When Blizzard announced the next expansion pack for Hearthstone, many veteran World of Warcraft players had flashbacks. The shadow of the Old Gods is the one thing that has always been present in the Warcraft lore. They're both, in Warcraft's story, both the puppetteer and the pawns of almost every event of importance in Azeroth and the neighbouring planes. It's only natural, then, that their corruption would spread to Blizzard's Strategic Card Game eventually. With Whispers of the Old Gods, the darkness and corruption will make way to your decks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKjUgLrDEbI While the theme of the new expansion was already known before hand due of Blizzard's accidental leak, we now have the first info about it. Whispers of the Old Gods will add a whopping total of 134 new cards to Hearthstone's library. Some of these cards will be some old acquaintances of ours that suffered the touch of the Old Gods and they lost their mind for it. There will be four old gods in the expansion: C’Thun, Yogg-Saron, Y’Shaarj, and N’Zoth (to those of you that just had flashbacks of Ulduar, I'm genuinely sorry) and they'll have their respective cults to follow them. Of those four gods (which, goes without saying, will be legendary cards), only C'Thun has been revealed as of now.
C'Thuns battlecry skill along with the cult's ability to boost its stats even when the ancient monstrosity is still in the deck or in your makes for interesting combo potential. The other 3 Old Gods will not share this mechanic. In fact, C'Thun will be the only one to have its minions' support in such a manner. The other Old Gods will have different abilities to take advantage of.
When a new Hearthstone expansion comes out, many players weep at the thought of the time they will need to collect or craft the interesting cards without having to spend a fortune. With Whispers of the Old Gods, you will have the chance to jump right into the action. The moment you collect your first card pack of the expansion, you will instantly receive a copy of C'Thun and two copies of "Beckoner of Evil". It's a free (almost) legendary card and two commons that combo nicely with it.
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Some other details have been stated in the announcement stream. For example, Blizzard will offer a preorder deal similar to what they did with The Great Tournament. You will be able to prepurchase a 50 packs set for $49.99 and you will also receive an exclusive card back. Of course, the packs can not be opened until the release day but you'll receive the card back instantly. You will not have to preorder the 50$ deal to jump right into the action though. During the release event, you will receive 3 Whispers of the Old Gods packs just by logging in as the old
In the days leading to the release of the new expansion, a lot of new features will be introduced in the game as well. The Wild and Standard game formats will come in April/May at the same time of the new expansion. Deck Recipes will be introduced even sooner and 9 additional deck slots will come with them, along with a collective sigh of relief of all the fans. Pre-purchase, additional deck slots, deck recipes and Thailand localization will be included in next's week patch.
As usual, Blizzard will release new info in the weeks leading to the expansion release. For now, let's be content with our first taste of darkness and corruption.
Do you play Hearthstone? Are you excited for the new expansion? Let us know in the comments.
