Hearthpwn

I think "never seen play" is plain wrong, maybe you could say that for Scourgelord Garrosh being the weakest and least used Death Knight hero card, but Thrall's DK was, as I said, a staple in any deck that played around tokens/evolve. Evolve Shamans were not a Tier 1 deck, maybe for one expansion, but still used. Valeera was a good card in Mill Rogue and Uther created the OTK Exodia hero power deck (albeit still weak and underplayed). My point was that OP is completely wrong saying that the old hero cards/quest were never used. Maybe they look weak now compared to the newer ones, but back then those cards did shape the meta, especially the Death Knights.

Maybe the only quests that didn't impact enough were the Uldum ones, but most of them had niche rewards that worked only with one specific deck. Maybe just Corrupt the Waters and Untapped Potential were impactful enough to be remembered, followed by Activate the Obelisk. The others were borderline playable (Warlock, Mage, Rogue, Paladin)/downright bad or too weak to compete (Hunter, Warrior)

I'm sorry- what?

Were you around during Knights of the Frozen Throne? Bloodreaver Guldan and Deathstalker Rexxar shaped the meta a lot. Thrall, Deathseer was a staple in every single evolve shaman deck (a big thing back then) and Shadowreaper Anduin had been oppressive in both standard and wild for a while. And let's not even talk about Un'Goro and the quests, with Time Warp for mage and Fire Plume's Heart for warrior, just off the top of my head. Even for a time where cards were weaker, those cards I mentioned did shape or impact the meta in multiple ways.