Vanilla Hearthstone

What do you all think vanilla hearthstone would be like if blizzard kept every balance change they made to the classic cards?

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very interesting question. i quit in vanilla so i dont know the answer but maybe someone who has played since then and remembers the meta can say something

As someone who started playing in Witchwood, i’m actually curious as to what vanilla Hearthstone was like, or even what it was like around the first couple of expansions.

never got the chance to play old warsong commander, i really want this

From the classic times to the 1st added new card and before hall of fames, It was kinda strange, you really could build any class as you wanted, and get away with it as long as you had a nice curve in the deck and now the famous “chillwind yeti” stats were what was sticky and deadly back then.

Now there is 1 thing different from back then to now, Meta/deck tech wasn’t as heavy as it is now, Little to no people really knew what HS was like in 2014 cause it was still in a early state, and didn’t do much of “review each card power”.

It was a common bad then for nearly every deck to run some cards, that never see play now, and a new player had nearly even footin’ with someone with some classic cards unlock, outside of planning ahead of your opponent.

Let’s look at Cain/leeroy back then, Cain was consider the best trading minion in the game, while Leeroy was a hard tempo play to rush down people health got agro decks. 4 Mana Leeroy was a scary thing with rouge back then if they had shadow step, but had Classes like Druid who could use the 1/1’s to turn the rouge tempo damage into hindering play, While other classes like Mage treated it like a Polymorph/fireball combo on most minions that were big, like Ironbark.

Cards like Deathwing was a “dream pull” for most people during classic time, and would only hold DW for Priest, or DW their DW/last ditch. Now there is maybe some rose tent i’m having or a foggy memory on some old power plays that made me hate a few classes, but you were able to use the starting decks to legend if you knew to play around classes and cards that were just drop for it stats over all the combo there is now.

Now we’re getting to much Value over stats cards, rather then just good solid cards that might be better vs decks that want value, while other just play feel good stats and see how someone plays around it or play their own feel good stats and see how much threat is ready to ruin that match.

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Well towards the end of vanilla, Miracle Rogue was all the jazz. Autioneer, leeroy and cold blood which all were important cards has been nerfed (You could play your 4 mana leeroy 3 times with shadowsteps + coldblood/prep/evis stuff). All this would seem kinda dead now.

Combo druid was the next big thing. Maily because it had a good matchup against Miracle Rogue. But firstly all the ramp has got nerfed (Innervate, wild growth) Secondly the combo is now non existing, Force of nature treants used to have charge which you used with savage roar for huge dmg bursts. So that deck would be dead now.

Control warrior was popular, And haven’t gotten hit that hard. Only +1 mana to war axe and +1 mana to execute. So it would probably be strong.

Freeze mage wasn’t that popular on ladder but was in tournament play to counter specific decks. But if control warrior is popular It would probably struggle.

Zoolock was quite strong, but has had a few minor hits. Knife juggler used to be a 2/3. Soul Fire used to be 0 mana. But would probably still go strong.

Handlock was very strong too. Only huge problem is that you now wouldn’t be able to go. Turn 1 coin ancient watcher, turn 2 Ironbeak owl since owl was nerfed to 3 mana.

Face hunter was also strong. But the nerf to buzzard is a nasty one. But I think it would still go strong.

There were other decks like Token druid, Control Paladin, Control Priest, midrange shaman too. But I think they were a bit behind in power level.

Long story short, I think control warrior, Face Hunter, Handlock and Zoolock would still be played. And maybe some other decks would become popular. Like the control Priest hasn’t been hit at all.

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Control Priest was also a bit of a joke because you had to rely so much on Auchnai + CoH for clearing a board.

I agree with most of your assessment on what decks would exist. I’d probably put my money Control Warrior and Zoolock being the top decks as Face Hunter lost A LOT of power through all of their nerfs. It would still be a deck but it couldn’t pick apart other decks as much.

I wouldn’t sleep on a Tempo Rogue being figured out. There was never any reason to try and develop one because Miracle was so good but a lot of the core elements to tempo rogue still remain and the Prep nerf isn’t too insanely harmful to the deck.

You’d see even more aggro than there is now.

That’s about it.