The Boomsday project is coming almost here so it only seems fitting to finally rank all the expansions and adventures. I couldn’t find any articles doing this, so I decided to do it myself. Of course, to preserve a sense of Hitchcockian suspense and to assure the most possibly clickbait article name, we’ll save the best for last.
For reference, the Coolest Cards will be determined not by the most effective but the most fun and interesting. The Worst Cards will be determined by the OP or cards that I consider Toxic. And the Wasted potential category will refer to cards that could have been cool but were too underpowered to reach their full potential.
12. One Night in Karazhan:
This adventure was simultaneously the easiest and the least creative. The cards that it brought in are hardly remembered either, with most of the legendaries being middle of the road at best and underpowered garbage at worst. The portal cards were alright but half of them cost too much for their effect. The theme was the only interesting thing in the expansion and even then, there really wasn’t very many places to go with it.
The adventure strengthened Secret Mage, Dragon Pally, and made Beast Druid a powerhouse. It gave Priest some needed power bonuses with Bishop and Priest of the Feast. Oh and also gave it game them Purify. Ba-dum crash. (Purify is actually one of my favorite cards since it combos nicely with my silence-based deck. It also gave combo cards for discard-lock.)
But that’s not all, who can forget such fun and memorable additions to Hearthstone as:
· Pompous Thespian
· Arcanosmith
· Pantry Spider
· Enchanted Raven
· Runic Egg
· Deadly Fork
· Kara Kazham!
· And last but certainly least, one of the worst legendaries in the game, Moroes!!
So, nice work Blizzard, I guess.
Coolest cards: Swashburgler, Babbling Book, Menagerie Warden,
Worst cards: Kindly grandmother, Silverware golem
Wasted potential: Silvermoon Portal, Moatlurker, Moroes, Wicked Witchdoctor, Ironforge Portal, the hours of your life you spent grinding for gold so you could buy it…
Title: Most Forgettable Expansion
11. Grand Tournament:
Choosing between this expansion and One Night in Karazhan for last place was difficult. However, while One Night has a cooler theme, Grand Tournament has cooler ideas for cards. The Inspire mechanic was a pretty cool one, the only problem was that it cost way too much for the intended effect and simultaneously most of the expansion was based around it.
On the flip side of the coin is the Joust mechanic, one which Blizzard never really commit to. I really like the idea of a deck that’s based around revealing your strong cards during the early game. If it had been done properly, it could have shaken up the meta and stopped the rampant aggro problem which existed around that time.
Instead, it created a couple of cool cards and disappeared into the void which most Hearthstone mechanics go to.
Let’s see how it did shake up the meta! It started beast druid and helped Dragon priest. It solidified the basis of the absurdly powerful aggro shaman deck, with ¾ totems on turn 2 and 3/2’s on turn 3 that summon 3/4 and then a 4/4 that gets +1/+1 for your other totems on turn 4, and then your opponent concedes and wonders why he even tries. It also created Secret Paladin. So you know, just a really healthy, fun meta change altogether.
Coolest cards: Spellslinger, Kodo rider, Gadgetzan jouster
Worst cards: Murloc Knight, Mysterious Challenger, Totem Golem, Dreadsteed
Wasted potential: Ball of Spiders, Poisoned Blade, Lock and Load, whatever it was they were trying with Dreadscale and Acidmaw
Title: Most Uninspired Use Of A New Mechanic
10. Curse of Naxxramas
Hard to choose between this one and Blackrock mountain. I’m beginning to think that the adventures were rarely better than the expansions and were generally kind of a bad idea from the beginning.
This one, of course, was the first adventure, so I’ve got some great nostalgia for it. Still, Blackrock had the Dragon synergy that I love, while this adventure just had a bunch of deathrattle cards. It has some cool deathrattle cards. But it also had Undertaker, which for a short amount of time ruined the game. Oh, and that spider that summons two 1/1s that every hunter deck carried forever. And the 3/5 that summoned a ½. And a 2/8 taunt. So yeah. Some of the deathrattles were really cool but Blizzard really screwed the pooch by filling the game with stupidly good early game cards at the beginning of the game’s lifespan and pretty much ruined most expansions to come up until the advent of seasons and rotation.
Coolest cards: Webspinner, Shade of Naxxramas, Reincarnate, Echoing Ooze, Duplicate
Worst cards: Undertaker (pre-nerf), Deathlord, Sludgebelcher, Haunted Creeper, Zombie Chow, Voidcaller
Wasted potential: Stoneskin Gargoyle, Nerub’ar Weblord
Title: Best First Hearthstone Adventure
9. Goblins and Gnomes
Speaking of flooding the game early with stupid aggro cards. Goblins and Gnomes were incredible to me when it first came out. I loved the randomness. I loved the different ways things could change so quickly for no reason. I loved Unstable Portal. I loved Sneed’s Old Shredder.
The expansion, however, was essentially ruined by Piloted Shredder. This one card, that you have to put in every deck ever or you might as well concede, closed so many doors. Did Blizzard nerf it? No. They waited for it to rotate out, rather than address it was a stupid problem that existed. Was it stupid in every way that it existed in the form it did? Yes. It was absurd that it existed. Combine that with Micro Machine, Tinkertown Technician, Dr. Boom, and Whirling Zip-o-matic, and the game was so heavily tilted toward aggro face mindlessness that it prevented you from having fun with all the random mechanics they had created.
The expansion was still fun for all the different avenues it opened up for me. But the power creep was absurd enough that it has tainted my experience with the game. I hope it didn’t for anybody else.
Coolest cards: Recombobulator, Unstable portal, Madder Bomber, Gnomish experimenter
Worst cards: 4/3 actual hell, Mech warper, Micro Machine,
Wasted potential: Seige Engine, King of Beasts, Junkbot
Title: Most Random Expansion
8. Blackrock Mountain
Blackrock Mountain is probably the middle ground between the less inspired or overly broken expansions and the super cool later ones. The adventure mode was more interesting than One Night but less interesting then Naxxramas.
It introduced a ton of Dragon synergy, which I enjoyed as I still play Dragon Paladin and helped along Demon Warlock considerably with Imp Gang Boss and Demonwrath. It created the unbeatable Grim Patron deck, but I didn’t experience that too much so I wouldn’t feel right complaining about it as much as I should. I would have liked it if the “cost (1) less for every minion killed this turn” had been better expanded upon, but like every Hearthstone expansion, I find the most interesting mechanics to be the ones that were mostly left on the cutting room floor. Overall, it’s a 6.5368 out of 10 expansion. Nice ideas, boring execution, mediocre theme.
Coolest cards: Chromaggus, Ax Flinger, Gang Up
Worst card: Grim Patron
Wasted potential: Revenge
Title: Most Middle of the Road Expansion
7. Witchwood
I’ve already made an article summing up my thoughts on Witchwood, but I’ll do it again. Honestly, I probably would have rated this expansion higher on the list (before Blackrock but definitely not before GvG), if not for the single player stuff. The creation of Toki, the Time Traveling gnome and her eventual battle against (spoilers but also if you haven’t played the game yet why do you care and if you have why do you care either?) herself was a crowning moment of funny.
The deck building aspects of the expansion are intriguing (they opened up a lot of archetypes quick but kind of seal off room for experimentation), but nothing to write home about. They end up dividing the classes pretty evenly, but they also create very overpowered aggro and combo strategies. Cards like Shudderwock for instance, kind of screw up any sense of balance in the game. Hadronox became OP with the creation of Witching hour.
The introduction of Rush and Echo as mechanics, however, is notable and enjoyable. Time will tell if this expansion becomes the new GvG or if the super-combos will fade into the distance like decks built around cards from less influential expansions (*COUGH COUGH* looking at you Grand Tournament). I lean toward the former. This expansion created Hand Druid (bleh), Shudderwock Shaman, Odd Paladin, and Even Shaman, and all of those decks are based around specific, very powerful cards that massively change your deck orientation. In my opinion, that involves direct power creep.
Coolest cards: Nightscale Matriarch, Tess Graymane, Dire Frenzy, Earthen might, Holy Water, Baleful Banker, Nightmare Amalgam, Witch’s Cauldron, Witch’s Apprentice, Blazing Invocation.
Worst cards: Lord Godfrey, Shudderwock,
Wasted potential: Cinderstorm, Sound the Bells!, the majority of the “Swap attack and health” cards…
Title: Most Stable Meta Created
6. Knights of the Frozen Throne
This expansion has the best trailer, hands down. Jania’s lines make me shiver every time.
This one has some cool ideas like Blackrock, but it doesn’t leave a huge impression. The theme isn’t my favorite, but I like the fact that Hearthstone had another semi-serious expansion after Whispers of the Old Gods. Lifesteal makes for a cool addition, I only wish it was retroactively added into the Adaptation pool. Hero Cards also make for a nice way of shaking up the game AND telling the community that there will never be Monk or Death Knight classes. I do feel that some of the Hero Cards feel very overpowered (I’m looking at you, Bloodreaver Gul’dan and Malfurion the Pestilence) and some of them feel pretty underpowered, even if they are strong in theory.
It also added the concept of the three princes, who all do something unique and special if you have no other cards in your deck that cost as much as them. Kelseth is the only one that really sees use, but I do think they would fit nicely in a Legendary-Only deck.
The expansion created some very annoying cards, like Gnomeferatu, Obsidian Statue, and Ultimate Infestation. But it also allowed for a lot of fun randomness and interesting interactions. Tuskarr Fisherman, Deathspeaker, Wicked Skeleton, Night howler, and Necrotic Geist, are all cards that it feels like we should have gotten ages ago, because of how obvious their abilities are. None of those are frequently played and some of them are pretty bad, but they are cool, and they do add variety to the meta.
I wish that the “if it’s your opponent’s turn” mechanic had paid off better. But I was glad to see an influx of Deathrattle cards. It reminded me of Naxxramas but it didn’t feel derivative or too overpowered.
Oh, and the adventure mode has some pretty fun moments.
Coolest cards: Stitched Tracker, Play Dead, Simulacrum, Shadow Ascendant, Treachery, Furnaceface Colossus, Bring it on, Lich King, Corpse Raiser, Happy Ghoul
Worst cards: Gnomeferatu, Ultimate Infestation, Defile, Despicable Dreadlord, Bloodreaver Gul’dan, Spreading Plague, Boomerang
Wasted Potential: Fatespinner, Sindragosa, Light’s Sorrow, Blackguard, Spectral pillager, Bloodqueen whatsherface, all the Freeze cards in Shaman
Title: Most Dust I Spent Defeating a Boss In Adventure Mode
5. Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
This expansion has, in my opinion, one of the best themes. It’s also probably the least influential of the best expansions. Jade Golem decks made for a good mid-range and control deck, but the Handbuff decks never took off, for the obvious reason that slight stat buffs aren’t good enough for Aggro decks and I’m not sure what the hell Blizzard was trying to do with the Potion guys, but it really didn’t have any kind of cohesion. I’m pretty sure that was the idea though since it never seemed like that they were trying in the first place.
Even the Jade Golem decks didn’t last that long since the next expansion shook up the meta more and the Jade Golem decks couldn’t really adapt. They ran into the classic hearthstone problem of being less advantageous after the next expansion. Combine that with the fact that they didn’t combo well with decks from Whispers and you can see why Mean Streets didn’t do so well as far as shaking things up. Aside from the Dopplegangster addition that helped Evolve decks, nothing really tied together coherently.
But I love the theme and I think some of the interactions were really cool, even if they didn’t pay off well. AND it contains my favorite Hearthstone Original character, with Aya Blackpaw.
Coolest cards: Kabal talonpriest, Grimestreet enforcer, Potion of Madness, White Eyes
Worst cards: Sleep with the Fishes, Abyssal Enforcer, Jade Enforcer, Devolve
Wasted potential: Red Mana Wyrm (should have got +1/+1 from spells), Lunar Visions
Title: Most Interesting original character (also Most Funny Promotional Material with the newspapers)
4. Journey to Ungoro
I really like the Adapt mechanic. I also like the quest mechanic even if it caused some OP decks to arise. This expansion is also themed around Dinosaurs which of course made it one of the best. To add to that, the Elemental tribe finally became a thing. The trailer wasn’t very good though, so I guess it all sort of evens out in the end.
Seriously, this expansion was the best. The elemental synergy was cool but it wasn’t (and still isn’t) OP. Most of the deck themes that the Quests encourage lend themselves to cool ideas, even if Blizzard kind of painted themselves into a corner with it, making most of them either not worth it or the only option because of how good they are.
I do wish the Adapt theme had been better implemented, there are a couple of dino cards where they just feel wimpy. Pterrodax Hatchling is one. Ravasaur Runt is another one. I think As well, though the class legendaries are the Beesknees, the neutral legendaries are also some of the lamest in an expansion of this magnitude. But ultimately, I think that these are all nitpicks.
The expansion continues the romping adventure theme from League of Explorers and that’s good enough for me.
Coolest cards: Primordial Drake, Jeweled Macaw, Crackling Razormaw, Primordial Glyph, Pyros, Lyra the Sunshard, Shadow Visions, Stone Sentinel, Hallucination, Free From Amber, Earthen Scales, Blazecaller, Volcanosaur, Devilsaur egg
Worst cards: Tar Creeper, Vilespine Slayer, Corrupting Mist, Fire Plume’s Heart
Wasted potential: Kalimos the Elemental Lord, The Last Kaleidosaur, The Marsh Queen, Tortollan Primalist
Title: Most Interesting Deck Building Conceit
3. League of Explorers
I almost put this in front of Whispers of Old Gods. Whispers I think I liked more, but League of Explorers felt more balanced and innovative to an extent. It was the first Adventure to really take full advantage of its format. The “Choose Your Own Adventure” aspect of the game was super cool, and I only wish that they had used it more.
There are a lot of interesting, but underpowered cards in this expansion, but I feel its made up for by all the fun cards that it introduced. The fun randomness of the discover cards and the super cool theme of the adventure makes me more endeared to it, even if it wasn’t
There’s a reason that the Discover ability has become a permanent addition to the game. It opens a lot of avenues for how a game can go. It can lead to amazing combos and surprise comebacks, or it can fail horribly. And I like that.
Coolest cards: Entomb, Unearthed Raptor, Keeper of Uldaman, Elise Starseeker, Raven Idol, Obsidian Destroyer, Jeweled Scarab, Arch-Theif Rafaam, Reno Jackson, Brann Bronzebeard
Worst cards: Tunnel Trogg, Anyfin can happen, Reno Jackson (me listing it twice was not a typo)
Wasted potential: Ancient Shade, Rumbling Elemental, Everyfin is Awesome, Arch-Theif Rafaam (this is also not a typo)
Title: Most Innovative Use of Format and New Mechanics
2. Whispers of the Old Gods
This expansion undoubtedly has the best theme for me. Anyone who knows me, knows I like Lovecraftian evil. And Lovecraftian evil in Hearthstone form is both incredibly messed up and hilarious at the same time.
To make it even better, this expansion featured ramped up, “corrupted” versions of cards from the Classic and Basic Set. That alone would have made it worth it. To go along with it, the different deck archetypes created by each of the Old Gods, make for pretty cool decks. C’thun decks felt overplayed and I wish they had done some more interesting interactions with what buffed C’thun (like having Deathrattles that buffed him). But they were cool because of the concept of inducing dread in your opponent by making a singular, devastating card stronger and stronger. N’Zoth is another cool one, for allowing you to bring back super powerful Deathrattle cards like Cairne and Savannah Highmane. And then there’s Yogg-Saron, who embodies everything I love about Hearthstone. Just fill a deck with random spells and as long as you can survive to turn 10, you’re going to get to watch something either hilarious or cool happen. Y’Shaarj, is, of course, the exception to the rule, but I still like him for having the most difficult name to pronounce.
I also really like the Forbidden cards, as they allow for a lot of variety in play.
It has some of the worst Class Legendaries, but like how Un’goro made up for it with cool Class Legendaries, I think this expansion pulled off the reverse really well.
I wish that I could rate this expansion higher, but I do think it introduced a problem with the infamous 4 mana, 7/7, and the Thing From Below, which both made Aggro Shaman pretty much impossible to defeat. I also think that there should have been better counters to C’thun decks because of the boredom created by their prevalence.
The expansion makes up for it by having the most inspired naming of a card (Wisps of the Old Gods).
Coolest cards: Yogg-Saron, Cult Apothecary, Nerubian Prophet, Faceless Shambler, Faceless Summoner, Cabalist’s Tome, Call of the Wild, Selfless Hero, Forbidden Shaping, Undercity Huckster, Spreading Madness, Evolve, Master of Evolution, Shadowcaster, A Light In the Darkness, Shifter Zerus
Worst cards: Flamewreathed Faceless, Klaxxi Amberweaver, Twin Emporer Vek’lor
Wasted potential: Y’Shaarj, Thistle Tea, Rallying Blade, Blood of the Ancient One, Spawn of N’zoth
Title: Most Titles claimed
· Most Darkly Themed Expansion For a Silly Card Game
· Most Cool Concept For Revisiting Old Cards
· Most Extensive Section For Coolest Cards
· Most Regrettable Power Creep Since GvG
1. Kobolds and Catacombs
This expansion is not the most randomly fun or the most balanced. It introduced a number of cards that allow OP combos and though I love the D&D theme, I do think I’m not amazingly more impressed with the cards in the expansion, to me it doesn’t matter. The spellstone mechanic being a lesser version of the Quest mechanic, doesn’t matter. It does not matter that the Recruit mechanic has a high variance and is overly helpful to decks running giant minions. And it does not matter that the Warlock cards created in this expansion should exist only in my deepest nightmares.
What matters is that I got dozens of hours of fun out of the Dungeon run mode. What matters is that it was fun and that it got me back into Hearthstone, after I had stopped playing for half a year for the first time since I got the game back in 2014. And that’s the only thing that matters. Good on you Blizzard, you finally figured out a way to make Solo play super fun.
Coolest cards: Deck of Wonders, Fal’dorei Strider, Shifting Scroll, Wandering Monster, Lesser Emerald Spellstone, Plated Beetle, Windshear Stormcaller, Sonya Shadowdancer, Geoscultptor Yip, Arcane Tyrant, Healing Rain, Cheat Death, Arcane Artificer
Worst cards: Kingsbane, Voidlord, Duskbreaker, Rin the First Disciple, Drywisker Armorer, Skull of Man’ari, Dark Pact, Crushing Hand,
Card That I Would Be A Hypocrite To List As Worst: Carnivorous Cube
Wasted potential: Temporus, Dragonhatcher, Primal Talismans, Seeping Oozling, Shimmering Courser
If I got any of the names of the cards wrong, I apologize (nerd). I will likely be doing a dissection on Boomsday in the coming weeks, so be on the lookout for that. In the meantime, I hope you have a nice day.
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