This doesn't appear to be a question that is asked that much and I'm curious to know the public opinion on the best expansion (Naxx, GVG, BRM, or TGT). Your opinion can be based on card quality or simply just how fun the expansion was.
Black Rock Mountain was the best. It gave decent cards, little RNG, and the adventures were fun. Emperor is broken but its the good kind of broken, as its a enabler for many cards. For example, Malygos became a thing because of him. Sure it also enables stupid things like patron warrior, but i think thats more of a problem with the warsong buff than anything.
On the opposite of that, we have GvG. Hate this expansion, all that RNG crap like portal and shredder becoming prevalent because of this garbage. Dr Boom is the WRONG kind of broken with it taking up every single high cost minion space around that mana cost, not to mention its power from disgusting RNG boombots.
Mysterious Challenger, Murloc Knight, Chillmaw, Twilight Guardian, Wyrmrest Agent, Competitive Spirit, Justicaar Trueheart, Ram Wrangler, Tuskar Jouster, Thunder Bluff Valiant, Savage Combatant (its a one-of in several druid lists), Effigy, Healing Wave, Argent Horserider, Spellslinger, Arcane Blast, Bash, and Darnassus Aspirant. these being the ones that are CLEARLY being used in the meta, and we're already twice the number of cards you listed.
Besides that I neglected to mention several cards people have had notable success with but lack some the certainty to stick around that the others have: Bolster, Sparring Partner, Saraad, Living Roots, Flash Heal, King's Elekk, Fallen Hero, Alexstrasza's Champion, Buccaneer, Confessor Paletress, Coldarra Drake, Bear Trap, Charged Hammer, Powershot, Warhorse Trainer, and even Spawn of Shadows, as well as dreadsteed, brings us to almost 4 times the nine you stated, not as powerful, as TGT was OVER four times the cards there were in Naxx, and the latter half I listed are just "powerful maybes"
so yes, TGT was disappointing on one hand, but you're very much overstating how bad it is, its more that the neutrals were utter trash than anything else.
additionally I dislike Naxx for the reason you like it, it was too game changing in too few cards, the cards printed are still an UNPARALLELED level of meta defining today, even with answers printed to most of them, and the sheer fact that their so unparalleled makes it not good design, just flat-out broken.
I'm sure you've seen Grim Patron's introduction to the frothing math warrior and the frustration that deck can bring, or perhaps, going further back, Undertaker, from the same expansion that you view so highly, creating the worst meta this game has seen since the old aggro druid meta before widespread access to the game was granted? or perhaps we could bring up the change to unleash the hounds, transforming the old combo hunter into the face class we know today, and how frustratingly bullshit that and old buzzard for a 4 mana combo was at the time? Essentially, a powerful game-changer does not immediately a good gameplay experience make, especially not if it homogenizes the decks in the meta as much as Naxx still does today, (I do think it was more forgivable at the time because the meta pre-Naxx was actually weaker, but the lasting effect its had is a bit too much)
On the actual topic, I don't really have a favorite expansion, I like what TGT means for future expansions in that it seems blizz is starting to realize that the "Everything is OP means nothing is OP" view they've always seemed to have on card design doesn't actually work
If you are asking which expansion had the biggest impact on the game considering how many cards were released, Naxx wins by a landslide. It changed up almost every deck, gave some classes the tools they needed to become competitive and nearly every card sees a reasonable amount of play.
My favorite expansion though I think is TGT. I know a lot of the cards are underwhelming compared to GVG and "inspire is too slow" and "joust is broken" blah blah blah. The IDEA of TGT was great. The cards are undeniably fun, even if not many are competitive. The only thing that could have made TGT better would be purging the bottom 10% of the cards released and start over with "playablility" in mind.
Naxxramass and Brm. Because of cards they introduced and I prefer the adventure format, and love PVE heroics in hearthstone.
Outside of undertaker(and imo mad scientist) Naxx provided us with some balanced, but really good tools which we use effectively these days. Just imagine a meta without zombie chow and sludge belcher to keep face hunter in check, or Loatheb to keep old miracle, freeze mage and druid combo in check. Imagine warrior in arena/constructed without death's bite (which is op now because of frothing/patron, but was needed to keep warrior relevant) or warlock without voidcaller.
Brm introduced a new cool archetype in patron(though for sake of balance, they need to nerf warsong->frothing interaction, so only 3 attack or less minions have charge), introduced emperor that enables stuff like malygos warlock and many combo decks, introduced a good base for dragon synergy cards for a new type of control deck. We just lacked good cheap/midrange dragon options, but that thankfully got addressed in TGT.
Gvg was full of powercreep and rng, but it had some good spots too. It introduced many interesting and cool effects, but ultimately still hurts the game through dr Boom and Piloted Shredder (and arguably shielded minibot and muster, but imo they are fine, classes like shaman need similar tools). Gvg also introduced healbot, savior of many control decks vs aggro. Mech archetype turned out to be a solid tempo deck for mages and sometimes shaman. It also had my personal favorite card in Hearthstone, Neptulon.
For TGT, it's too early too say. They have been too careful with balance this time, and outside of screwing up and making Challenger so overpowered, they didn't make too many outstanding cards. Their philosophy this time was to make cards that work in archetypes, and not necessarily have huge value on their own. They introduced few more solid stuff for shaman, but shaman still needs few early game staples/good small aoe(to handle muster without using storm) from future updates ( even though shaman is not top tier, it's better than people think, shaman is good at current eu metagame at rank 2-legend and in legend, last few days I had 80% winrate with shaman, reaching legend for the first time and going from 2k legend to 185 with score 10-3 in legend, meta was full of druids and control warriors, with secret paladins and tempo mages here and there). As already mentioned, one of the better things they did was enabling Dragons, which is probably the best feature of this expansion. Also, they have introduced a couple of interesting cards that have potential, but currently lack support tools to work.
Imo Naxxramas, the first expansion introduced a lot of cards that really molds the game to what it is now, among others. But the expansion I really like was their newest one: The Grand Tournament. Despite some skepticism, I really liked what the expansion was pushing the game the game towards, with new fun mechanics and exciting rng (might be frustrating to play at times) but really fun to watch matches with lots of it. TGT really livened up the game.
Naxx by far. Over a year later and we still see widespread play from 50% of the Naxx cards.
Compare that with the other sets and it isn't even close. By looking at the cards used in the top 21 constructed decks from the most recent Liquid Hearth's Power Rankings, we see a total of:
Naxx is, in my opinion, the best so far overall. Just so many critical cards from it. After that GvG was a ton of fun and the mechs are still making an impact. TGT and BRM I don't have a preference between. But I agree that the game is solid.
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This doesn't appear to be a question that is asked that much and I'm curious to know the public opinion on the best expansion (Naxx, GVG, BRM, or TGT). Your opinion can be based on card quality or simply just how fun the expansion was.
I like BRM simply because of Emperor. Some classes got cool stuff too like Flamewaker and Imp gang boss.
TGVGT was the best.
Naxx for sure!!!
'There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact'
Sherlock Holmes
Black Rock Mountain was the best. It gave decent cards, little RNG, and the adventures were fun. Emperor is broken but its the good kind of broken, as its a enabler for many cards. For example, Malygos became a thing because of him. Sure it also enables stupid things like patron warrior, but i think thats more of a problem with the warsong buff than anything.
On the opposite of that, we have GvG. Hate this expansion, all that RNG crap like portal and shredder becoming prevalent because of this garbage. Dr Boom is the WRONG kind of broken with it taking up every single high cost minion space around that mana cost, not to mention its power from disgusting RNG boombots.
Legend Rogue, druid when lazy
Mysterious Challenger, Murloc Knight, Chillmaw, Twilight Guardian, Wyrmrest Agent, Competitive Spirit, Justicaar Trueheart, Ram Wrangler, Tuskar Jouster, Thunder Bluff Valiant, Savage Combatant (its a one-of in several druid lists), Effigy, Healing Wave, Argent Horserider, Spellslinger, Arcane Blast, Bash, and Darnassus Aspirant. these being the ones that are CLEARLY being used in the meta, and we're already twice the number of cards you listed.
Besides that I neglected to mention several cards people have had notable success with but lack some the certainty to stick around that the others have: Bolster, Sparring Partner, Saraad, Living Roots, Flash Heal, King's Elekk, Fallen Hero, Alexstrasza's Champion, Buccaneer, Confessor Paletress, Coldarra Drake, Bear Trap, Charged Hammer, Powershot, Warhorse Trainer, and even Spawn of Shadows, as well as dreadsteed, brings us to almost 4 times the nine you stated, not as powerful, as TGT was OVER four times the cards there were in Naxx, and the latter half I listed are just "powerful maybes"
so yes, TGT was disappointing on one hand, but you're very much overstating how bad it is, its more that the neutrals were utter trash than anything else.
additionally I dislike Naxx for the reason you like it, it was too game changing in too few cards, the cards printed are still an UNPARALLELED level of meta defining today, even with answers printed to most of them, and the sheer fact that their so unparalleled makes it not good design, just flat-out broken.
I'm sure you've seen Grim Patron's introduction to the frothing math warrior and the frustration that deck can bring, or perhaps, going further back, Undertaker, from the same expansion that you view so highly, creating the worst meta this game has seen since the old aggro druid meta before widespread access to the game was granted? or perhaps we could bring up the change to unleash the hounds, transforming the old combo hunter into the face class we know today, and how frustratingly bullshit that and old buzzard for a 4 mana combo was at the time? Essentially, a powerful game-changer does not immediately a good gameplay experience make, especially not if it homogenizes the decks in the meta as much as Naxx still does today, (I do think it was more forgivable at the time because the meta pre-Naxx was actually weaker, but the lasting effect its had is a bit too much)
On the actual topic, I don't really have a favorite expansion, I like what TGT means for future expansions in that it seems blizz is starting to realize that the "Everything is OP means nothing is OP" view they've always seemed to have on card design doesn't actually work
If you are asking which expansion had the biggest impact on the game considering how many cards were released, Naxx wins by a landslide. It changed up almost every deck, gave some classes the tools they needed to become competitive and nearly every card sees a reasonable amount of play.
My favorite expansion though I think is TGT. I know a lot of the cards are underwhelming compared to GVG and "inspire is too slow" and "joust is broken" blah blah blah. The IDEA of TGT was great. The cards are undeniably fun, even if not many are competitive. The only thing that could have made TGT better would be purging the bottom 10% of the cards released and start over with "playablility" in mind.
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Naxxramass and Brm. Because of cards they introduced and I prefer the adventure format, and love PVE heroics in hearthstone.
Outside of undertaker(and imo mad scientist) Naxx provided us with some balanced, but really good tools which we use effectively these days. Just imagine a meta without zombie chow and sludge belcher to keep face hunter in check, or Loatheb to keep old miracle, freeze mage and druid combo in check. Imagine warrior in arena/constructed without death's bite (which is op now because of frothing/patron, but was needed to keep warrior relevant) or warlock without voidcaller.
Brm introduced a new cool archetype in patron(though for sake of balance, they need to nerf warsong->frothing interaction, so only 3 attack or less minions have charge), introduced emperor that enables stuff like malygos warlock and many combo decks, introduced a good base for dragon synergy cards for a new type of control deck. We just lacked good cheap/midrange dragon options, but that thankfully got addressed in TGT.
Gvg was full of powercreep and rng, but it had some good spots too. It introduced many interesting and cool effects, but ultimately still hurts the game through dr Boom and Piloted Shredder (and arguably shielded minibot and muster, but imo they are fine, classes like shaman need similar tools). Gvg also introduced healbot, savior of many control decks vs aggro. Mech archetype turned out to be a solid tempo deck for mages and sometimes shaman. It also had my personal favorite card in Hearthstone, Neptulon.
For TGT, it's too early too say. They have been too careful with balance this time, and outside of screwing up and making Challenger so overpowered, they didn't make too many outstanding cards. Their philosophy this time was to make cards that work in archetypes, and not necessarily have huge value on their own. They introduced few more solid stuff for shaman, but shaman still needs few early game staples/good small aoe(to handle muster without using storm) from future updates ( even though shaman is not top tier, it's better than people think, shaman is good at current eu metagame at rank 2-legend and in legend, last few days I had 80% winrate with shaman, reaching legend for the first time and going from 2k legend to 185 with score 10-3 in legend, meta was full of druids and control warriors, with secret paladins and tempo mages here and there). As already mentioned, one of the better things they did was enabling Dragons, which is probably the best feature of this expansion. Also, they have introduced a couple of interesting cards that have potential, but currently lack support tools to work.
Imo Naxxramas, the first expansion introduced a lot of cards that really molds the game to what it is now, among others. But the expansion I really like was their newest one: The Grand Tournament. Despite some skepticism, I really liked what the expansion was pushing the game the game towards, with new fun mechanics and exciting rng (might be frustrating to play at times) but really fun to watch matches with lots of it. TGT really livened up the game.
Naxx hype
Naxx for reminding me the Good Old Days..
Please insert Coin....
TGT.
It's Nax, Blackrock and GnG which are messed up.
Gotta be Naxx. Just nice solid cards that have a place in a lot of decks. Also the adventure bosses were better than the BRM one.
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Yeah for sure, loving all of the expansions TGT has thrown me out of wack a bit but i'm still enjoying it heaps!
naxx by far.
Naxx by far. Over a year later and we still see widespread play from 50% of the Naxx cards.
Compare that with the other sets and it isn't even close. By looking at the cards used in the top 21 constructed decks from the most recent Liquid Hearth's Power Rankings, we see a total of:
GvG: 34 cards, which makes up 28% of the set.
BRM: 9 cards, 29% of the set.
TGT: 19 cards, 14% of the set.
GVG got me game into the game but TGT was the first one I got hyped for.
Angry Chicken
Naxx is, in my opinion, the best so far overall. Just so many critical cards from it. After that GvG was a ton of fun and the mechs are still making an impact. TGT and BRM I don't have a preference between. But I agree that the game is solid.
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