All my homies hate jades!

I remember when jade was so broken they added a card that just destroyed every 1 mana spell in both players decks and hands, and made the collection flavor text specifically mention jade idol. They knew that card was busted so they just said "here's a tech card to remove it from the game."

This is incorrect: The three Mean Streets factions were the Cabal, the Jade Lotus, and the Pirates.

The important thing to note is that Rogue also got one less Jade card compared to the other two classes. It may have been an oversight, or the fact that Unearthed Raptor curved well into the 2 drop, but I think having one more card would have given this class a chance.

It's amazing that something that was OP and disgusted me currently is trash. The powercreep is insane.

My opinion on Jades is the same now as it was back then. They are perfectly fine. The only problem card is Jade Idol. They should have made it "Shuffle 3 copies of Cut from Jade into your deck" (Cut from Jade is the half of the card that summons a Jade). That way you still have the interesting tempo vs value play from the card but it is never infinite, you will eventually run out of jades just like the other two jade classes did which makes it viable for control to actually beat Jade Druid.

jade idol is the card that made me almost quit hearthstone back in the day. Just having the feeling of instantly loosing when you see a 1 mana card with no way to remove it and have a card come an expansion after as a way to get rid of it, sucked.

It's a bit to unfair to determine a deck archetype's strength years after it's initial release. The game state has changed drastically since then, and playing a deck like that now won't pain an accurate enough picture on what the deck was actually like.

Jade's kinda "suck" atm, for obvious reasons. Expansions power level has gone to absurd level's (in comparison), new class, cards that got changed (that turn where you couldn't attack with patches, for example), other ways to deal with board, as there's lot more cards, ..., so yeah, like most (there are exceptions, ofc), they just got sent to shadow realm. Sometimes I still see some jade druid on wild. Good times.

I remember when Mean Streets first came out. All of the jade cards said "summon a 1/1 Jade Golem," and I was like, "that's nice, I guess," so I didn't play them at first, because there was NOTHING that indicated the golems got bigger each time! The first time I played against jades, I was like "wait, why is that one a 2/2? why's that one a 3/3? hold up, what's happening here?" Blizzard made a fun card game, but they are remarkably bad at explaining the mechanics of the game, within the game. I think I played for a year or so before I ever found out there was a turn limit. I had to look up the "hidden rules" of Hearthstone on the wiki to find out some of the stuff Blizzard doesn't bother explaining. Like, how about just a button on the menu or something that says "Rulebook" that would open a document of the full rules of the game?

The Jades really took the term "going green" quite literally, huh?

Saying Jade is bad (just because it is today) is like saying "Freeze Mage is fun and interactive" Jade Idol was one of the worst design-mistakes Hearthstone ever had and if you think "Jade-Druid was Tier 2" you're just wrong. Esp. with the release of the set that came after it, it was disgustingly broken.

Jades were so broken it's hard to imagine now. Not only did they auto-win against any control and mill deck, they still had a good match up against midrange and even against aggro they still had a fighting chance. When you can flood your deck with what is effectively 1 mana scaling minions you need to die quickly to lose, because on turn 10 they would usually slam down at least one 6/6+ minion every turn.

Man I miss Day9. By far my favorite Hearthstone creator of an older era 😭 he also went to my high school.

I remember using Skulking Geist in almost every deck I made to counter Jade Druid.

It makes me sad that Jade Idol killed the value meta to the point where Blizz even made Skulking Geist to deal with arguably Hearthstone's most problematic card ever made.

Jade idol was one of the earliest infinite value cards. And it took a few sets until geist was printed. Nowadays we have a lot more infinite value cards and not even a real counter *cough* quests

I enjoyed Hearthstone so much during that era. I played a lot of Jade Rogue and Shaman, even though they were much weaker than Druid. I just loved card interaction in Rogue, and the wins I got were very satisfying.

I used to play a control rogue with jade, deathrattles and N'Zoth in that expansion and I had the most fun in years with that deck. So many weird possibilities like shadowstepping N'Zoth

Jade Druid was a deck I straight up refused to play until they introduced Skulking Geist. I think it was the first of these ticking clock decks where your opponent has a really unbalanced disadvantage. Kind of similarly to now with Guff (try controlling against a deck with double your mana and and extra card every turn) and Warrior Juggernaut (hehehe infinite value). Geist on its own was terrible though, the only other deck in the meta it was useful against was Evolve Shaman, or occasionally against Shield Slam or Rogue. I think the reason Jade Rogue was pretty mediocre was also the fact Shaman and Druid got battlecries, and Rogue had to wait a turn or two to trigger its deathrattles. For a class which relied on tempo and wacky combo plays (e.g. Edwin/Auctioneer), jades were too weak. I've played some Jade Druid in wild recently, but even there to have any chance, the deck has to basically be your regular package minus Kaz plus 2x Idol. Jade minions (even Aya, believe it or not) are way too weak on their own.

Jades were hands down my favorite archetype. Second being OG Cthun. I loved the idea of basically creating this larger and larger army. Every year i cross my fingers hoping they would bring jades back to standard in some way

You do understand that it really wasn't the jade package that made druid unstoppable, it was the DK Hero Malfurion and Spreading Plague - then refilling your deck to prevent fatigue. These cards make it possible for you to retain a fairly large armor pool and control the board until you were capable of 10-11-12+ Jades. That's when Jade Druid was badass.

Druids: Whoah this jade archetype looks so fun, can’t wait to try a jade deck ! *adds jade idol Ok I’m done

I don’t care what anyone says I love Jade Druid. I grinded around 1k wins on Druid playing this deck alone. I won’t argue that jades may be poorly designed or aggravating, and they’ve definitely been power crept, but I’ll always have a soft spot for this deck

Oh yea....I remember the Jade Druid days. I was a control player and eventually just decided to ff immediately when running into one because otherwise it's like a 10% chance of winning.

8:23 man it's been literal years at this point but seeing Patches and not hearing "I'M IN CHARRRGE NOW!" still feels wrong

I remember those days. Maybe it's where I was in the ladder at the time, but I don't remember seeing aggro shaman as much. It was pretty much rock, paper, scissors with jade druid, pirate warrior, and kazakus priest.

I used to hate them so much when they were released. Here I was struggling to play reno priest just to get stomped by jades late or by pirate warrior early. Recently I played against a linecracker druid who ran just jade idol and somehow won with my 30 legendary deck, the dude just disconnected because I got him in a simplified game state where all he had left were two cards in hand that weren't jades and was starting to take fatigue damage while I still had 8 cards left in my deck. Somehow 30 legendaries won vs 1K+ armor. Who would've thought

Both my favorite and least favorite hearthstone match of all time was against jade, and it was the same match. I was playing burgle rogue and was summoning larger jades than him so I knew I would win eventually, which overjoyed me that my meme deck would pull a win over that disease filled deck when mine was big enough to one-shot his face. Then the turn timer ran out and I realized I played a 50 minute game for a draw.

Started playing HS around Old Gods, and stopped after the release of Descent of Dragons. I have witnessed the introduction of Jade, it's rise to power, and then it's stable position in the meta for years. I played them, I feared them, I respected them. Fast forward to 2022, I open my youtube page to a video named "How Weak Are Jades in Hearthstone?". A tear rolls in my eye. Keep ripping in heaven, Jade Druid. You're an angel now.

1:00 btw, 10 potions were far less common than 5 potions, since a 5 gave something like 60ish percentage of the value for half the mana; it let you more effectively spend your mana earlier and fit cards in with it. A 1 was even more efficient, but sometimes you needed more to be done even if it’s less efficient. 1s and 10s had their place, but 5s were good in every matchup

I've been meaning to post this for awhile now, but I just wanted to thank you for all the great content. Ever since I stumbled on your channel I tune in everyday. You're a great personality and I look forward to seeing you continue growing!

5:40 I miss Thijs :(

In LoR, “Encroaching Mists” are essentially the HS’s “Jade Golems”. The difference between HS and LoR’s version of those sizeable threats is that LoR had cards that could recur them on every turn. The champion Viego produces an “Encroaching Mist” first time time an ally dies each turn and the card “Invasive Hydravine” produces a mist on summon and each start of turn. I was thinking that HS should really add a hero portrait that had a hero power of producing Jade Golems (ex: 4 mana hero portrait that has the hero power [2 mana -> summon a jade golem]) or even a quest line for playing jade golems. Idk, what do you guys think?

I think the Jade Golem mechanic was fine, but there was one card. One sole card that I think ruined it for a lot of people, and that was Jade Idol. It's infinite value generation for such little thought. You play a 1 mana spell, and you summon a 12/12. Then you play another 1 mana spell that shuffles three more into your deck, and literally never have to worry about running out of value. There's only so much fuel a deck is supposed to have, but that sole card made Druid overclock forever. At the time a majority of decks lacked enough of their own fuel to break through it. Meaning it forced anyone who was playing a custom non meta deck to just go "welp time to concede." Which is just not fun to know there's literally nothing you can do to stop this other than play a meta deck. Because I think for a lot of people they enjoy card games to create their own decks, and beat people with them. This one card took that ability away for a long time. It ruined a lot of people's enjoyment from the game because they don't enjoy using meta decks to mindlessly beat people over a couple hours.

Jades were bad in the sense they killed pure control decks, filled to the brim with removal cards that relied on fatigue to win, which in a sense may not be that bad, jk it's always in poor taste to kill archetypes. But one very good thing Jades did was allow f2p players to compete at a low entry cost, similar to c'thun but actually viable

It was a frustrating deck because it completely invalidated the fatigue-style control decks that were popular at the time, while having enough armor to survive 30-damage OTKs. It basically had the same issues as pre-nerf Ramp Druid, it was not overpowered in the sense that some decks could very consistently beat it, but there were so few of those decks that the meta became very narrow, and certain classes couldn't be played because they had no such deck. However Jade Druid outside of tournaments was not a top tier deck. There were multiple version of Jade Shaman that outperformed Jade Druid in almost every aspect while at the same time being less frustrating to play against. I personally had a ton of fun playing a N'Zoth/Jade Shaman control deck, got top 20 legend with it. Later on Geist was released and that basically fixed everything by giving control decks a way to remove the infinite value.

2:53 “Decent” is quite the understatement. Shaman was the best class in the game for pretty much all of Year of the Kraken (2016)

Oh god you've brought back those horrible memories of pirate warriors... pirate warriors everywhere

I used to love playing control in hearthstone. I think my favorite format was the old gods and the Reno one. I hated Mean Streets and Ungoro was the last set that I played. I think it's pretty obvious why.

Jade idol was so traumatizing for me I still dust every druid I collect. I flatout refuse to have anything to do with the class now and forever.

TBH Jade Druid was kinda the main reason I quit hearthstone. It was Jade golems and similar mechanics that made me realize that there was fundamentally no overlap between what Blizzard's vision for the game was and what I was trying to get out of it. It was nothing but unabashed power creep, and the fact that jade golems are now considered bad just reaffirms the decision I made back then.

I love those history videos, they honestly bring so many memories. Thank you for that!

Jade druid was one of my most memorable decks back in the day. It was my very first proper or complete druid deck and helped me climb all the way to rank 4. My close second favorite during the Gadgetzan expansion was handbuff paladin. I never bothered playing pirates.

I loved jades, still do, and sometimes go back and play the solo adventures just to get jades again. Rogue with the Witchwood guy that discovers spells that have been played is always hilarious.

Sean's jade druid rant is probably my favourite HS related content of all time.

I've returned to Hearthstone with the Sunken City expac after a 3-4 years break and oh boy do I hate druids. I hated them back then, I still hate them today. It is never fun to play against them. I wish everyone who plays druid a bad day

"Well this I'll summon a larger and larger man, which will allow me later on to summon an even larger man!"-Day9.

"this turn I'm gonna summon a larger man so next turn I can summon a larger and larger man" Sean "Day[9]" Plott

Oh man, throwing there the Kolento memory trip back, cool

Jade Druid helped me actually beat The Lich King way back when.

I loved playing jade druid and shaman but also playing against it with aggro was very fun. The issue is hearthstone's rock-paper-scissors of aggro-midrange-control was crushed when jades removed control fully from the face of the game.

Intro is the most classic quote xD

Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was when i really got into hearthstone as a real thinking human being, and I played a Jade Shaman (since i did, and still do, love Mists of Pandaria back in WoW) without realizing how decent it was, i loved the factor of buffing for the future and got pretty decent in ranked, probably why i like the abyssal curses so much nowadays

Jade was okay on release, not anywhere the powerlevel of aggro shaman or pirate warrior, what really brought it over the edge was the frozen knight set. Especially for druid, Spreading Plague, Ultimate Infestation, the death knight card, all of this made aggro's life downright impossible, spreading plague + doomsayer often times would reset a board and it was a common tech since the ladder was anywhere from 40 to 60% Jade Druids and unless they ran a silence to counter the counter, they had no answer to this and you could then fill the board with 3 to 4 10/10 minions they would always be behind on answering to.

Glasses fit you well Rarran, I approve

I haven't played HS in a very long time and few weeks ago i decided to come back and check out the new things. I got some free packs from previous promotions i guess and a lot of quests. Before making a new standard deck which i have very few cards for, i decided to take on the quests and from all my old decks i chose my Jadewock shaman. I made a couple of changes to it, adding the new parrots which double battlecry for more jades and the primal dungeoneer, cause the jade package has both nature spells and elementals, and it worked super well that i got the 12 wins in a row achievement. Granted i was in some dumpster rank, i don't even know how ranking works now cause it got changed aswell.

I remember making a budget rogue jade deck without blackpaw and it worked very well at the time

i really liked jades, because by crafting the package you instantly had 3 playable classes, they need to bring back the triclass archetype cards, super economical, if you dont want to craft cards for a class, play it with murlocs, with pirates, reno, or jade

you should try shaman quest with jades, i remember having a good winrate with it

I will always remember Mean Streets, it's I started "seriously" playing HS

highly recommend full on mill deck with the druid quest to shuffle and summon at the same time

I really hope we get a revisit of gagetzan in headstone, there is some cool characters there. Kazakus reappeared in year of the gryphon, so it’s not out of the question at this point. Jades are a cool idea, and Highlander is always fun. I guess the goon would need a new thing because everyone can hand buff now but whatever.

I brought this deck back when Saviors of Uldum was a new expansion. Ossyrian Tear + Jades was frankly insane way back when. The only time I would lose most control games was if I was fighting Linebreaker druid and even then that wasn't because of fatigue. I miss those times.

marrowgar, c'thun, evolve shaman, sire denathrius. everything loops back to the Larger man clip

I love Day9, that quote is legendary lol

that Day9 clip is legendary

I started using the battlecry monster that destroyed every 1 cost cards just because of Jade Druid. Watching them concede after using it was amazing

The whole simplicity of playing Jades was how I felt about playing questline Warlock. It got me to Platinum ranking, but it was so boring to play because it was the same style almost every game.

I still remember making a druid player conceded when I played Skulking Geist.

pirat warrior WAS THE DECK! Ben once said: "There is no problem with pirate warrior" and the ladder matches looked like: Jade , Pirate , Shaman. 24/7 . and gettin 4 turned by a pirate warrior was the most frustrating thing ever in hearth stone. Thanks for the experience Blizzard.

i used to play hearthstone during that time and this video makes me feel old

Midrange Jade Shaman was my favourite deck back in the days. I miss this deck so much

"The problem was probably the playstyle and not the power level." This is very very very unbelievably wrong. Druid was literally 90% of the rank 1-5 metagame before KotFT's first nerfs. Mostly Jade, with an Aggro Druid here or there. It was literally the only thing to climb with. It was a common occurrence to play 10+ Druids in a row. My personal record was facing 26 in a row. I've been playing Hearthstone since launch, and can verify there was never a more dominant ladder deck than Jade Druid.

Every time I get frustrated at aggro today I just remember that control decks used to not nearly have the recourses to deal with them we have today

To be fair Shadow Rager is probably the best Rager

Your face when you remembered spell power totem was gone. 🤣

I remember vanishing really large jades back into my opponents hand and just waiting for them to die. fun times

My favorite deck at the time was Reno Shadow Priest, post-Raza, pre-Anduin Death Knight, & Jade Druid was like a 20-80 matchup & I hated this deck.

One of my favorite metas ever was just before Jades. I had a control warrior deck with Elise, and Slyvanas. When I came across another warrior, I toasted them more than 95% of the time. They would draw too much, not use removals wisely and mess up with Slyvanas. The fatigue meta was real!! Unfortunately it was hard to continue once Jades came.

I got legend as Control Warrior in Jade druid meta. I still consider that as one of my GOAT achievements in gaming.

As someone around during the time with a friend who got to legend with jades, it wasn’t that bad.

Jade Druid was my first golden deck, what a good times

Big issue with jades was a lack of counter play. Now cards exists that completely shut off the endless jade train.

Playing my "let's complete some quests" wild mage, I ran into a jade druid today. He didn't really get much going and then rolled over lol

the problem was that it was in a standard rotation format not wild where druid just had so much support to play it especially with the frozen set that it could outlast most decks in that format, of course if you play it in wild there will be way better things. it wasnt that powerful because of a “feeling” but because it was overpowered with the whole druid arsenal

Man Jade Druid is my first deck i crafted. I love the jade archetype so much.

I liked jade rogue because you had to get creative with copying aya’s deathrattle and rebuying her with shadowstep etc. Even if it was less good so it was just more fun to play.

I do like the Jade mechanic but I don't like what it did to the game. For me, the most fun metagame is one where you have slow control decks, slow combo decks, disruption, fatigue decks. And Jade Idol just stands against that. But there's one circumstance where I absolutely love Jade Idol - and that's when I manage to mill my opponents last Jade Idol. The feeling is incredible. So I think the culprit is Jade Idol rather than the mechanic itself. Well, nowadays Jades would be way too slow as it is.

I started HS with Kobolds vs. Catacombs and only played 4 months with Jade Druid in the rotation, during my Free2play phase

Mean streets was equally the most fun and the most frustrating meta I’ve played in. I love playing control decks and kazakus warlock and priest were so interesting to play but the games were actually either a stressful win through out lasting all of the aggro or an auto concede to druid with no in between. It was pretty disgusting that blizzard released a card 2 expansions late to actually deal with druid. Geist was just an admittance that they fucked up but they let jade be one of the best and most consistent decks for 2 years.

4:27 Skulking Geist: bruh

I liked wen your face was in their face lol

I feel like this video didn't give a good idea of what the jade decks actually were like. At their core, they were tempo decks. The problem with jade was that it gave early aggressive tempo decks a strong late game in jade scaling. This was before every deck had infinite value, so most tempo decks wouldn't be able to summon minions like a 10/10 jade, and could be countered by slow decks. So jade was removing weaknesses of archetypes, and so limiting the types of decks that could be played. Gadgetzhan was one of only two times I reached legend, so I think I understood the meta pretty well.

I remember farming pirate warriors with my Jade Shaman. Jade claws combined with golakka crawler made short work of those decks. fun times.

Editing rarran had a good day

I loved jade golems ! And Jade Druid is one of the my favorite decks . I remember countering Ressurect Priest with Jades because at a point of time in wild that was the whole meta before the Barnes nerf . Eother Ressurect or Jade .

I still have nightmares about jade druid! The meta was so monopolized back then

When Mean street of gadgetzan came out Jade druid was tier 3, jade rogue was a meme and maybe jade shaman was tier 2 cause it had some faster cards and some card to heal. Everyone thought that jade druid was the ultimate deck, with infinite value but ended up being bad cause of that meta with pirate warrior and aggro shaman being like 80% of the ladder. Jade druid became a little better when people to beat war and shaman started to play renolock with kazakus, cause Jade druid had a really good matchup against renolock. Jade druid became tier s only when Ultimate infestation was added into the game with some other card, that was a real tier s deck

My personal take is that jades weren't the problem, the lack of kill options for control decks were. If control decks had options other than "well if i shut down my opponent ill eventually win" then jades would have still been good but also a bit less polarizing