Title. Do you prefer decks that are suddenly relevant and powerful thanks to one expansion (Implock, Nathria Enrage Warrior) or do you prefer when decks build up a critical mass over two years (Ramp Druid, Beast Hunter)?
I think I prefer the latter because that means at least the decks you see will change over time. Seeing Implock or Curse Implock after all these months is just a bit boring.
I usually prefer when a synergy is just powerful from one set. Firstly I don’t enjoy how the new introductions change some of the decks in wild, like secret mage for instance. I also think that they reproduce basically the same effect way too often that it becomes completely stale, like for instance if I played secret mage in like 2016, 2018, 2020… Why would I want to play it again if they reproduced it in 2023 and I would “almost” bet real money that it would come back in 2023 and if not in 2024.
I actually have this strong opinion that maybe they should start discontinuing some classes which for a time sounded really meme to me when other people said it or at least alternate which classes are included, so only like 5 classes were active at a time, but with more archetypes included than was previously so it’s more like MTG style or else you go the other way and make like 60 classes, but with the limited card capacity of a game of classic. I believe both of these methods would create diversity and flexibility because on one hand 60 classes with fewer cards would be really easy to balance and on the flip side having 5 classes like in magic means that if your archetype gets destroyed then you can often recycle that card in another deck, but what is basically happening now is that you get your mage deck nerfed so you are forced to play something similar, lets say frost DK and then your cards are completely irrelevant.
I prefer decks that are released with a solid base and then are improved later on.
Fire mage was released and it never made any sense and soon it will rotate (did you know Antonidas is a standard card?).
Mech mage was released and then abandoned, but at least it worked.
Discard warlock got some cards across all expansions and minisets and it’s still not working; rotation is approaching and it still doesn’t make sense to play discard lock in standard.
Decks like heropower mage, beast hunter, control paladin, that had their time and with new expansions they got new things to use are what I usually prefer