Whispers of the Old Gods


 * &emsp;"Now I've got a tale to tell you... of the ones from long ago. There's an evil that's been dreaming, but now it's softly screaming! From the darkness their power will grow. Their voices are made of poison! When you listen you are sure to be disturbed. You can lock your doors, you can say your prayers, no creature can resist their wicked words! Never mind! No need to worry, that's all just a story... of the whispers of the Old Gods."

Whispers of the Old Gods (WotOG, Old Gods ) is the third expansion to Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Featuring 134 new collectible cards, the expansion was released April 26, 2016 in the Americas region, and April 27 in the Europe and Asia regions.

This sinister expansion revolves around the dark influence of the Old Gods, ancient and unspeakably evil creatures that have long lain hidden, imprisoned in the dark places of the world millennia ago. Despite their imprisonment, these shadowy beings' influence can be felt in every corner of Azeroth, twisting and corrupting any who hear their maddening whispers. With an army of followers performing forbidden empowerment rituals, the tentacles of these massive horrors are growing rapidly toward the light, eager to bring their own kind of excitement to the sunlit kingdoms and merry taverns of Azeroth.

The expansion features legendary minion cards for each of the four Old Gods - C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, N'Zoth and Y'Shaarj - along with a crowd of frenzied cultists working overtime to empower these mighty horrors in preparation for their return. The expansion also sees some familiar faces corrupted into frightening new forms, as well as new scaling effects in the form of Forbidden spells.

The expansion is featured in a minor launch event, lasting from the date of its release until July 6, 2016. The event awards 13 free packs in total, partly through completing special quests.

The data for the expansion was added with Patch 5.0.0.12574, along with all accompanying changes, in the biggest patch Hearthstone has received so far. With the new expansion accompanying the launch of game formats, the release of Whispers of the Old Gods also saw the immediate arrival of Standard format.

How to get
Whispers of the Old Gods cards are available through the following options:
 * Whispers of the Old Gods card packs can be obtained only through real money purchases on the Blizzard Shop.
 * Opening their first Whispers of the Old Gods card pack will award each player with a single non-golden copy of C'Thun, and two non-golden copies of Beckoner of Evil. These cards are not otherwise available except through crafting.
 * Whispers of the Old Gods cards can be crafted for the usual amounts of Arcane Dust.

Players logging in on or before July 5, 2016 will be able to obtain free card packs. Note that new players will have to complete the starting quests "First Blood" and "The Duelist" before they will be able to access the promotions.
 * Launch event
 * Logging in for the first time during the Whispers of the Old Gods launch event will reward the player with three Whispers of the Old Gods card packs.
 * Logging in for the first time during the event will also add the special "5 Old Gods Packs!" quest to the player's Quest Log. This quest will award players with 5 Whispers of the Old Gods card packs for completing two matches in Standard format. Once that is completed, a follow up quest "5 More Old Gods Packs!" will award a further 5 card packs for completing another seven matches in Standard format.
 * These quests can completed after the end of the launch event, but the second quest will only be awarded if the first is completed during the event.
 * If you already have three quests, one of your quests will be replaced by the "5 Old Gods Pack!" quest (whichever has the least progress).


 * Pre-order
 * Prior to the expansion's release, players were able to pre-order 50 Whispers of the Old Gods card packs, although they could not be opened until the expansion was released. The pre-order was available up until the expansion is released.
 * The pre-order came with a unique card back (see below).
 * The price for the 50 pack bundle was $49.99 USD/€44,99 EUR/£39.99 GBP or equivalent.


 * Arena
 * C'Thun and his related cards will not be included in Arena picks, due to their very limited synergy, although they may still appear in Arena matches through random effects. Besides the Reward Set, this is the first time cards have been specifically excluded from Arena picks.

Cards
Whispers of the Old Gods features 134 collectible cards, 27 uncollectible cards, and 1 replacement Hero Power. 53 of the collectible cards are neutral, while the remaining 81 are class-specific, with 9 cards for each class. Unusually, it also added 3 uncollectible cards to other sets, through the unique minions produced by Fandral Staghelm. Whispers of the Old Gods cards can be recognized by the tentacle marking behind the card text, not found on other cards.

The expansion notably features each of the four Old Gods as legendary minions.

Neutral
The expansion features 53 neutral collectible cards: 23 commons, 9 rares, 9 epics, and 12 legendaries. It also includes 6 neutral uncollectible cards, one of which is legendary.


 * Common (23 cards)


 * Rare (9 cards)


 * Epic (9 cards)


 * Legendary (12 cards)

Class cards
The expansion includes 9 collectible cards for each class: 3 commons, 3 rares, 2 epics and 1 legendary minion. It also includes 21 uncollectible class cards.

Druid

 * Uncollectible


 * Choice cards

When a card with two Choose One options involving transform effects is played while controlling Fandral Staghelm, a unique minion will be produced that combines the effects of both options. While they do not belong to the Whispers of the Old Gods set, these minions were added with the expansion, and so are listed here for completeness.
 * Fandral Staghelm

Hunter

 * Uncollectible

Paladin

 * Uncollectible

Rogue

 * Uncollectible

Shaman

 * Uncollectible

Warlock

 * Uncollectible

Warrior

 * Uncollectible

Accompanying changes
The following changes were implemented with the release of Whispers of the Old Gods, or the accompanying patch.
 * Game formats were added to the game, introducing Standard and Wild format.
 * Numerous Basic and Classic cards were nerfed in preparation for the new game formats.
 * These cards could be disenchanted for their full Dust value up until May 10th 2016.
 * Numerous interface changes were made to support the new format options.
 * New quests were added, awarding players with Whispers of the Old Gods card packs upon completing certain numbers of matches in Standard Format.
 * The 'Sorry' emote was removed, and replaced with the new 'Wow' emote.

Battlefield
The expansion brought with it a new battlefield, depicting a corrupted version of the Stormwind battlefield.

For more details on the battlefield and its interactable features, see Battlefield.



Card backs
A special card back was available as part of the expansion's pre-order bundle. The card back for Ranked play Season 25 also matches the expansion. More loosely, the "Hogger" card back for Ranked play Season 24 may have been intended as a teaser for the adventure, due to the introduction of the corrupted Hogger, Doom of Elwynn.

Old Gods
Ancient horrors from Azeroth's past, after eons of slumbering the Old Gods have at last awakened, each bringing its own kind of terror to the field.


 * C'Thun
 * Yogg-Saron, Hope's End
 * N'Zoth, the Corruptor
 * Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound

Servants of the Old Gods
The subjects of worship for numerous cults, the Old Gods have the unflinching obedience of mortals across Azeroth. Many of these pledge their service (and their lives) specifically to C'Thun, empowering the ancient being with dark rituals.


 * Cult Apothecary
 * Twilight Flamecaller
 * Twilight Summoner
 * Ancient Harbinger


 * C'Thun
 * Twilight Elder
 * C'Thun's Chosen
 * Ancient Shieldbearer
 * Klaxxi Amber-Weaver
 * Beckoner of Evil
 * Skeram Cultist
 * Dark Arakkoa
 * Twilight Darkmender
 * Hooded Acolyte
 * Disciple of C'Thun
 * Blade of C'Thun
 * Cult Sorcerer
 * Usher of Souls
 * Crazed Worshipper
 * Twilight Geomancer
 * Doomcaller
 * Twin Emperor Vek'lor (non-mortal)

Born of the Old Gods
While the Old Gods' command fanatical devotion from their followers among the races of Azeroth, their oldest and most loyal servants are those born of their own blighted forms long before the coming of the s. The n'raqi, also known as the faceless ones, and the insectoid, since split into the mantid, the and the nerubians, formed from the organic matter that seeped from the Old Gods. These unwavering servants built the vast temples of the and formed armies that would wage war upon the world. With the reawakening of the Old Gods, the scattered remnants of these monstrous races seem eager to return to their rightful place at the hand of their dark masters.


 * N'raqi
 * Eater of Secrets
 * Faceless Shambler
 * Faceless Summoner
 * Flamewreathed Faceless
 * Zealous Initiate
 * Eldritch Horror
 * Faceless Behemoth
 * Southsea Squidface
 * Demented Frostcaller
 * Darkspeaker
 * Servant of Yogg-Saron
 * Master of Evolution
 * Herald Volazj
 * Soggoth the Slitherer
 * Shifter Zerus
 * Spawn of N'Zoth
 * Mantid
 * Klaxxi Amber-Weaver
 * Xaril, Poisoned Mind
 * Qiraji
 * Skeram Cultist
 * N'Zoth's First Mate
 * Eternal Sentinel
 * Twin Emperor Vek'lor
 * Twin Emperor Vek'nilash
 * Silithid
 * Silithid Swarmer
 * Princess Huhuran
 * Nerubian
 * Nerubian Prophet

Call of the Old Gods
The growing whispers have also awakened other beings stranger even than these, most spawned or created by the Old Gods, others perhaps simply drawn by their dark call.


 * Blood of The Ancient One
 * The Ancient One
 * Thing from Below
 * Shadowbeast
 * The Boogeymonster
 * Giant Sand Worm
 * Hallazeal the Ascended
 * Twilight Elemental
 * Cho'Gall
 * Fandral Staghelm
 * Shifting Shade
 * Cyclopian Horror
 * Dark Arakkoa
 * Fiery Bat
 * Carrion Grub
 * Malkorok
 * Anomalus

Corruption

 * ''"Steeped in the insidious influence of the Old Gods, unknown terrors will give your decks new and bizarre forms. You may even recognize some old friends that have succumbed to the seductive promise of Ancient Cosmic Power!"

The influence of the Old Gods can be felt across Azeroth, warping and corrupting all manner of creatures to serve dark new masters. From greedy gnomes to legendary beasts, the whispers of the Old Gods have turned many minions into twisted versions of their former selves, complete with fearsome new powers.


 * Bog Creeper (Fen Creeper)
 * Evolved Kobold (Kobold Geomancer)
 * Am'gam Rager (Magma Rager)
 * Bilefin Tidehunter (Murloc Tidehunter)
 * Deathwing, Dragonlord (Deathwing)
 * Twisted Worgen (Worgen Infiltrator)
 * Psych-o-Tron (Annoy-o-Tron)
 * Polluted Hoarder (Loot Hoarder)
 * Aberrant Berserker (Amani Berserker)
 * Infested Tauren (Tauren Warrior)
 * Duskboar (one of the Boar minions)
 * Grotesque Dragonhawk (Young Dragonhawk)
 * Corrupted Healbot (Antique Healbot)
 * Corrupted Seer (Coldlight Seer)
 * Ravaging Ghoul (Unstable Ghoul)
 * Mire Keeper (Keeper of the Grove)
 * Midnight Drake (Twilight Drake)
 * Vilefin Inquisitor (original)
 * Bloodsail Cultist (original)
 * Nat, the Darkfisher (Nat Pagle)
 * Mukla, Tyrant of the Vale (King Mukla)
 * Hogger, Doom of Elwynn (Hogger)

The influence of the Old Gods has even altered some spells, twisting their effects and corrupting the minions they summon.


 * Wisps of the Old Gods (Dark Wispers)
 * Wisp (Wisp)

Of course, not everybody needs the maddening whispers of an Old God to push them into insanity... some were already teetering on the brink.


 * Validated Doomsayer (Doomsayer)

Amid the rising madness of the Old Gods' awakening, some beings have found a new path leading them away from the darkness, toward the Light.


 * Ragnaros, Lightlord (Ragnaros the Firelord)
 * Renounce Darkness

Note that the relationship between the corrupted and uncorrupted versions of these minions is purely for lore purposes; there is no in-game connection, and the original cards have not been replaced or altered.

The Forbidden

 * ''"While power may corrupt . . . you’ll find that the risk of using Forbidden cards also carries substantial rewards. Playing a Forbidden card consumes all your available mana for the turn to fuel that card’s alluring effect—the more mana you spend, the more power the Old Gods will bestow upon you. What’s wrong with a little corruption, anyway?"

Whispers of the Old Gods brings Hearthstone 's first spell effects whose cost scales based on the amount of mana available - with their effects scaling to match. Scaling had previously been seen only on in-hand effects and certain minion abilities, with no direct relation to the amount of mana available.


 * Forbidden Ancient
 * Forbidden Flame
 * Forbidden Healing
 * Forbidden Ritual
 * Forbidden Shaping



Darkshire
After years of defending their town against the terrors of, the grim defenders of are no strangers to horror or madness. However, the coming of the Old Gods appears to have brought even more darkness than usual to their door.

While some stand boldly against this latest threat, others seem to have embraced the power that these ancient evils offer, perhaps with the intent of using this dark new magic to defend their homes and retake Duskwood once and for all... or perhaps succumbing at last to the call of madness.


 * Steward of Darkshire
 * Darkshire Alchemist
 * Darkshire Librarian
 * Darkshire Councilman

Lore

 * Announcement
 * ''For countless millennia, the Old Gods have slept. Now, the time of their awakening draws near; their evil influence has crawled even into the tavern! Can you feel your cards trembling in their decks as the corruption spreads? Some of your old friends have already grown icky masses of tentacles and a downright frightening number of eyeballs!


 * ''Of course, while some would recoil at these cards, a resourceful player like you might just be able to harness the power of the Old Gods. Yeees, surely nothing could go wrong...


 * ''Can you hear them, beckoning to be played? Will you heed their whispers at your ear?


 * Release blog
 * When the Old Gods whisper in your ear, you won’t be able to resist the temptation . . . to celebrate! While cultists perform their summoning rituals and herald the arrival of the ancient ones, you’ll be summoning a swarm of new minions and meddling with forbidden magic never before seen in the tavern.


 * Stormwind has fallen to the influence of the ancient ones, so make sure to avoid poking the eyestalks that have grown on the buildings—they don’t seem to like that very much.


 * Announcement stream


 * "The inn has ... been getting a little darker, recently. It's raining outside, stuff's changing... The inn is usually filled with really friendly people, and everyone just laughing and being boisterous, but recently we've had these strange hooded figures coming to our inn, they're murmuring, chanting... And some of our best friends have started behaving really strangely." 

Alternate realities
While the lore behind Hearthstone is already open to several possible interpretations, including the canon Warcraft lore, Hearthstone 's own branching lore, and the intentionally silly mechanics of the in-universe Hearthstone card game itself, Whispers of the Old Gods brings with it a new possibility.


 * Ancient evil rises, and a window to an alternate reality has been opened. Here, the Old Gods’ grasp has corrupted Azeroth, plunging the tavern into madness...

In this reality, all four Old Gods are awake (and alive), and unleashed upon Azeroth. Stormwind specifically is seen to have fallen to their corrupting influence, as depicted in the expansion's battlefield.

This may mean that many of the cards from this expansion - likely including the corrupted versions of existing minions - are set within (or climbing through from) this alternate reality, rather than representing changes to the known minions within the main reality.

The window between these realities may have been opened by the Old Gods of the other reality, seeking to spread their corruption even beyond their own universe. Alternatively it may have been opened by the desperate denizens of the alternate Azeroth, seeking aid in their losing battle against the rising darkness, or simply hoping to escape it. Based on the innkeeper's remarks, the opening of the portal between these two realities has turned the main Azeroth chill and fearsome, and even within the otherwise cheery hubbub of the tavern patrons can sometimes hear voices whispering at their ear.

"Alternate reality" could refer to an alternate timeline, similar to that explored in World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor.

The Visions of N'Zoth patch for World of Warcraft provides another possible interpretation for the Azeroth depicted in this expansion; that it's an Old God created 'vision' that's waiting to be made real.

In Hearthstone

 * Legend has it, the Old Gods’ voices are dread whispers that no mere mortal can hope to resist. It is said that for millennia uncounted the massive Old Gods lay dreaming in ageless sleep deep beneath the surface of Azeroth. Maybe noisy taverns full of laughter, shouts of triumph, and clanking tankards are like a snooze alarm you can’t turn off, and this whole Old-Gods-waking-up thing is entirely our fault!


 * ''Whatever the cause, those nameless tentacled terrors are finally rousing from their naps, and with their waking insidious corruption is seeping up from the stygian depths! Still, there’s no need to fear (mostly!). Civilization is safe (for now!). They haven’t come for the utter domination of all life on Azeroth (probably!).


 * Now that they’re awake (and they’ve had a chance to stretch their various appendages, rub the sleep out of their many, many eyes, and have a healthy breakfast), the Old Gods have decided to put their malignant might into mortal hands. . . in the form of disgustingly potent Hearthstone cards!


 * Announcement
 * "The Old Gods are these massive creatures, who are chained beneath the earth... These are the creatures who enslaved Ragnaros, and the other Elemental Lords. They created the Nerubians and the Faceless Manipulators... These are the things that turned Deathwing into'' Deathwing... In the world of Super Villains, these are the Super Villains of Super Villains.


 * "Their only weakness... is that they are chained beneath the earth, and they can only really work via influence, by whispering'' to the creatures around them and slowly corrupting them over time."

In World of Warcraft

 *  (also known as the Old-Gods, old lords of the earth, Gods Below, dread elders, or Shath'Yar in their own language) are a group of eldritch horrors — closely connected to the — who ruled the planet of  as lords of the infamous  in the days before the s arrived to shape and order it.


 * The shattered the Old Gods' citadels and chained the four. If the Pantheon would have killed the Old Gods, then Azeroth would have been destroyed, possibly in an event that manifested as the . C'Thun feigned death and was sealed in a titan research station near . Yogg-Saron was imprisoned in . At least Y'Shaarj was killed by the Pantheon, although its heart was preserved and later resurrected, but destroyed during the . The titans could not defeat N'Zoth, whose exact location is unknown. Though chained or dead, their influence still corrupts mortals, and even immortals, to this day.


 * Along with the, the Old Gods are one of the most powerful and recurring threats found in the Warcraft series of games and books, especially in . While players are constantly fighting off the dealings and machinations of Azeroth's Old Gods, there are in fact more elsewhere in the cosmos, such as one that almost manifested on .

Standing against the darkness
As many Azeroth's inhabitants fall victim to the corrupting whispers of the Old Gods, some brave souls choose to stand against the coming madness, with their faith serving as shields to the darkness before them. The paladins are "the one bastion of hope" against the coming darkness. Their beacon of hope extends further than any would have dared hope, with even the mighty Ragnaros turning to fight against the Old Gods.

Channeling the power of the Old Gods
While the expansion presents a theme of corruption and unimaginable evil, the inclusion of its cards in players' decks appears to represent not corruption but intentionally "channeling the power of the Old Gods". This could explain why "good" heroes such as Thrall, Malfurion and Uther, who have long fought against the influence of the Old Gods, would now so readily embrace their powers. In contrast to the many corrupted (if empowered) minions, the cards seem to present a way of using this power without suffering corruption, although a few cards like Tentacles for Arms leave room for doubt.

The efforts of the player in channeling this dark power apparently win them "the admiration of the people of Azeroth", later contributing to their invitation to a certain party in Karazhan tower.

Canonicity
Whispers of the Old Gods is intended as "a 'What If?' take on Warcraft lore." The events of the expansion, including bold changes to existing Warcraft lore from cards from such as Hogger, Doom of Elwynn and Ragnaros, Lightlord, are not intended to be canon within the wider lore.

Development
The idea of a Hearthstone expansion centred around the Old Gods first came to light when the developers were brainstorming ideas for Goblins vs Gnomes, with suggestions yelled out and written up on a white board. When Old Gods was written up, Ben Brode says,


 * ''"It immediately gets us excited because its, Hearthstone takes a different look at Warcraft. It's a very high up look from things. We can explore wider themes I think? Old Gods is such a wide theme and it immediately inspires so many cool takes on that stuff plus it gives us an opportunity to explore new lore in a lot of ways. Some of the old gods have never been seen, we don't even know what some of them look like. Hearthstone is going to be the first time we get to look at some of these, and that's awesome. So there was a lot of passion for a long time where really we were just waiting for the right time to dig into it and it happens to be now."

Once the central theme of the Old Gods had come up, the developers considered various variations on the theme before settling on what would become Whispers of the Old Gods. The final theme was settled upon around a year before the expansion would eventually be released, with initial design beginning around August, 2015.

Due to the difference between the light and playful Hearthstone tone and that of the Old Gods, arguably the darkest content in all Warcraft lore, the developers wanted to find a way to bridge the two worlds. One way this was achieved was through corrupting existing Hearthstone characters, literally bringing the two together. Another way was the cinematic, which intentionally begins with the familiar scene of the tavern (the first post-release cinematic to date to do so), but combines it with the creepy influence of the Old Gods, as well as featuring an overall theme of the known being corrupted and changed. The fortune-telling troll who narrates the cinematic was also chosen to present the expansion's dark theme with "a kind of Hearthstoney, Taverny vibe".

Old Gods
While the four Old Gods were always going to feature in the expansion in some way, the exact details of their involvement were initially quite different, and far more impactful. The original plan was for each of the Old Gods to affect a core element of the game, and to take effect as soon as the game started, if the player had that Old God in their deck. C'Thun replaced the player's entire deck (perhaps with associated cultists), Yogg-Saron gave the player extra Mana Crystals, N'Zoth affected all of the player's minions in some way, and Y'Shaarj destroyed and replaced the hero itself, with 15 Health and a "crazy new Hero Power". Various designs were iterated: other behaviours for Yogg-Saron ranged from granting the player 3 Mana Crystals at the start of the match - but preventing them from gaining any more - to causing all their spells to cost 1 mana, but reducing their turn time to 15 seconds. The designers' goal early on was "what’s the craziest thing we can think of? Write that down."

However, the sheer scale of the Old Gods' impact on the game, while having great potential for novel gameplay, was equally limiting to design space. While C'Thun's cultist theme survived (albeit in a reduced form), the developers began moving away from the symmetry of each Old God having such a direct impact on gameplay, although they mostly retained the theme of being "build-arounds", each tied to a specific type of effect or play - spells, Deathrattles, cultists and resurrection.

C'Thun saw the least changes of all the Old Gods; its basic card text was decided early on, although the many related cards saw "a ton of iteration". One idea was to have "lieutenants", special minions which would gain bonuses equal to one of C'Thun's current stats when played. These were eventually turned into the "If your C'Thun has 10 or more Attack" cards, such as Klaxxi Amber-Weaver and Ancient Shieldbearer. The last idea to be discarded was to have other cards which directly benefited not C'Thun itself, but the many ritualist minions. Examples include "Battlecry – give your ritualist +2/+2" and "Battlecry: evolve all your ritualists", the latter functioning identically to Evolve. This more complex synergy was partly discarded due to the increasing number of cards devoted to C'Thun and related cards, and not wanting the set to feel like "Whispers of C'Thun", or to have C'Thun decks overly dominate the meta due to their many possible versions. The designers also wanted to avoid making it feel too similar to the synergies for Mechs.

Peter Whalen explains that the developers considered having a different number of Old Gods. While Azeroth in total has known four Old Gods, N'Zoth had never been revealed until Whispers of the Old Gods, making it any easy option leave out; alternatively, there are "a couple of other entities that are very close to Old God status, or referred to as Old Gods," which would have allowed the developers to have as many as six Old Gods if they had desired. However, four turned out to be "a pretty good number".

After deciding on the four Old Gods themselves, the designers considered what sort of creatures the supporting cast would comprise. The faceless and Klaxxi were a natural fit; "ritual cultist guys" were an easy decision in order to include some things a little more human and relatable in the set. The idea of corrupting characters similarly came in part because of a desire make something players could connect with in the new set, especially given the unfamiliar and hard to pronounce names of many of new minions such as Volazj, Y'Shaarj and C'Thun.

Teasers
The first official hint as to the nature of the expansion came on March 4, 2016, in a blog announcing that the upcoming expansion would be revealed in a live stream on March 11. The blog began with the text "Something inside the Tavern stirs . . . what could it be? Don’t worry – you won’t be alone!", inviting readers to "Tune in March 11 at 10:00 a.m. PST to see what has been lurking unfold live on Twitch!" Invitations sent to select gaming press over the next few days would confirm the creepy tone, with the invites beginning "There are whispers around the Tavern…"

This sinister theme was brought into much sharper focus on March 5 when the card carousel on the official site was updated to feature a new selection of cards: Faceless Manipulator, Mind Blast, Cult Master, Void Terror and Dark Wispers. This was widely interpreted as confirmation of an Old God theme for the coming expansion.

In the days immediately before the announcement, pictures surfaced of half-painted murals and posters boldly proclaiming the new expansion, along with its title, and depicting what were clearly faceless ones and other Old God-related creatures. These would be later confirmed following the announcement, with the official Twitter account sharing pictures and videos of these artworks being created in locations ranging from San Francisco, Berlin and London, to Melbourne, Shanghai and Tokyo. For images, see the gallery. Official time-lapse videos of the artworks being produced were shared for New York, Tokyo, Seoul, Berlin, London, Paris, Taipei, Moscow and Sydney. Most can also be found in the official The Old Gods World Tour playlist.

Announcement


The expansion was officially announced on March 11 at the start of the Americas Winter Championship stream, by Ben Brode and Yong Woo. After a short and dramatic introduction the trailer was shared, followed by the revealing of the first new cards: Polluted Hoarder, Corrupted Healbot, Validated Doomsayer, Beckoner of Evil, Twilight Elder and C'Thun.

The announced release date of late April, early May surprised some players due to previous statements from developers such as Ben Brode that it was generally preferred not to announce new content until only a short while before it was ready to be released. Brode admits this was "not ideal", but explains that it was necessary due to "[needing] a little extra time to get all the stuff relating to new formats just right", with the new expansion also heralding the arrival of Standard format. The reaction was partly due to the unprecedented brevity of the release day for The League of Explorers, which was announced only six days before it went live. Yong Woo would later comment, "One of the things that we really value on our team is that we constantly mix up the way we do things, we never want to be predictable. We don't want to get to a point where it's like OK, they're announcing this day so it's gonna patch on that day and then it's gonna launch specifically on that day and you can just map it all out. So there are pro's and cons of doing it different ways."



Card reveals
Following the initial announcement cards began to be revealed one at a time through selected fansites and media, with a few further cards also being revealed during the Americas and Europe Winter Championship streams.

On March 21 voting opened on the official site to reveal the first of 20 new cards. In contrast to previous voting systems which had seen only one of the eligible cards revealed, this expansion saw voting determining simply which card would be revealed first, with the remaining card with the most votes being revealed next.

Another difference was that instead of being revealed on the official site, each card was connected to a well-known streamer, with that streamer revealing the card when it was time. The streamers participating are listed below, along with the descriptions provided on the official site.

Reveal stream
On April 21 a special stream featuring Ben Brode and Frodan revealed the remaining cards through a series of showmatches against designer Dean Ayala. Frodan won the series 3:1, with both players using decks designed by Ayala.

During the stream, Brode announced the replacement of the 'Sorry' emote with the new 'Wow' emote, and the existence of special quests to reward players for playing Standard format matches. The new battlefield was included in the rotation, but was not selected by the game during the showmatches, and therefore was not revealed. An image of the battlefield was instead revealed by the official Twitter account the next day.

Release
The expansion's official release date of April 26 was revealed on April 19. This date had been predicted nearly three weeks earlier, when users noticed that purchasing the Curse of Naxxramas bundle from the official Battle.net shop producing a warning that "Starting April 26, 2016 cards from this set will only be playable in Wild play format". The date was confirmed two days later by an article on Game Informer, which was taken down shortly after release.

The expansion was released in the Americas region at 10:30am PST on the 26th, and 7 hours later was live in all other regions.

Following the preview Arena period for Goblins vs Gnomes, and the Grand Tournament Match, Whispers of the Old Gods is the first expansion not to feature a special launch event. This is partly because of the simultaneous release of game formats, and the associated interface changes and numerous card changes, with the developers concerned that adding a special event to this already busy time could add too much complexity, especially for new or returning players.

Whispers of the Old Gods marked the first time a set had added new cards to another set, with Fandral Staghelm adding three unique minions to the Classic, Blackrock Mountain and The Grand Tournament sets.

Commentary
The following links record community reactions to the expansion and the associated changes prior to its release:
 * Hearthpwn - Whispers of the Old Gods Compendium - The Expansion as Rated by the Community (2016-04-24)

Gallery

 * Murals


 * Launch
 * Promotion
 * Launch event
 * Official site
 * Promotional
 * Concept art

Trivia

 * Whispers of the Old Gods was announced on March 11, 2016, the second anniversary of the full release of Hearthstone.
 * Around 99% of Whispers of the Old Gods cards feature original card art.
 * According to Ben Brode, most of the flavor text in the set was written by Executive Producer Hamilton Chu.
 * Whispers of the Old Gods does not feature any Demons - this was an intentional design decision for the set's lore, likely because there is no direct relation between demons and the Old Gods.