Whispers of the Old Gods

"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) is the upcoming third expansion to Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Featuring 134 new collectible cards, the expansion is scheduled for release late April or early May 2016.

This sinister expansion revolves around the dark influence of the Old Gods, ancient and unspeakably evil creatures that have long lay 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 will feature 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 will also see some familiar faces corrupted into frightening new forms, as well as new scaling effects in the form of Forbidden spells.

Players can pre-purchase 50 card packs of the expansion in a special bundle, obtaining a unique card back in the process. Pre-purchased card packs will be available for opening as soon as the expansion is released.

With the new expansion accompanying the launch of game formats, the release of Whispers of the Old Gods will also see the immediate arrival of Standard format.

How to get

File:Whispers of the Old Gods card pack.png

Whispers of the Old Gods cards will be available through the following options, once the expansion is released:

• Whispers of the Old Gods card packs can be purchased through the Shop, in the same way as The Grand Tournament or Classic card packs, and with the same prices and purchasing options.
  • 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.
  • 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.
• Whispers of the Old Gods cards can be crafted for the usual amounts of Arcane Dust.
• With the release of the expansion, the Arena will randomly award Classic, The Grand Tournament or Whispers of the Old Gods packs.
• The Highest Rank Bonus chest will have a chance to award golden Whisper of the Old Gods cards.

Pre-order

• Players can pre-order 50 Whispers of the Old Gods card packs, which will be instantly available when the expansion is released. Based on previous offers, this pre-order will likely be available until shortly before the expansion is released.
• The pre-order offer comes with a unique card back (see below).
• As with previous offers, the pre-order bundle is assumed to be only available once per region for each account.
• The price for the 50 pack bundle is $49.99 USD/£34.99 GBP or equivalent.

Arena

• All the new cards will be available in the Arena as soon as the expansion is released.
  • However, C'Thun and his related cards will not be included in Arena picks, due to their very limited synergy. This is the first time cards have been specifically excluded from Arena.

Cards

Whispers of the Old Gods features 134 collectible cards. All known cards are listed below.

The expansion will feature four Old God minions, each a legendary minion with an associated collection of related cards.

Neutral

Common (5 cards)

Rare (2 cards)

Epic (1 card)

Legendary (2 cards)

Uncollectible

No image

• Gnoll
• Slime

Class cards

Druid

Hunter

Mage

Paladin

Priest

Warrior

Themes

Old Gods

The expansion will include four legendary minion cards depicting the Old Gods themselves.

• C'Thun
• Yogg-Saron
• N'Zoth
• Y'Shaarj

Servants of the Old Gods

Various other minions will serve to empower and synergise with the Old Gods in specific ways.

C'Thun

• Twilight Elder
• C'Thun's Servant
• Ancient Shieldbearer
• Klaxxi Amber-Weaver
• Beckoner of Evil

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.

• Polluted Hoarder (Loot Hoarder)
• Corrupted Healbot (Antique Healbot)
• Hogger, Doom of Elwynn (Hogger)

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)

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 will not be 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 Healing
• Forbidden Flame
• Forbidden Shaping

Card backs

A special card back is available as part of the expansion's pre-order bundle. The "Hogger" card back for Ranked play Season 24 appears may be intended as a teaser for the adventure, due to the introduction of the corrupted Hogger, Doom of Elwynn. A more obviously themed card back may feature as reward for an upcoming Ranked Season closer to the release of the expansion.

Eyes of C'Thun File:Card back-Eyes of C'Thun.png Pre-ordering 50 Whispers of the Old Gods card packs For an Old God who's stuck in the lightless depths of an ancient temple, C'Thun sure has a lot of eyeballs.

Lore

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?

Announcement

"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."

The Old Gods

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

This section uses content from Wowpedia.

The Old Gods (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 Void — who ruled the planet of Azeroth as lords of the infamous Black Empire in the days before the titans arrived to shape and order it.

The Pantheon 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 Cataclysm. C'Thun feigned death and was sealed in a titan research station near Uldum. Yogg-Saron was imprisoned in Ulduar. At least Y'Shaarj was killed by the Pantheon, although its heart was preserved and later resurrected, but destroyed during the Siege of Orgrimmar. 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 Burning Legion, the Old Gods are one of the most powerful and reoccurring threats found in the Warcraft series of games and books, especially in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. 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 Outland.

Trivia

• Whispers of the Old Gods was announced on the second anniversary of the full release of Hearthstone in 2014.

External links

• Official site - Whispers of the Old Gods
• Whispers of the Old Gods - Forbidden but not Forgotten (2016-03-17)
• Whispers of the Old Gods – Say C’Thun Three Times Fast (2016-03-16)
• Heed the Whispers of the Old Gods (2016-03-11)