The Expansion That Almost KILLED Hearthstone

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Rarran reviews an expansion that caused hearthstone to become a completely different game
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Edited By: ‪@ItsBen321‬
#Hearthstone #Rarran #HS

[@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

[@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

[@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.

[@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?

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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)

[@silva81]

Rarran talking about the game and things is really cool

[@Snipfragueur]

"Naxx out" is a WoW reference first

[@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.

[@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?

[@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...

[@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.

[@drewchafin5480]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@erikvestli6485]

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

[@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?

[@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.

[@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.

[@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

[@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

[@Adramha99]

Goblins vs Gnomes was AWESOME miss those days

[@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. 🤔

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@pacmanpanda9557]

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

[@ExoKiller4]

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

[@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!”

[@gamingmilk829]

I liked listening to you talk about this, maybe do an expansion ranking/tier list one day?

[@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.

[@Xevo234]

I would really like the continuation of these series, like you go through all of hs history, next LoE and then my all time favourite expansion - Whispers of the Old Gods. I started playing after LoE and WotOG was my first expansion and man I was hyped, loved every piece of this expansion

[@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.

[@arise3865]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@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.

[@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.

[@Marc017]

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

[@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

[@Undeadnightmar3]

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

[@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!

[@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.

[@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

[@Arcavi0us]

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

[@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?

[@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.

[@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).

[@NanoLT]

I loved TGT just for the pack purchase music. I don't even remember the expansion I stopped playing, it was after un'goro and the one with jade statues.

[@peterd616]

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

[@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.

[@genesisosuna]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@magicsinglez]

At the Grand Tournament, you win or go home.

[@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

[@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

[@cregkly5444]

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

[@azir8910]

1:31 these old times... nostalgia :D (I play since beta)

[@VoidGui]

The grand tournament was my favorite expansion, i have so much fun playing with secret pally, and it was my first legend rank too.... but yeah, it was a lifechange expansion

[@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

[@psychoinferno4480]

started at year of the phoenix can anyone during naxx era explain how difficult it is to face undertaker? where there not many silence or taunts or removals at that time?

[@renatomedina7033]

The grand tournament is also the first expansion I preordered, the hype was real

[@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

[@Rizz3n]

I really like those Hearthstone year/set reviews. Been there since the beta, but it's still so interesting how Hearthstone has changed over the years.

[@Orbital_Dew]

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

[@thenerdbeast7375]

Its kind of fitting that the Grand Tournament caused HS to fall off a bit when the Argent Tournament was a very controversial patch in WotLK.

[@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

[@WeeweeSensi]

The fact that TGT came to mind even tho I quit HS during Karazan Wow

[@lum_light5840]

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

[@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.

[@denzel4189]

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

[@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.

[@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.

[@nooneatall5612]

I can confirm, as guy who used to play there the grand tournament sucked. I remember cue-ing up against cancerdin, a horrible experience.

[@tiehunterog]

I was playing during TGT release, and it and what happened after are what caused me to stop playing. I spent a bunch on preordering TGT packs and got nothing worth playing followed by the nerf to warsong commander invalidating the only deck I had built and getting 0 dust back for it. I couldn't afford to keep playing at that point.

[@livelife8378]

i can hear "who am i" in my hs nightmares

[@MrKyleA]

I stopped playing for a while after mercs was introduced and now i tried to come back and have no idea what is happening. so many modes that i dont understand and feel like i cant play regular because there are so many cards that i dont know, i cant make a deck. just feels like a chour to make a deck to play with. i did like the borrowed decks but those didnt last long.

[@williamw8590]

I read the title and immediately went 'this is either grand tournament or witchwood' lol, glad to see both name dropped immediately

[@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

[@faketheo3432]

15:27 This guy is called Esfand

[@AbsolDestiny]

i started playing back in the day in the dip between league and old gods

[@JoshSweetvale]

12:00 The actual Expansion Upvote me, fools

[@leta2742]

I remember playing Hs on ipad during Gvg so it was not only a pc game at this time

[@gonzotehclown]

I started Harthstone around the beginning and stopped play a little bit after Grim Patron but before I quit I played almost exclusively Warrior and I to this day have "EVERYONE, GET IN HEEEERE" burned into the back of my brain.

[@CorrosionofConformity444]

My laptop screen has been broken for a year now...I am so wanting to play Hearthstone again!

[@darkgel]

secret Paladin was very fun for me, I got legend from rank 20 in 83 games in 4-5 days

[@Jason0binladen]

I came in at black rock mountain and the card pool was at its peak, it only got worse from there

[@eriksvendsen8851]

Where is the art in the thumbnail from?

[@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

[@sailorhatguy5763]

@@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)

[@WisteriaBerlitz]

I remember Justicar Trueheart making Control Warrior games last forever

[@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.

[@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.

[@luishbersek]

Why Edwin and the others are Warlock cards on the video?

[@ThenewWereWolfGod]

i love these set breakdowns rarran. I don't play hearthstone i just enjoy your content alot so it is cool to see how certain sets or mechanics fundamentally changed the game for better or worse

[@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