The loas are essentially cool ideas with terrible executions. It felt like they were too afraid of making them strong, so they overcorrected and made them next to unplayable
@@foolishmuleth6757that doesn’t work when you still have all last years cards. It just meant the majority of its cards saw zero real play. You’d have to retire 3 expansions early to truly start from scratch and lower standard power and they won’t
I remember blizzard saying that their goal starting with Rastakan was to decrease the overall power of the cards and over time reverse the power creep that was happening in standard (a community complaint at the time). So they released the Rastakan cards with a power level purposefully lower, it was a long-term idea. Plot twist: no one bought the pre-orders and everyone hated the expansion, since then we've been living with a increasingly power creep
Tbh when I think about powercreep, I think about cards with crazy effects. These cards have balanced effects and quite a few of these cards would have been a lot better with just better stats or manacost, without being so weak. Like why is Gonk 7 mana?? And why is the Shark a 2-2??
Yeah people dont want to think, they want just to play their cards and ignore opponent. This is why year by year standard or wild became no sense competitve and all famous streamers moved to battlegrounds for real battles with real skill rating.
jan alai was used on a very good deck that expansion that was odd mage, after baku was send to wild, it become useless, cause without the hero power busted, it was really hard to make it usefull.
Any commentary on anything Rastakhan should probably be prefaced with the context that this expansion was all in on lower power level, Unfortunately the other expansions weren't Kragwa had this meme deck to get several copies of unstable evolution (?) 1 mana echo evolve
IN THEORY, TODAY: you COULD do something funny with the Symphony of Sins and Hir'eek, but A: You're hoping to have only the Loa as minions in hand B: You're hoping to hit Pride Movement in the 3 movements C: You're hoping to get into BOTH of these cards and not die, preferably SoS on the turn before you drop Hir'eek D: You're PRAYING to ALL THAT IS HOLY the opponent just can't out a board full of 7/7s (thanks a lot, Reno, I fucking hate you)
How I would change some of the Loas Gonk: Goes to 6. Halazzi: He gains Rush and or goes to 4 Mana. Jan'alai: Counts as an Elemental and either goes to 6 mana, goes to a 5 3/3 or stays 7 and becomes a 5/5. Hir'eek: They gain Rush and LIfesteal and goes to 7 mana. Akali: Goes to 7.
I remember playing a jank bwonsamdi deck where you would shuffle albatross and weasels into the opponents deck, benedictus them to your deck, play lady prestor and then draw 1 cost dragons with bwonsamdi. It was terrible but fun
I had a friend that was a Hearthstone player who was very excited for Rastakhan's Rumble when it was first revealed, specifically bcos he likes Bwonsamdi as a character in Warcraft so he was hyped to see how Blizzard would make him into a card after they revealed the Bwonsamdi card, he basically stopped talking about that expansion ever since
@@FlareIsGoneJust remember that ancient of lore was a good card at one point (as a 5/5 that drew 2), and Bwonsamdi is a better version of that. It was just used because draw was much worse in the year of the raven (most classes didn't have the 3 mana draw they have now), and priest still had lack of draw as a built in weakness, so priest draw in particular was somewhat rare. I agree it's a pretty awful card by today's standards, and especially by wilds standards. Nowadays it would probably draw a couple minions and set their cost to one.
Zentimo and Thekal were both legendaries from RR that are solid. I know people used zentimo in jade decks and of course thekal had the molten giant combo. I don't know the current metagame well enough to speak on their current use. As for the rest of the set you are right, this set had shit like time out, daring fire eater, the old spirit of the frog which defined a top tier deck, and 2 of the classic 0 mana spells enabling dumb stuff, pounce and regenerate.
Always really fond memories of hakkar I’d play him in a duplicate death rattle fatigue priest and it wasn’t good but it would certainly make things more interesting
Kragwa was used with Unstable Evolution by Roffle back in the day to get a bunch of copies of that spell in your hand, I was never able to get that to work myself
Buffs I think would make sense: Gonk: 4 mana 4/6. Usable Halazzi: fill board and hand. Not that strong, but gives you some good tokens and actually has some board impact. Janalai: instead of summoning rag, double the damage of your hero power. It’s still 7 mana for a 4/4, but makes you much stronger against control. Shirvallah: 10/8. 7 healing is not enough, but don’t want to nerf holy wrath. Bwonsamdi: draw 1 cost cards from your deck, reduce the cost of your hand by 1. 1 drops are playable immediately, can draw spells as well now. But also, benefits some combos. Gral: gain only attack, then summon a copy and add to hand on the deathrattle Kragwa: instead of returning them to hand, recast them targeted at enemies. Not sure if this is good Hireek(wtf): 7 mana, 3/3 rush. Maybe make it a colossal??? That way it summons anyways? I’m so confused Akali: make this an 8/8 and +8/+8, as suggested, or add a battlecry as well. Or give it cleave, or trample, or something
Jan'alai Odd mage was somewhat of a late development in Rastakhan's Rumble but it was a pretty solid deck, not meta defining or anything but it had some fairly successful tournament runs. Krag'wa was a somewhat functional tournament tech but not much beyond that so it gets a pass
I remember there was a grind priest deck with spirit of the death, karthut defender and the 2-5 reborn taunt. Bwonsamdi was part of it and thank god the deck wasn't good enough because it was obnoxious.
There is a funny but not that useful use for hakkar in Questline Warlock where you can damage yourself with the blood and if you luck the opponent draws one here or there. Big problem is Questline Warlock never gets to turn 10,but its still a cool combo.
It still might not be enough, but I like the idea of doing the same with Hir'eek as they did with R.C. Rampage. Where any copies that can't fit will buff the others.
Favorite loa has to be Jani. He's not printed in HS but he's the Loa of Scavengers and Thieves. I loved his quests where you just need to be a nuisance.
Make gonk 6 mana and his effect "battlecry: for the rest of the game..." and it goes from unplayable bad to "meme" levels of bad, where i think it belongs.
Watching the video only convinced me these cards were pretty good after thinking for a bit. Nearly all of these cards were in top tier decks lol gonk in gonk druid which was barely worse than malygos Halazzi in quest hunter Janalai in odd mage and big spell mages shirvallah in both otk palys bwonsamdi in inner fire priest in uldoom gral was usable in wild in stuff like cutlass rogue or kingsbane because the darkness wasnt even that bad as a tech vs reno cards kragwa in plenty of control and combo shamans hireek was just unplayable akali in lots of warrior decks with zilliax considering they intentionally made rastakhan a weak expansion trying to fight power creep the loas were pretty good
I unironically think the Shaman one is the best one. Not awful stat line and spamming spells in Shaman to the point where you need to reload them isn't unheard of (evolve shaman, spell power based OTK etc), giving it a bit more versatility than the Paladin one, which is possibly the second best. Still cannot believe that warlock one made it passed testing.
The loas are essentially cool ideas with terrible executions. It felt like they were too afraid of making them strong, so they overcorrected and made them next to unplayable
good point
I thought the whole point of Rastakhan's was to lower the power level of Standard
@@foolishmuleth6757that doesn’t work when you still have all last years cards. It just meant the majority of its cards saw zero real play. You’d have to retire 3 expansions early to truly start from scratch and lower standard power and they won’t
My favorite loa is whichever one I won the solo adventure with because I got Zuljin from that pack and now I get a sick ass twist deck for free
This was the LOA point of the expansion
More like the LOA point of the game
Loas more like Loass
I remember blizzard saying that their goal starting with Rastakan was to decrease the overall power of the cards and over time reverse the power creep that was happening in standard (a community complaint at the time).
So they released the Rastakan cards with a power level purposefully lower, it was a long-term idea.
Plot twist: no one bought the pre-orders and everyone hated the expansion, since then we've been living with a increasingly power creep
Well they definitely walked that back with year of the dragon. Which was smart and it was one of the best years for expansions.
Tbh when I think about powercreep, I think about cards with crazy effects. These cards have balanced effects and quite a few of these cards would have been a lot better with just better stats or manacost, without being so weak. Like why is Gonk 7 mana?? And why is the Shark a 2-2??
Yeah people dont want to think, they want just to play their cards and ignore opponent. This is why year by year standard or wild became no sense competitve and all famous streamers moved to battlegrounds for real battles with real skill rating.
jan alai was used on a very good deck that expansion that was odd mage, after baku was send to wild, it become useless, cause without the hero power busted, it was really hard to make it usefull.
I remember kragwas main thing back in the day was playing it after an unstable evolution turn to get like 6 copies of unstable.
Yea, I remember that too. It was such a popular value option in evolve shaman for a long time.
Bwonsamdi was actually played in tier 1 deck
Any commentary on anything Rastakhan should probably be prefaced with the context that this expansion was all in on lower power level,
Unfortunately the other expansions weren't
Kragwa had this meme deck to get several copies of unstable evolution (?) 1 mana echo evolve
The longest game i ever had was a Bwonsamdi spirit of dead mirror. They were going for maximum obnoxiousness. And they achieved it.
Ok summon a random 8 drop cool
Oh its Hireek …. Aaaaand I lost the game.
I remember summoning him of a Cenarion Ward xD And I was like, the hell is this turd 😂
Hir'eek was the first legendary I ever opened! I tried so so... SO hard to make it work, but quickly realized it simply wasn't meant to be
IN THEORY, TODAY:
you COULD do something funny with the Symphony of Sins and Hir'eek, but
A: You're hoping to have only the Loa as minions in hand
B: You're hoping to hit Pride Movement in the 3 movements
C: You're hoping to get into BOTH of these cards and not die, preferably SoS on the turn before you drop Hir'eek
D: You're PRAYING to ALL THAT IS HOLY the opponent just can't out a board full of 7/7s (thanks a lot, Reno, I fucking hate you)
How I would change some of the Loas
Gonk: Goes to 6.
Halazzi: He gains Rush and or goes to 4 Mana.
Jan'alai: Counts as an Elemental and either goes to 6 mana, goes to a 5 3/3 or stays 7 and becomes a 5/5.
Hir'eek: They gain Rush and LIfesteal and goes to 7 mana.
Akali: Goes to 7.
Yeah literally none of those changes would even make them standard playable let alone wild
i remember doing a hakkar combo in mage where id make the enemy watch 15 minutes of blood animations lmao
I remember playing a jank bwonsamdi deck where you would shuffle albatross and weasels into the opponents deck, benedictus them to your deck, play lady prestor and then draw 1 cost dragons with bwonsamdi. It was terrible but fun
I had a friend that was a Hearthstone player who was very excited for Rastakhan's Rumble when it was first revealed, specifically bcos he likes Bwonsamdi as a character in Warcraft so he was hyped to see how Blizzard would make him into a card
after they revealed the Bwonsamdi card, he basically stopped talking about that expansion ever since
iirc hunterace made use of the priest loa in one of his lineups and made him meta for a short period of time
I think I have a mental block on bwonswamdi or something because I do not remember that at all but can you blame me this card is so bad
@@FlareIsGoneJust remember that ancient of lore was a good card at one point (as a 5/5 that drew 2), and Bwonsamdi is a better version of that.
It was just used because draw was much worse in the year of the raven (most classes didn't have the 3 mana draw they have now), and priest still had lack of draw as a built in weakness, so priest draw in particular was somewhat rare.
I agree it's a pretty awful card by today's standards, and especially by wilds standards. Nowadays it would probably draw a couple minions and set their cost to one.
@@FlareIsGoneI ran it in a topsy turvy priest list to draw northshire, boar, and test subject
Zentimo and Thekal were both legendaries from RR that are solid. I know people used zentimo in jade decks and of course thekal had the molten giant combo. I don't know the current metagame well enough to speak on their current use.
As for the rest of the set you are right, this set had shit like time out, daring fire eater, the old spirit of the frog which defined a top tier deck, and 2 of the classic 0 mana spells enabling dumb stuff, pounce and regenerate.
But m-muh Gonk! *activates gonk mode* *gonks you*
I hope in some future wild or twist event we see all the LOAs buffed to vaguely playable
So if I wanted to add a fun combo to Control Paladin, would you rather go with Holy Wrath and Shirvalla or with DK Uther/Buddy/Garrison?
Hir'eek, the fear of every 7-mana minion gettin evolved
Always really fond memories of hakkar I’d play him in a duplicate death rattle fatigue priest and it wasn’t good but it would certainly make things more interesting
Kragwa was used with Unstable Evolution by Roffle back in the day to get a bunch of copies of that spell in your hand, I was never able to get that to work myself
Loas is thematically so cool but they just decide to make them the worst fucking card to ever exist
Buffs I think would make sense:
Gonk: 4 mana 4/6. Usable
Halazzi: fill board and hand. Not that strong, but gives you some good tokens and actually has some board impact.
Janalai: instead of summoning rag, double the damage of your hero power. It’s still 7 mana for a 4/4, but makes you much stronger against control.
Shirvallah: 10/8. 7 healing is not enough, but don’t want to nerf holy wrath.
Bwonsamdi: draw 1 cost cards from your deck, reduce the cost of your hand by 1. 1 drops are playable immediately, can draw spells as well now. But also, benefits some combos.
Gral: gain only attack, then summon a copy and add to hand on the deathrattle
Kragwa: instead of returning them to hand, recast them targeted at enemies. Not sure if this is good
Hireek(wtf): 7 mana, 3/3 rush. Maybe make it a colossal??? That way it summons anyways? I’m so confused
Akali: make this an 8/8 and +8/+8, as suggested, or add a battlecry as well. Or give it cleave, or trample, or something
Gonk is my favourite loa because it's satisfying to hear the smash sound effect when OTK'ing your oppoent
Jan'alai Odd mage was somewhat of a late development in Rastakhan's Rumble but it was a pretty solid deck, not meta defining or anything but it had some fairly successful tournament runs. Krag'wa was a somewhat functional tournament tech but not much beyond that so it gets a pass
Bwonsamdi’s only niche is being fun on rogue if you somehow get it after playing academic espionage
make hireek 4 every hs class should strive to evolve towards hunter like every organism yearns to be a crab
Did Bomswandi see play in Inner Fire priest?
I remember there was a grind priest deck with spirit of the death, karthut defender and the 2-5 reborn taunt. Bwonsamdi was part of it and thank god the deck wasn't good enough because it was obnoxious.
my favorit loa has to be my boi bwonsamdi. I LOVE the german voice line. and also he's pretty funny in WoW lore.
There is a funny but not that useful use for hakkar in Questline Warlock where you can damage yourself with the blood and if you luck the opponent draws one here or there. Big problem is Questline Warlock never gets to turn 10,but its still a cool combo.
I wish you used the "iconic" rhino gif for akali
i remember making a gonk deck that sucked complete ass BUT it felt hella good to pull off
It still might not be enough, but I like the idea of doing the same with Hir'eek as they did with R.C. Rampage.
Where any copies that can't fit will buff the others.
Favorite loa has to be Jani. He's not printed in HS but he's the Loa of Scavengers and Thieves. I loved his quests where you just need to be a nuisance.
Unpopular opinion maybe, but I loved the Loa. Most were just too underpowered to make a dent in the meta
Kragwa was good with echo spells
Like the healing and evlove spells
the worst part about the loa's is that their thematics we're actually cool enough to make me want to play them.
Rhastakhan is even more sad as an expansion because of how banger the trailer song was.
Honestly, I think they could bring all the Loas back with buffs. Like make Akali an 8/8 or give Hireek infuse 5: give me +4 +4 or something.
Make gonk 6 mana and his effect "battlecry: for the rest of the game..." and it goes from unplayable bad to "meme" levels of bad, where i think it belongs.
What did Gonk do when it was release?
Nothing. He did nothing. He was a meme at best
Gonk went bonk
Watching the video only convinced me these cards were pretty good after thinking for a bit. Nearly all of these cards were in top tier decks lol
gonk in gonk druid which was barely worse than malygos
Halazzi in quest hunter
Janalai in odd mage and big spell mages
shirvallah in both otk palys
bwonsamdi in inner fire priest in uldoom
gral was usable in wild in stuff like cutlass rogue or kingsbane because the darkness wasnt even that bad as a tech vs reno cards
kragwa in plenty of control and combo shamans
hireek was just unplayable
akali in lots of warrior decks with zilliax
considering they intentionally made rastakhan a weak expansion trying to fight power creep the loas were pretty good
Hireek really stinks up the evolve pool 😂
Bwonsamdi may be objectively shit, but he will always be the my GOAT.
That deck was unfathomably fun when it got of the ground.
I remember trying to make Shirvallah work so hard, only for it to flop most of the time, absolutely garbage card
I unironically think the Shaman one is the best one. Not awful stat line and spamming spells in Shaman to the point where you need to reload them isn't unheard of (evolve shaman, spell power based OTK etc), giving it a bit more versatility than the Paladin one, which is possibly the second best. Still cannot believe that warlock one made it passed testing.
Kragwa is completely useless because if you're playing spells in shaman you're just gonna kill your opponent
I never got behind the Loas as for me the Primes were just waaayyy cooler.
What is loa?
You dare challenge The Lord of The Hunt???
Janalai was great in standard odd mage
Bwonsamdi is one of my favorite cards ever, along with OG Zul'Jin but it's just so fucking bad
Bat should have been a shaman card
Undatakah is nuts with porcupine or Tonk hunter
Well that's not a loa so
Now we need a powerpoint on the spirit cards
Shark and Frog were good value generators and Rhino was niche and mainly used with Galakrond Warrior
Bwonsamdi was good in uldum combo priest
I wish Undatakah had rush 💔
You got gonked
The LOATs (Ls Of All Time)
Yeah they were quite bad, meme worthy
Wtf is a LOA
In wow they're like spirit god animals basically
just worst expansion with too many bad stats, weaker than un'goro
I mean yeah but that's like saying an 8 year old is weaker than a 13 year old so it doesn't really mean anything
@@FlareIsGone but rastakhan was too weak, even their cards were abandoned in rise of shadows and uldum
Yeah but calling it weak compared to ungoro means nothing because ungoro wasn't a weak expansion
what is loa?