I remember someone reporting a 3% winrate with suicide warlock on standard like a year ago. If a deck designed to kill itself wins 3% of the time, the basic cards deck will eventually win.
I don't think that was ever true, though. The only time yeti was actually OP was when druid ramped it out, and to point out the obvious, it was the on-curve ramp that's OP rather than a vanilla 4/5 for 4. There were quite a few metas where I even preferred Senjin Shieldmasta in that slot anyway, because the worse stats matter less when you're ramping anyway and taunt was often pretty important for not dying.
It's no secret that the power level of new expansion cards are INSANE to the point that a lot of uncommons and rares are better than a lot of core legendaries.. but, many core cards had to be nerfed and would have, in their unnerfed states, fit right in with today's cards... Get your ish together blizz
Just like with Yu-Gi-Oh, the very first set has both some of the most broken and most useless cards, Shadowstep, Wild Growth, Innervate, Equality, Warsong Commander whom was nerfes twice.
@@molenini i would also never dissenchant malygos, tirion or antonidas. the first csn do nutty stuff in wild with shaman and rogue. the rest sentimental value
@@okisemporium Early Yugioh sets were 99% absolute trash. It was basically just some ridiculously generic spells/traps that just instantly change who is winning the game and a tiny handful of monsters that are played once in a blue-moon. Then just useless bodies while you wait for your broken spells/traps.
Y'all laughing at boulderfist ogre, but when Hearthstone first launched that card was scary. It wasn't super powerful, but a vanilla 6/7 was a real threat when good removal was few and far in between.
Taking Goldshire Footman, Wolfrider, Reckless Rocketeer, and Boulderfist Ogre into a matches against Tamsin and Guff... Video instantly liked on my behalf you mad man.
It's crazy how much removal and healing added into the Game, back then you were actually able to stick an ogor for more than one turn, and chipping your opponent down over the course of the game.
In arena, maybe. Even in classic hearthstone the power of meta decks is too high for ogre to see play. That being said, yes, removal has reached truly grotesque and unfun levels in wild and standard.
@@Zwijger In budget decks, maybe. Back then dust and packs were a lot harder to aquire for free. But look at classic mode nowadays. I play it regularly and haven't seen ogre. Not even once.
@@ich3730 Classic meta nowadays is a bit different than before. Rogue, warrior, druid and warlock are almost unchanged. The other classes however have fundamentally new decks to cope with the meta and especially rogue. Hunter for example is most effective when played in a control style with some pirates sprinkled in. This is a fundamentally different style than the aggro and midrange variants that were popular in 2014. Same goes for shaman. Paladin was played competitively as a control deck but currently the best lists are aggro oriented.
I played Hearthstone pretty early on in its life and these starter cards are ones I know very well. At some point a couple years after the game’s launch, like after Goblins vs. Gnomes, I stopped playing. I keep coming back for a couple months every year or so, and each time the game seems so much unlike how I remember it. All the old cards I learned aren’t used, the feel of the game is different, there’s so much power creep, and everything is so much more complicated. Watching this video and seeing these old cards reminds me how simple Hearthstone was, and how much I appreciated it. Now all the low-cost simple cards do just as much or more than the old school legendary minions. (Side note: legendary cards used to feel special in classic HS and now they hand them out like it’s nothing) Idk, just feels like a different game. It seems like it can still be fun, but you have to keep up with it if you want to have an accurate understanding of what cards are good/bad, and how you can actually play the game.
@@carveking I know you're joking, because by today's standards it's nothing, but back in the early days, it really was just a bit too good. They could easily reverse the nerf now and it still wouldn't be played, but back then, it was actually pretty good.
Back in 2015ish, i beat a face hunter at rank 4 with a basic paladin deck and it was the top post on the hearthstone subreddit for nearly a week 😂… it was absolutely crazy
Part of what chased me away from hearthstone was how they kept removing cards from the basic set! The few good ones that were in there (Ragnaros, Sylvanus, azure drakes, etc.) were removed so they could power creep even harder and force us to need even MORE new cards with every new set. I gave up on the game when dailies were no longer enough to keep current decks in even 3 classes.
and now you need 2-3 daily quests to get a measily 75 gold, if it's not a useless (uncraftable!!) gold promo or an arena ticket. If i can't get a pack with 3 days worth of quests, what is the free to play progression supposed to look like dear blizzard?
@@Link6817 mercenaries requires a lot of farm, but you can get everything by just farming, which you can't say about the main game mode. I'd argue regular hearthstone is more of a gatcha than mercenaries.
To be fair with War Golem, you could intimidate the opponent so much that they'd promptly concede when you follow it up with two wisps after playing it. War Golem was the G, man.
I thought this was going to be a 1-hour long video celebrating Silverback Patriarch, to redeem what the Hearthstone team put him through, but instead he got just a mention? He never catches a break!
As someone who has lost track of the expansions years ago, the basic deck is really all I have left to use. This is the exact reason I have been unable to play the game until now. Crawling your way back up to a 50% winrate with cards that are objectively 1-3 mana worse than anything your opponent has is such a nuisance, and if you keep losing you won't earn any cards. It's an endless cycle designed to make you cave in and buy card packs, I hate it.
Reckless rocketeer, core hound, ironbark protector - nostalgic cards from the very beginning of my hearthstone days. They were also the best days, when I didn't know anything and just had fun playing big minions
But the basic set had the EXTREMELY overpowered Silverback Patriarch! When a Teacher's Pet died, and you saw Silverback Patriarch come out, you just looked at your opponent and said "I have a SILVERBACK PATRIARCH! This game is over and we both know it!
There are players that reached legend with only basics for several expansions. It wasn't really that bad at release, many cards were really good and actually got nerfed, such as Shattered Sun Cleric which was a 3/3. Many class cards were absolutely ridiculous too, like Innervate and Preparation. Sure there were some poopy cards and Priest had total garbage, but overall it was not a weak set. It was in fact a frequent concern that decks included too many basic cards and didn't change enough for several years. The Freeze Mage deck for example was almost 100% basic cards, as was Control Warrior and Ramp Druid.
You seem to be confusing the basic set with the classic set. Control warrior and ramp druid did use a lot of classic cards, but not that many basic cards if I recall correctly. Preparation was an epic.
Whirlwind, Execute, Fiery War Axe and Shield Block were all staples in Control Warrior, and others were common like Kor'kron Elite, Acidic Swamp Ooze and Sen'jin Shieldmasta.
I had been falling off for a while until I fully quit hearthstone during the reveal season for descent of dragons. I remember feeling like the power creep was huge and I just wasn’t interested in keeping up. Seeing cards like the demon hunter stuff or all of United in Stormwind really shows how nuts they’ve been making the powerlevel.
People didn't have Apollo's gift of foresight. Solemn Judgement was rarely played back then, even though it's one of the best trap cards ever designed.
Update : I just lost to a toons with kaiser colloseum+comic book my Apollousa. The nature of yugioh is wack and everything and everyone can beat each other not even meta deck can give you a perfect win streak.
@@r3zaful skill drain and imperial order are just designed to lock you out of playing the game, and they've locked people out of playing the game for ages
@@megaagentj2248 i felt that konami wants their players to have the mindset "if you play slow deck play floodgates, if you play combo play board breaker" Just like my case with that toon deck above, i just felt that master duel give you enough tools so everyone can beat everyone.
It’s always fun to build a full basic set deck and play with a friend, it’s sure as hell not high power but it’s nostalgic for somebody like me who got into the game playing a lot of games like this
It would be interesting if in some expansion, or a mini-set they revisited some of these old cards and created spiritual successors to them or just straight up rebalanced them... look I just want 2 mana 3/3 River Crocolisk.
I remember the first time I was really put off by what Blizzard was doing with Hearthstone was whenever they added a straight upgrade to one of the basic cards. The Evil Heckler from Grand Tournament was a Booty Bay Bodyguard but one mana less. At that point I was like "Are we really going to do this Blizzard?". Today I don't even know if I was right to be put off by power creep but at the time I felt real bad about it.
Far and away the thing i want to see most is a huge buff to all the old shitty cards. Like go through and buff so much stuff. Not to be broken but to have a purpose. Like if its a cool card but it never sees play just drop the cost by 1 or 2 and let it ride.
I decided to give Elise a run in turbo draw Druid despite knowing its reputation and despite getting monke onto board through the sheer dumb luck of dredging to see if it was there first and finding it, I got my butt handed to me by Fires of Zin'shaari or whatever it's called... And I suspect my opponent gave me some extra turns on purpose just to see if I was going to pull it off. That card is so slow and terrible when it could be tremendously cool, so I guess it's Faelin time instead since I opened him in my last pack
I feel like Wildheart Guff is a really good example of how ridiculous the power creep is. Back in the day, 5 mana could get you a decent spell/minion or two. But with Guff, 5 mana gets you armor, draw power, and the ability to get a giant pile of mana really quickly and drop down multiple huge cards before the enemy would even be able to coin into one similarly big card
Back in the Grand Tournament, you had to use Warlock class cards (back when their burst consisted of a lot of mandatory discard and PO) AND find and play Justicar Trueheart just to get one half of Guff's hero power. Heck, Dreadlich Tamsin costs the same amount as Justicar yet it does a million more things when played _including giving the warlock a hero power better than Justicar's_ .
I mean, some legendaries have been power crept to the point of literally losing when puting them next to a comperable common card. The 9 Mana 5/9 taunt untargetable or the 7 Mana 7/7 taunt untargetable with dragon type. I sometimes consider conceeding to players I see using the basic cards, because I stomp them to the point of feeling bad about it. I remember how rough the early slog for cards was, and I imagine it's only worse now, with the rewards track making gold more scarce, and it being damn near impossible to win with those cards, since they have become so much worse
@@ich3730 my thinking was rather than getting a pack more or less every day with a quest, you may need 2/3 days of quests for enough gold for a pack. Though if budget decks take less dust that they did before that helps immensely
I have not played the game since 3 years and when I watch games it feels like cards are doing so much things. Old sets was not that good but that was so fun to play old HS
Has anyone ever experienced a game against Druid in the last time where your opponent was not able to play Overgrowth early, Guff turn 5 and then Scale of Onyxia after that?? It works EVERY single time and your board is gone and then the Mana Party goes on and on.
2:27 I'd like to point Shattered Sun Cleric used to be a 3/3 for most of the time it was played. Dark Iron Dwarf also got nerfed from giving permanent +2 to just a single turn effect which used to be Abusive Sargeant's gimmick, I say used to be because Abusive Sargeant was actually a really potent way for priest to deal with 4 attack minions since it could target enemies to push them into Power Word Death range. Novice Engineer was a no brainer include when she was a 1/2 minion until the common rarity Loot Hoarder took over hardcore after her nerf, and Acolyte of Pain and Kodos began to prop up more and more. Those aren't all basic cards but the cards that were the easiest to play with were the commons and multipurpose rares for the new players, so it hurt the extra bit when cards like Ancient of Lore, a class specific Epic got nerfed, or Blade Flurry, a core Rare on every rogue deck, gets destroyed. Decks like Handlock were full of epics that were specific to it and if you were a f2p player you wouldn't wanna invest so hard into one deck.
@@Tpoleful Core Hound was definitely the worse card but it had beast synergy so I at least remember it from randomly generated beasts. Never played arena and there was just no reason to put War Golem into any normal decks.
They were not "weak" some were Hearthstone just did massive powercreep to force people to buy new expansions to not be heavily disadvantaged on the ladder
precisely the reason i had quit like 4 years ago. to drop an AAA video game amount of cash to get random amount of a fraction of content... shit deal, just shit deal.
Booty Bay Bouncer was actually a pretty interesting tech card in the base set mirror match, because it could trade with Sen'jin Shieldmasta as well as go 1 for 1 with Lord of the Arena, which was also a very commonly used taunt minion.
As someone who played back then - nobody past rank 15 used booty bay bodyguard or lord of the arena. They just had too bad stats for their cost, and no: trading favorably against senjin while costing 1 extra mana is not good enough to justify it because it trades poorly in every other situation. Your basic deck would be ooze, crocalisc, raptor shattered sun cleric, grizzly, yeti, senjin, ogre. Maybe with frostwolf warlord and stormwind champion (for paladin and shaman) or gurubashi (for priest and mage). Maybe elven archer as a tech against aggro. The rest of the deck would be class cards (ie: cards that are actually good).
@@randomstrategy7679 None of these are 5 Mana doe. (Except for Frostwolf for Paly / sham) And that was exactly the point i was trying to make when i said it was a tech card, you would only play Booty Bay Bouncer when there wasn't anything better to play. Also technically there wasn't anything to stop somebody from playing both Ogre and Lord of the Arena, especially if your deck didn't struggle at clearing(/controlling) early to mid game boards. I just remember seeing Lord of the Arena quite regularly (if not i wouldn't even remember lol), and i didn't even play Arena Mode (just very few, but i watched ALOT of Kripps arena videos), so i'm not 100% confident on this; in which you would be even more likely to see it, because decent taunt minions were very rare, so people would often pick it up. But maybe our experiences just differ.
@@randomstrategy7679 I forgot to explain why somebody would play both Boulderfist Ogre and Lord of the Arena, the answer is rather simple; War Golem. I'd wager for almost everybody, War Golem -was- *_is_ considered the worst card in the game. And not every class was really able to make anything off Stormwind Champions Minion buffing aura, so they would rather prefer having extra taunt for less Mana.
@@Element_Doom Maybe you stayed at low rank then, but I assure you, it wasn't viable at all. I reached around rank 5 and the main threats from classic all dealt 4 damage, which means 4 health minions were really bad (and why 5 health minions like yeti or senjin were some of the best). With 4 health, you trade 1 for 1 with a single abusive sergeant from zoo (that's 1 mana to remove your 5 mana minion, that's just game-losingly bad), it also trades for a shattered sun clerix (3 mana to remove your 5 mana minion), it trades for half a truesilver champion (4 mana to remove two of them). It dies to flamestrike (which dealt 4 damage back then). It dies to swipe. If you played booty bay bodyguard you would just end up behind because the opponent would simply spend less mana to remove it. Booty Bay bodyguard was so bad that I remember that yeti + float 1 mana was still a better 5-drop than booty-bay bodyguard. Lord of the Arena was admitedly better than Booty Bay (mostly because it avoided the 4 health sour spot where everything kills it for extremely cheap) but even so, with 5 health, it would still costs less than 6 mana to kill it which meant that you would still end up behind if you played it most of the time. And it lost pretty hard to ogre at the same mana cost (the opponent would left with a 6/1 after trade)
Tbf even back then 90% of basic neutrals werent played unless they were stated or had charge. Now every card needs to be curved stats ie 3 mana 3/4 +effect to be played.
Taunt back then was much better than it is now, because there was so much less options to silence or destroy them with spells, and also way less options to deal damage to face beyond a taunt. However Sen'Jin Shieldmasta was just so much better than all other taunt minions and you rarely needed a taunt before turn 4 anyway, so it kinda made all the other taunts obsolete.
I think if you would try a zoo type deck with some charge minions and the ability to keep drawing cards with warlock's hero power, you could steal a win at some point.
It's funny to think Druid can have a whole deck of minions, and with just Brann and the 7/7/7 guy that double every stats of every minions in your deck, the druid can pretty much become invincible with his infinite healing.
What you're referring to isn't power creep because most cards you mentioned are very different. Power creep means, that a certain card gets a direct upgrade, for example same stats, same effect but costs less mana.
I noticed that some of the early hearthstone cards were based on and is sometimes 1 to 1 copies of the old Warcraft card game's cards. Quite s different pace nowadays compared to there original time.
Before Hearthstone even had deck copying capabilities and you had to manually create all decks (and netdecking was way rarer!), I remember a website with a F2P guide which would give you a basic set deck for all classes. And I remember some of the decks were REALLY legit. That was circa Old Gods if I'm not mistaken.
1:51 River Crocolisk compared to the cards you've shown; What if it's your opponents turn, they have only two health, and also has "The Black Knight", and "Hungry Crab" in their hand? River Croc would be the best card to have on your side of the field here from the four cards you've chosen!
My boy River Crocolisk doesn't need an F. He has his uses- and I always put him in my decks in case this very specific and rare scenario ever comes up!
You say that Mage had the best Basic set, but it was actually Druid before their Basic+Classic core was nerfed hard. Innervate, Wild Groth, Savage Roar and Swipe all saw heavy, heavy play during the early years of HS.
To this day Reckless Rocketeer looks like some kind of bird creature to me. It took me like a year of arena to realize it was, in fact, a goblin. Anyways, power creep sadge.
It's not that old cards were bad. New cards are just more and more powerfull casue blizz after 3 expansions wasn't able to invent something different and original, just something more OP. The more cards the more money to spend on them. That's the reason that I and many more people left the game years ago, despite having a lot of fun earlier where there were less cards but a lot more joy and need for creativity instead of just buying victory with new, OP cards
Most of those basic cards, like Goldshire Footman, weren't playable back before nax either. There are equally garbage cards printed today. The power level of cards in the basic set was fine. A 3-2 knife juggler is still good. Auctioneer is still broken after multiple nerfs. A lot of cards in the basic set are still deck defining today.
I remember playing a match with a basic mage verses a stacked grin patron warrior. We played until we both decked out then I killed his last minion with my last card. Arcane missles. And they all hit where they needed.
My best success with only basic cards was Warrior, 2x Fiery War Axe and 2x Arcanite Reaper was sometimes just enough to end the game if my raw stats got in enough chip damage. That was 3 years ago that that deck would sometimes win, though, so not even sure that would have success in the modern meta
Man...I remember play whit the basic cards, and litteral play warcraft III whit them, full of goldshire footmans, and champions of the alliance, whit the dwarf shooters. And murlocs with charging, approaching occasionally charge. Basics cards they got a trash treatmean, whit every expansion and update, but, they will forever have my heart. Beceaus, whit all the weakness and all the superior options, they are very cool and emblematic cards.
There was a Paladin deck back in the day on Hearthpwn called “WTF Did I Just Lose To?” All basic aggro and super fun. I wonder far you can get in Wild with a Standard deck. Every try that?
a lot of the core standard cards are usually banned in wild and then get nerfed once they rotate out. Boons of being an online-only tcg, you can errata as much as you want, even between formats.
I wonder, how would you bid those cards so that they can be useful? Some cards clearly just need +1 Attack or Health to be useful if not interesting, but a lot of them may need reworks.
I remember someone reporting a 3% winrate with suicide warlock on standard like a year ago. If a deck designed to kill itself wins 3% of the time, the basic cards deck will eventually win.
Might be just opponents conceding due to having something else to do in their life
@@paulverse4587 Might be a Suicide warlock mirror match
Also afk opponent
Iirc, disconnects and concedes account for about 5% winrate.
@@nandanthony badass
I remember back in the days when Chillwind Yeti was considered OP
Coin Innervate Yeti GG
Yeti on turn 4 in arena.... mayor in value town approves.
I don't think that was ever true, though. The only time yeti was actually OP was when druid ramped it out, and to point out the obvious, it was the on-curve ramp that's OP rather than a vanilla 4/5 for 4. There were quite a few metas where I even preferred Senjin Shieldmasta in that slot anyway, because the worse stats matter less when you're ramping anyway and taunt was often pretty important for not dying.
@@Icameron259 Yeti was run in pretty much every deck that used minions and was the number 1 card in arena back then.
Firebat, world champion remembers
It's no secret that the power level of new expansion cards are INSANE to the point that a lot of uncommons and rares are better than a lot of core legendaries.. but, many core cards had to be nerfed and would have, in their unnerfed states, fit right in with today's cards... Get your ish together blizz
Just like with Yu-Gi-Oh, the very first set has both some of the most broken and most useless cards, Shadowstep, Wild Growth, Innervate, Equality, Warsong Commander whom was nerfes twice.
I've just dusted all classic legendaries except Leeroy (sentimental value).
@@molenini i would also never dissenchant malygos, tirion or antonidas. the first csn do nutty stuff in wild with shaman and rogue. the rest sentimental value
@@okisemporium Early Yugioh sets were 99% absolute trash. It was basically just some ridiculously generic spells/traps that just instantly change who is winning the game and a tiny handful of monsters that are played once in a blue-moon. Then just useless bodies while you wait for your broken spells/traps.
Awful minions great spells. Ie Power Overwhelming,soulfire, old force of nature,old innervate, old wild growth.
Y'all laughing at boulderfist ogre, but when Hearthstone first launched that card was scary. It wasn't super powerful, but a vanilla 6/7 was a real threat when good removal was few and far in between.
I was just about to type this
Chillwind Yeti was better. You didn’t lose tempo when they polymorphed or assassinated him like you did with Boulderfist Ogre.
Taking Goldshire Footman, Wolfrider, Reckless Rocketeer, and Boulderfist Ogre into a matches against Tamsin and Guff...
Video instantly liked on my behalf you mad man.
I love how deadpan he was about boulderfist ogre. There’s really no ripping that bandaid off easily. He’s so unexpectedly strong.
It's crazy how much removal and healing added into the Game, back then you were actually able to stick an ogor for more than one turn, and chipping your opponent down over the course of the game.
In arena, maybe. Even in classic hearthstone the power of meta decks is too high for ogre to see play. That being said, yes, removal has reached truly grotesque and unfun levels in wild and standard.
@@stoyantodorov2133 No it literally wasn't, Ogre saw play in very early hearthstone.
@@Zwijger In budget decks, maybe. Back then dust and packs were a lot harder to aquire for free. But look at classic mode nowadays. I play it regularly and haven't seen ogre. Not even once.
@@stoyantodorov2133 thats because classic mode plays with a solved meta. Hearthstone on day 2 did not have a solved meta.
@@ich3730 Classic meta nowadays is a bit different than before. Rogue, warrior, druid and warlock are almost unchanged. The other classes however have fundamentally new decks to cope with the meta and especially rogue. Hunter for example is most effective when played in a control style with some pirates sprinkled in. This is a fundamentally different style than the aggro and midrange variants that were popular in 2014. Same goes for shaman. Paladin was played competitively as a control deck but currently the best lists are aggro oriented.
I played Hearthstone pretty early on in its life and these starter cards are ones I know very well.
At some point a couple years after the game’s launch, like after Goblins vs. Gnomes, I stopped playing. I keep coming back for a couple months every year or so, and each time the game seems so much unlike how I remember it.
All the old cards I learned aren’t used, the feel of the game is different, there’s so much power creep, and everything is so much more complicated.
Watching this video and seeing these old cards reminds me how simple Hearthstone was, and how much I appreciated it. Now all the low-cost simple cards do just as much or more than the old school legendary minions. (Side note: legendary cards used to feel special in classic HS and now they hand them out like it’s nothing)
Idk, just feels like a different game. It seems like it can still be fun, but you have to keep up with it if you want to have an accurate understanding of what cards are good/bad, and how you can actually play the game.
Shattered sun cleric was a 3 mana 3/3 at one point. It was nerfed to 3/2 and saw a lot less play in constructed
Good thing they nerfed it. That card at 3/3 would absolutely break the meta. It could singlehandedly take on guff druid and pirate warrior.
@@carveking I know you're joking, because by today's standards it's nothing, but back in the early days, it really was just a bit too good. They could easily reverse the nerf now and it still wouldn't be played, but back then, it was actually pretty good.
Back in 2015ish, i beat a face hunter at rank 4 with a basic paladin deck and it was the top post on the hearthstone subreddit for nearly a week 😂… it was absolutely crazy
Part of what chased me away from hearthstone was how they kept removing cards from the basic set! The few good ones that were in there (Ragnaros, Sylvanus, azure drakes, etc.) were removed so they could power creep even harder and force us to need even MORE new cards with every new set. I gave up on the game when dailies were no longer enough to keep current decks in even 3 classes.
They did this like once years ago lmao
Gave up when it was day 3-4 of a new card expac and already was facing people who seemed to have every card for a meta class at rank 20 of all places.
Gave up hs, when they added a literal gacha mode into the game with mercenairies. Stay away with that garbage...
and now you need 2-3 daily quests to get a measily 75 gold, if it's not a useless (uncraftable!!) gold promo or an arena ticket.
If i can't get a pack with 3 days worth of quests, what is the free to play progression supposed to look like dear blizzard?
@@Link6817 mercenaries requires a lot of farm, but you can get everything by just farming, which you can't say about the main game mode.
I'd argue regular hearthstone is more of a gatcha than mercenaries.
To be fair with War Golem, you could intimidate the opponent so much that they'd promptly concede when you follow it up with two wisps after playing it.
War Golem was the G, man.
Truly the more superior version of Dr. 7
@@oqt8324 Well, before Dr. Balanced there was war golem
Ah yes the dr boom of the poor
@@fivws
Dr Combust
Oh shiit, DIY Dr. Boom, I remember! :D
I thought this was going to be a 1-hour long video celebrating Silverback Patriarch, to redeem what the Hearthstone team put him through, but instead he got just a mention? He never catches a break!
As someone who has lost track of the expansions years ago, the basic deck is really all I have left to use. This is the exact reason I have been unable to play the game until now. Crawling your way back up to a 50% winrate with cards that are objectively 1-3 mana worse than anything your opponent has is such a nuisance, and if you keep losing you won't earn any cards. It's an endless cycle designed to make you cave in and buy card packs, I hate it.
I miss the Goblins vs Gnomes days. Piloted Shredder was the most stacked card ever but it was so much fun
Why would anyone want to play constructed anyway? The powercreep is so insane, it is unplayable.
Battlegrounds are so much better.
Reckless rocketeer, core hound, ironbark protector - nostalgic cards from the very beginning of my hearthstone days. They were also the best days, when I didn't know anything and just had fun playing big minions
Lmao the chad solid stats vs the virgin combo spam
But the basic set had the EXTREMELY overpowered Silverback Patriarch! When a Teacher's Pet died, and you saw Silverback Patriarch come out, you just looked at your opponent and said "I have a SILVERBACK PATRIARCH! This game is over and we both know it!
There are players that reached legend with only basics for several expansions. It wasn't really that bad at release, many cards were really good and actually got nerfed, such as Shattered Sun Cleric which was a 3/3. Many class cards were absolutely ridiculous too, like Innervate and Preparation. Sure there were some poopy cards and Priest had total garbage, but overall it was not a weak set.
It was in fact a frequent concern that decks included too many basic cards and didn't change enough for several years. The Freeze Mage deck for example was almost 100% basic cards, as was Control Warrior and Ramp Druid.
You seem to be confusing the basic set with the classic set. Control warrior and ramp druid did use a lot of classic cards, but not that many basic cards if I recall correctly. Preparation was an epic.
Whirlwind, Execute, Fiery War Axe and Shield Block were all staples in Control Warrior, and others were common like Kor'kron Elite, Acidic Swamp Ooze and Sen'jin Shieldmasta.
0 mana Soulfire anyone?
@@emilemil1 that's not quite 'almost 100%'
I remember hunter decks using tons of the basic spells in every deck for ages
I had been falling off for a while until I fully quit hearthstone during the reveal season for descent of dragons. I remember feeling like the power creep was huge and I just wasn’t interested in keeping up. Seeing cards like the demon hunter stuff or all of United in Stormwind really shows how nuts they’ve been making the powerlevel.
Put it in perspective in yugioh. 2 sacrifices were tough , yet now decks vomit. How many people thought it would last?
People didn't have Apollo's gift of foresight. Solemn Judgement was rarely played back then, even though it's one of the best trap cards ever designed.
Also almost all modern deck in yugioh:
Lose to 20+ years old trap cards like skill drain or imperial order.
Update : I just lost to a toons with kaiser colloseum+comic book my Apollousa.
The nature of yugioh is wack and everything and everyone can beat each other not even meta deck can give you a perfect win streak.
@@r3zaful skill drain and imperial order are just designed to lock you out of playing the game, and they've locked people out of playing the game for ages
@@megaagentj2248 i felt that konami wants their players to have the mindset "if you play slow deck play floodgates, if you play combo play board breaker"
Just like my case with that toon deck above, i just felt that master duel give you enough tools so everyone can beat everyone.
Rarran i really like your vids man. Glad to see someone bringing a new style of content to the HS community!
no probs dude, I am more happy people are watching it!
It’s always fun to build a full basic set deck and play with a friend, it’s sure as hell not high power but it’s nostalgic for somebody like me who got into the game playing a lot of games like this
It would be interesting if in some expansion, or a mini-set they revisited some of these old cards and created spiritual successors to them or just straight up rebalanced them... look I just want 2 mana 3/3 River Crocolisk.
I remember the first time I was really put off by what Blizzard was doing with Hearthstone was whenever they added a straight upgrade to one of the basic cards. The Evil Heckler from Grand Tournament was a Booty Bay Bodyguard but one mana less. At that point I was like "Are we really going to do this Blizzard?". Today I don't even know if I was right to be put off by power creep but at the time I felt real bad about it.
Have you seen Ben Brode’s video on power creep?
Far and away the thing i want to see most is a huge buff to all the old shitty cards. Like go through and buff so much stuff. Not to be broken but to have a purpose. Like if its a cool card but it never sees play just drop the cost by 1 or 2 and let it ride.
I decided to give Elise a run in turbo draw Druid despite knowing its reputation and despite getting monke onto board through the sheer dumb luck of dredging to see if it was there first and finding it, I got my butt handed to me by Fires of Zin'shaari or whatever it's called... And I suspect my opponent gave me some extra turns on purpose just to see if I was going to pull it off. That card is so slow and terrible when it could be tremendously cool, so I guess it's Faelin time instead since I opened him in my last pack
i would love to see headcrack as a 1 mana spell come back to standard
I feel like Wildheart Guff is a really good example of how ridiculous the power creep is. Back in the day, 5 mana could get you a decent spell/minion or two. But with Guff, 5 mana gets you armor, draw power, and the ability to get a giant pile of mana really quickly and drop down multiple huge cards before the enemy would even be able to coin into one similarly big card
Back when I played Hearthstone, Azure Drake was a good card. What the FUCK happened???
Back in the Grand Tournament, you had to use Warlock class cards (back when their burst consisted of a lot of mandatory discard and PO) AND find and play Justicar Trueheart just to get one half of Guff's hero power.
Heck, Dreadlich Tamsin costs the same amount as Justicar yet it does a million more things when played _including giving the warlock a hero power better than Justicar's_ .
guff looks like an MTG card that got lost on its way to commander legends 2
That tree of life was unbelievable, poor mage never had a chance 😦
I mean, some legendaries have been power crept to the point of literally losing when puting them next to a comperable common card. The 9 Mana 5/9 taunt untargetable or the 7 Mana 7/7 taunt untargetable with dragon type.
I sometimes consider conceeding to players I see using the basic cards, because I stomp them to the point of feeling bad about it. I remember how rough the early slog for cards was, and I imagine it's only worse now, with the rewards track making gold more scarce, and it being damn near impossible to win with those cards, since they have become so much worse
wdym, its easier then ever. Tons of YT guides to make budget aggro decks for climbing, gold economy is better then ever for F2P.
@@ich3730 my thinking was rather than getting a pack more or less every day with a quest, you may need 2/3 days of quests for enough gold for a pack. Though if budget decks take less dust that they did before that helps immensely
I still remember when the most balanced card in my opinion is senjin shieldmasta
I have not played the game since 3 years and when I watch games it feels like cards are doing so much things. Old sets was not that good but that was so fun to play old HS
Has anyone ever experienced a game against Druid in the last time where your opponent was not able to play Overgrowth early, Guff turn 5 and then Scale of Onyxia after that?? It works EVERY single time and your board is gone and then the Mana Party goes on and on.
I'd love to see you play more wild games. As a wild player myself, it is very satisfying to see someone not understand what is happening.
2:27 I'd like to point Shattered Sun Cleric used to be a 3/3 for most of the time it was played. Dark Iron Dwarf also got nerfed from giving permanent +2 to just a single turn effect which used to be Abusive Sargeant's gimmick, I say used to be because Abusive Sargeant was actually a really potent way for priest to deal with 4 attack minions since it could target enemies to push them into Power Word Death range. Novice Engineer was a no brainer include when she was a 1/2 minion until the common rarity Loot Hoarder took over hardcore after her nerf, and Acolyte of Pain and Kodos began to prop up more and more. Those aren't all basic cards but the cards that were the easiest to play with were the commons and multipurpose rares for the new players, so it hurt the extra bit when cards like Ancient of Lore, a class specific Epic got nerfed, or Blade Flurry, a core Rare on every rogue deck, gets destroyed. Decks like Handlock were full of epics that were specific to it and if you were a f2p player you wouldn't wanna invest so hard into one deck.
I actually forgot that "War Golem" even existed
At least War Golem was playable in Arena. There was a 7 mana 9/5 in the basic set which was unplayable in pretty much all formats.
@@Tpoleful Core Hound? Was that the name?
@@Tpoleful Core Hound was definitely the worse card but it had beast synergy so I at least remember it from randomly generated beasts. Never played arena and there was just no reason to put War Golem into any normal decks.
Definitely saw play in early stage arena.
That druid played some very dusty card too actually.
“With the very first expansion in the game-“
*starts talking about the second expansion*
Was nax before gvg?
@@WispsInBottles Yes.
Sen'jin shieldmaster is one of my favorites because of its voicelines JAHAHAAA MON!
They were not "weak" some were
Hearthstone just did massive powercreep to force people to buy new expansions to not be heavily disadvantaged on the ladder
precisely the reason i had quit like 4 years ago. to drop an AAA video game amount of cash to get random amount of a fraction of content... shit deal, just shit deal.
Nah they were weak. I was there in closed beta and Silverback Patriarch and War Golem were always dogshit.
@@janhradecky3141 some, not all
I feel old af now , played a lot with basic cards in middle school back in the day recently came back to HS and its a completely different game now
seeing rarran use a deck tracker has got to be one of the most uncanny things I've ever seen
Damn, this video makes me feel old when I look at some of the cards and go “they’re not that bad” lol
I never thought I would hear the words "Goldshire Footman is sick".
Blizz needs Hearthstone Classic servers now
Booty Bay Bouncer was actually a pretty interesting tech card in the base set mirror match, because it could trade with Sen'jin Shieldmasta as well as go 1 for 1 with Lord of the Arena, which was also a very commonly used taunt minion.
As someone who played back then - nobody past rank 15 used booty bay bodyguard or lord of the arena. They just had too bad stats for their cost, and no: trading favorably against senjin while costing 1 extra mana is not good enough to justify it because it trades poorly in every other situation. Your basic deck would be ooze, crocalisc, raptor shattered sun cleric, grizzly, yeti, senjin, ogre. Maybe with frostwolf warlord and stormwind champion (for paladin and shaman) or gurubashi (for priest and mage). Maybe elven archer as a tech against aggro. The rest of the deck would be class cards (ie: cards that are actually good).
@@randomstrategy7679 None of these are 5 Mana doe. (Except for Frostwolf for Paly / sham) And that was exactly the point i was trying to make when i said it was a tech card, you would only play Booty Bay Bouncer when there wasn't anything better to play.
Also technically there wasn't anything to stop somebody from playing both Ogre and Lord of the Arena, especially if your deck didn't struggle at clearing(/controlling) early to mid game boards.
I just remember seeing Lord of the Arena quite regularly (if not i wouldn't even remember lol), and i didn't even play Arena Mode (just very few, but i watched ALOT of Kripps arena videos), so i'm not 100% confident on this; in which you would be even more likely to see it, because decent taunt minions were very rare, so people would often pick it up. But maybe our experiences just differ.
@@randomstrategy7679 I forgot to explain why somebody would play both Boulderfist Ogre and Lord of the Arena, the answer is rather simple;
War Golem.
I'd wager for almost everybody,
War Golem -was- *_is_ considered the worst card in the game.
And not every class was really able to make anything off Stormwind Champions Minion buffing aura, so they would rather prefer having extra taunt for less Mana.
@@Element_Doom Maybe you stayed at low rank then, but I assure you, it wasn't viable at all. I reached around rank 5 and the main threats from classic all dealt 4 damage, which means 4 health minions were really bad (and why 5 health minions like yeti or senjin were some of the best). With 4 health, you trade 1 for 1 with a single abusive sergeant from zoo (that's 1 mana to remove your 5 mana minion, that's just game-losingly bad), it also trades for a shattered sun clerix (3 mana to remove your 5 mana minion), it trades for half a truesilver champion (4 mana to remove two of them). It dies to flamestrike (which dealt 4 damage back then). It dies to swipe. If you played booty bay bodyguard you would just end up behind because the opponent would simply spend less mana to remove it. Booty Bay bodyguard was so bad that I remember that yeti + float 1 mana was still a better 5-drop than booty-bay bodyguard.
Lord of the Arena was admitedly better than Booty Bay (mostly because it avoided the 4 health sour spot where everything kills it for extremely cheap) but even so, with 5 health, it would still costs less than 6 mana to kill it which meant that you would still end up behind if you played it most of the time. And it lost pretty hard to ogre at the same mana cost (the opponent would left with a 6/1 after trade)
Shattered Sun Cleric didn't see much play as a 3/2. It did as a 3/3 before getting nerfed.
3:27 way back there were popular decks only with even or only with odd cards. Thats why taking a goblin made sense
Back in my day shattered sun cleric was a 3 mana 3/3 😭
I love how half the video is analyzing and the second have is you playing on the analysis!!!!!
I don't even play HS, your content is just top tier. Keep it up man!
Ooooh man I remember my full tank Druid deck, and wondering why I could never get to rank 19
Goldshire footman was a meme even before expansions came out
Tbf even back then 90% of basic neutrals werent played unless they were stated or had charge. Now every card needs to be curved stats ie 3 mana 3/4 +effect to be played.
Taunt back then was much better than it is now, because there was so much less options to silence or destroy them with spells, and also way less options to deal damage to face beyond a taunt. However Sen'Jin Shieldmasta was just so much better than all other taunt minions and you rarely needed a taunt before turn 4 anyway, so it kinda made all the other taunts obsolete.
I think if you would try a zoo type deck with some charge minions and the ability to keep drawing cards with warlock's hero power, you could steal a win at some point.
I don’t find any hearthstone player more funny than you, gold 😂
While you were talking about the War Golem, you forgot to mention one of the best meme cards of all time, the FOUR MANA SEVEN SEVEN
2:17 only the OG's remember 3 mana 3/3 Shattered
It's funny to think Druid can have a whole deck of minions, and with just Brann and the 7/7/7 guy that double every stats of every minions in your deck, the druid can pretty much become invincible with his infinite healing.
"Do you like to play with.." "..basic cards?"
"Mmh, I like it!"
What you're referring to isn't power creep because most cards you mentioned are very different. Power creep means, that a certain card gets a direct upgrade, for example same stats, same effect but costs less mana.
Those fights were painful to watch damn. Just wiped by a single card while you gotta throw down like 4 to deal with a board of average cards.
I noticed that some of the early hearthstone cards were based on and is sometimes 1 to 1 copies of the old Warcraft card game's cards. Quite s different pace nowadays compared to there original time.
Before Hearthstone even had deck copying capabilities and you had to manually create all decks (and netdecking was way rarer!), I remember a website with a F2P guide which would give you a basic set deck for all classes. And I remember some of the decks were REALLY legit. That was circa Old Gods if I'm not mistaken.
we live in the age of the internet bro, people netdecked hearthstone on like, minute 2 xD
Fuck that tree of life, oh my god!!! 🤣
What a great video!
Even with every loss, you get a moral victory. Each person that beat you, feels bad beating a Basic-only deck.
We're gonna need to a rip a Boulderfist Ogre off the top... Lol 😂😂
Alternativ Title: Can you win a match in "fReE" game without paying?
StoneHill Defender was my favorite card at once. Journey To UnGoro !
Wait, do you mean Tirion Fordring ?
1:51 River Crocolisk compared to the cards you've shown;
What if it's your opponents turn, they have only two health, and also has "The Black Knight", and "Hungry Crab" in their hand?
River Croc would be the best card to have on your side of the field here from the four cards you've chosen!
My boy River Crocolisk doesn't need an F.
He has his uses- and I always put him in my decks in case this very specific and rare scenario ever comes up!
Nice to see them views racking up again mate 👍
You say that Mage had the best Basic set, but it was actually Druid before their Basic+Classic core was nerfed hard. Innervate, Wild Groth, Savage Roar and Swipe all saw heavy, heavy play during the early years of HS.
To this day Reckless Rocketeer looks like some kind of bird creature to me. It took me like a year of arena to realize it was, in fact, a goblin. Anyways, power creep sadge.
Goldshire Footman is so powerful, Savjz insta-conceded that one time. Goldshire too op
I once met guy who played only basic cards in wild bronze. It was about a few weeks ago
2nd game proved that basic cards suck because no rng
It's not that old cards were bad. New cards are just more and more powerfull casue blizz after 3 expansions wasn't able to invent something different and original, just something more OP. The more cards the more money to spend on them. That's the reason that I and many more people left the game years ago, despite having a lot of fun earlier where there were less cards but a lot more joy and need for creativity instead of just buying victory with new, OP cards
Idc hearing stormblade champions " FOR THE ALLIUNCE" will never get old
This is a Really Really Fun Video !
:D
Funnily I managed to win a match few years ago by Goldshire Footman stopping Deathwing.
Who would win: a giant armored world destroying dragon, or some random dude
To be fair, I knew River Crocolisk was bad even in the tutorial.
Where are my chillwind yeti bros at? Never played without em when hearthstone released
Shattered Sun Cleric started out as a 3/3 and was nerfed later.
Most of those basic cards, like Goldshire Footman, weren't playable back before nax either. There are equally garbage cards printed today.
The power level of cards in the basic set was fine. A 3-2 knife juggler is still good. Auctioneer is still broken after multiple nerfs. A lot of cards in the basic set are still deck defining today.
Auctioneer and Juggler are CLASSIC, NOT basic
Remember when Hearthstone was hella fun and an all around great game? Pepperidge Farm remembers😢
I remeber my debut with Hearthstone, I put nightblade in my deck and I was proud of it
You got a deck tracker? Damn did you get sponsored by the basic set?I
I never drew the connection between War Golem and Dr. Boom. Crazy how those two 1/1's made a completely unplayable card meta-defining.
it wasnt just 2x 1/1's they blew up for 1-4 damage
Chillwind Yeti was the GOAT back in the day!
Looking like a death angle wpgg we shilling 😎
wrong game and i like it
5:00 Who do you think you are, Mark Mckz?!
I remember playing a match with a basic mage verses a stacked grin patron warrior. We played until we both decked out then I killed his last minion with my last card. Arcane missles. And they all hit where they needed.
"EVERYONE!!! GET IN HERE!!!"
I need to know what that druid's other two choices were that they took tree of life
My best success with only basic cards was Warrior, 2x Fiery War Axe and 2x Arcanite Reaper was sometimes just enough to end the game if my raw stats got in enough chip damage. That was 3 years ago that that deck would sometimes win, though, so not even sure that would have success in the modern meta
Man...I remember play whit the basic cards, and litteral play warcraft III whit them, full of goldshire footmans, and champions of the alliance, whit the dwarf shooters. And murlocs with charging, approaching occasionally charge.
Basics cards they got a trash treatmean, whit every expansion and update, but, they will forever have my heart.
Beceaus, whit all the weakness and all the superior options, they are very cool and emblematic cards.
'I think its safe to say basic cards can't win a game."
The challenge is set
what is the overlay thing he uses to see his deck?
There was a Paladin deck back in the day on Hearthpwn called “WTF Did I Just Lose To?” All basic aggro and super fun.
I wonder far you can get in Wild with a Standard deck. Every try that?
a lot of the core standard cards are usually banned in wild and then get nerfed once they rotate out.
Boons of being an online-only tcg, you can errata as much as you want, even between formats.
I've never seen a man do screechy noises like that
I wonder, how would you bid those cards so that they can be useful? Some cards clearly just need +1 Attack or Health to be useful if not interesting, but a lot of them may need reworks.
What overlay do you use? Or is it a skin for the regular decktraker?
Firestone