game because it started to feel like it was way to casual minded compared to the competitiveness that I was use to. I know that a lot of people don't like the extreme complexity of other card games but what gives them their staying power is that complexity and the fact that most of the time (variance is a thing lets not lie to ourselves even in paper card games) the better player will always win and will win with the cards they brought to the table. Hearthstone started to fall off super hard for me due to the fact that not only did it not ever fully reach the complexity to sustain my fried competitive gamer brain, but also because it just doesn't feel good to lose to your opponent randomly getting lucky, even if you have outplayed them even in the smallest margin of the .5 or 1%s. But thats why I quit and I would like others inputs on why they left or why they stayed if I could.

[@genesisosuna]

I can't believe this was 8+ years ago. Time flies.

[@Pesslus]

I think Rarran is really good at explaining how things used to be and what impact they had. So that even the people that didn't play at the time understand how broken some things were. Very good video! Like!

[@UgandalfTheBrown]

How the fuck does this guy compare Grim Patron to Nefarian Also Dr. Boom only gets a footnote despite being the most valuable card for years to come?

[@heartlessmushroom]

I got into Hearthstone during Whispers of The Old Gods and left shortly before Rise of Dragons after a combination of being punished for being f2p, frustration at control warrior in ladder (EVEN OUTSIDE OF RANKED) and the awful Blitzchung controversy. It is always interesting to hear how the game is like before I arrived. I may have missed "the glory days" of Blackrock Mountain and LEague of Explorers but I still have very VERY fond memories of Old Gods, Rise of Shadows and Saviors of Uldum in particular, specially the STELLAR singleplayer roguelikes they released with the latter two. They were so full of interesting mechanics, it felt amazing to get to play cards I could not play either because they had rotated out or were too expensive (sometimes both), and just had so much charm and character. Even if it wasn't for all the reasons I quit, Rise of Dragons' take would not have drawn my attention seeing how they changed how that expansion's adventure worked from what I hear.

[@bklothis5502]

Hey Rarran, love this video! I found your channel through your video essays and I have been missing them recently. I know you said on a stream they probably won't be coming back which is fine. But this video kind of gave me the same feeling. I know this isn't the same thing but I love hearing you talk about the game. Hope to see more

[@sebastianwesterlund8777]

TGT was the first and only expansion I preordered. Also finally crafted a patron warrior deck like a week before the nerfs hit. Needless to say I vibe with the message of this video haha

[@Orbital_Dew]

19:08 yeah .... i remember opening "icehowl" three times from my preorder packs

[@spylooo]

I don't agree, like at all. There is a reason the game is so unpopular now, and that is because the power level is waaaaaaay to high. The power level of TGT was good. It was fun.

[@Ollowayn]

Love these "documentry-type" videos. I also hope the new expansion wont lead to a similiar decline.

[@doomninja1]

I liked witch wood, it was based on a setting that I personally really enjoy, I love that fairy tale grim theme.

[@aidanwow1593]

TGT being based off of one of the least popular WoW raids in Trial of the Crusader didn't help much either.

[@denzel4189]

brooo grand tourney was fucking lit, it's after grand tourney that everyone left

[@Narokkurai]

The thing that sticks out to me about GvG, is that it was a great showcase of what made Hearthstone different from other card games. Almost no other card game was even *able* to integrate that much randomness into its systems. Can you imagine how much of a pain in the *ass* it would be to print Unstable Portal as a Magic card? GvG was an infuriating and imbalanced expansion, but it was a valuable experiment for Hearthstone's developers--and kind of the card gaming world at large--to understand the benefits and limitations of randomness in a card game.

[@zZsolidZz]

Ah you brought some PTSD back by mentioning Mysterious Challenger. These memories have dwelt in the dark. Good old turn 6 into 5 secrets into concede.

[@glacen]

Nice video with good talking points. I'm personally of the opinion that it wasn't so much the expansions that killed hearthstone or changed it massively, so much as the attitude of the developers and balance team. HS had one advantage over every other card game at the time, it was 100% digital. They could change and balance cards on the fly, refund players for the costs of the cards, adjust things where necessary but they refused. Even when the community both casual and competitive kept pleading with them to change just ONE card so the metagame would be more diverse, they refused. By TGT many of us long term or invested players had become tired of blizzards lazy/slow attitude to balancing the game. This also started to leak to the casual player base as certain deck archetypes were like 70% of the metagame even at casual levels. Mix in the TGT being weak af and ANOTHER stale metagame dominated by one or two deck archetypes and people had enough. The long term players grew bored and were less invested, new players just left and player retention hit an all time low. All in all, the developers decision to not take advantage of Hearthstones one advantage of being a digital card game, ultimately killed it imo.

[@d_a_r_ii]

One of my favourite expansions was Scholomance academy. It introduced a lot of interesting cards and archetypes. Every class was playable: Soul DH, Beast Druid (token druid was always along), Libram Paladin (both pure and not pure versions), Face Hunter (always was alive until core set release), Totem/Evolve shamans (2 really annoying weapons in my memory: Qatar and Splitting Axe), Pain Warlock, Control Warrior (mostly bomb variations), SPD Mage, Miracle Priest, Miracle and Weapon Rogues, and no DK (really miss that).

[@michaeld8705]

Rarran is the creator that change HS forever

[@IamMrSimQn]

I remembered having to sideload the android tablet apk for hearthstone back in the day to play on my phone. Because it released waaaay earlier for tablets than the official phone app. And the day they dropped the real mobile version was truly shocking.

[@cregkly5444]

This was a great trip down memory lane. I don't play the game anymore, but really enjoy this type of content

[@TheEagleEyeValor]

I was surprised TGT wasn’t considered the worst expansion as well. At the time, I remember a lot of the cards to be super underwhelming with the exception of a few MEGA powerful cards. Witchwood I remember as the game mode where there where quite a few Uber broken decks that were reeeeeeally fun to play. And even when you were on the losing end, it never felt as fucking oppressive as Jade Druid. I LOVE control and I remember when I queued into Jade Druid as control it was an automatic concede.

[@bogdanstan5792]

Emperror Thaurissan would be a core card in so many decks even today, such a good card, as a standard only player, I miss it so much

[@lum_light5840]

Rarran yells into his mic so much that it hurts my head.

[@AaronMichaelLong]

I hate to break it to you, but just because you have a trend line for a game does not mean that it means anything. That teardrop graph with the long tail, that's the trend line for every game franchise which ever succeeded. Plug in 'Destiny' or 'Guild Wars 2' or 'Path of Exile' and you'll find a similarly shaped trend-line, replete with spikes and trougths and a long tail of people hanging on and eventually getting bored, until the game recedes into irrelevance. Was TGT the worst expansion? Maybe. But maybe it was just the *most hyped*. Maybe that was when Blizzard spent the most on KZbin ads and Adsense, and without that burst of astroturf relevance, you've just got the ordinary garden variety lifecycle of a moderately successful entertainment product.

[@yiyueji]

Awww the memories. I remember Priests suddenly shot up in popularity cause it was the only class that can completely ruin a Grim Patron Warrior's day. They ran like 6 board clears that no other classes can compete with. The entire meta warpped around "pile it on" and Priest was the best class to counter it.

[@puglyfe1]

take a shot everytime rarran says “fundamentally”

[@ralicescobar2074]

I came into this game sometime after the Grand Tournament released. Have taken a couple of multi-month breaks, but I've really enjoyed it over the years.

[@CubeFace69]

12:55 this clip will never escape me...

[@peterd616]

The Grand Tournament was fantastic in arena though. Inspire was a mechanic that worked super well in that format.

[@7raziel7]

I still can't believe how a 1/1 broke the whole meta

[@thefaintsmilesanctuary1618]

It's funny that the Grand Tournament was when I called it quits in Hearthstone. I was a Priest main and they were so bad for so long. TGT didn't help and got tired of playing a weak class against skill-less decks. Should've waited, I heard Priest got much better later

[@magicsinglez]

At the Grand Tournament, you win or go home.

[@demoral3030]

I remember ramming Sneed's shredder into opponent's minion and getting Mal ganis and opponent instantly forfeiting the match. Good times.

[@kevinkruse88]

there were two expansions that changed my HS patterns. Saviors of Uldum was the set that I got a decent amount of packs ( I thnk I won a contest that gave the order bonus) and since that point I was able to save gold for each exp as soon as the next one droped. now I think i have 5500 gold and about 25 packs ready to open for the next exp. without buying anything . The second was the introduction of wild, and having all those classic legendaries like Sylvanis, Azure drake and maybe Rag? rotate I got so much dust that i was able to craft a few legendaries if i needed em. I thnk since the beta Ive spent 20 bucks, overall. remember when they were called Expert packs.