Blizzard has announced that the spring expansion will be called Whispers of the Old Gods. The expansion is going to be released on late April and will feature 134 cards. It's a really long time, but in the mean time, we are getting more deck slots this Monday to tide us over.

When the expansion finally does come, Blizzard says that we are getting 3 free packs and a new Legenday card called C'thun.

Trailer

Cardback (for those who pre-order)

Ok I did try and look this up but..3 free packs..Plus C'thun for everyone? That I don't see anywhere in the announcement where you got the previewed cards from. Where did you hear it?

It was said in the official announcement stream.

Also: http://www.hearthpwn.com/

@bladededge: I saw the cards on the official hearthstone twitch stream and I screenshot the cards on Hearthpwn. So, @jellybones hit the nail on the head.

This looks great, could this be Hearthstone's attempt at an EDH (commander) styled deck building?

@acura_max: Yes there is an announcement up on the website/blizzard launcher with all those cards on it and some flavor-text relating too hey, its a LoveCraft inspired set..which as it turns out is also the theme for the upcoming MtG set as well!

I was mostly wondering where the other info came from, as its not in that article, and yep, the live stream was the answer.

The mtg, off topic should Suprising few people cause we have yet to see emerakul, who is almost certain to be in innistrad, cause the first of set of the new 2 block was at one point in development the 3rd set of the zendikar block..which has shown 1 big eldrazi per release. Also, anyone who even glances at the Aeon's Torn version can see plenty of Cthulhuesq features, tentacles and size and so on.

Which I make mention of just to point out the obvious to anyone who isn't aware of where the influence for this Heartstone set comes from. Cthulhu invades thet card game world this spring!

Well, nice of them to repeat the free-3-packs thing that they did for GvG launch but completely skipped for The Grand Tournament launch.

I just started playing Hearthstone heavily over this past week, so this is perfect timing for me. Also, three free packs is nice!

Those card backs, though? Dope as fuck. Definitely going to pre-order this shit!

@jakob187: Perfect timing is in 6 weeks?

Giving C'Thun to everyone is a good way to force C'Thun into the meta, I like it.

@fredchuckdave: They pretty much had to do it. If they didn't it would just be frustrating to open pack after pack with "useless" cultists and never get C'thun.

I'm really curious what they're doing with the three other gods though. With the way they revealed this it almost seemed like they were doing four different versions of C'thun, but obviously they aren't.

Nah. Now is actually a good time, as I literally had nothing in my inventory at all. It means that I can get stuff to make decks for Wild format, as well as get more used to the mechanics of the game itself so I can get better. Plus...let's be honest...that Hogger card back is sick as hell and I need it!

Coming from the world of Magic, Hearthstone was always a little weird for me. Even though I've been playing pretty hardcore for the last week for the first time since the game came out (I had played when it first launched, but not very much...the grind felt way too harsh to get packs, and I didn't want to spend money), the idea that I get to choose which creatures I'm attacking is still something I need to get used to. I've been programmed for years and years now that I play the creatures, attack, and they get to choose what it blocking, ya know?

As for the free C'Thun thing to everyone trying to force it into the meta, I have a lot I could say about that, but I also don't feel like I know enough about the game as a whole, particularly where meta is concerned, to offer solid and confident commentary on it. Suffice it to say, though, that I won't be playing him unless the set really centers hard around him. If the set DOES center hard around him being part of meta, that would be...disheartening.

I guess I'm surprised that C'thun doesn't also have the Malorne ability? Like, if you're really in a bind and have to Coin out C'thun on turn 9 or something (maybe Thaurissan reduces C'thun's cost) just to possibly stay alive, then C'thun dies, any further cards that buff C'thun are much worse since Hearthstone is probably never going to add a discard/graveyard pile and C'thun ceases to exist once dead.

Trying to Duplicate your C'thun or use Ancestral Spirit on it (or Faceless Manipulator) seem like they might be important.

@ares42: Why aren't they? The implication is that each of the four gods behaves in a similar fashion to C'Thun and will have cards associated with them; that doesn't mean they're buff cards or that each of them is 10 mana or whatever but there's a very strong implication that 64 cards are going to have something to do with one Old God or another.

Aside: Due to the nature of reddit I have to post a lot and HS reddit seems to be the place to post and it's been enjoyable; if people are interested in having Hearthstone conversations more than once every few months I recommend it.

I continue to be excited!

Lol am I the only one who is reading that parenthetical as passive-aggressive snark?

@starvinggamer:

It's safe to assume everything is passive aggressive on the internet.

@fredchuckdave: Why the fuck are you asking me where your C'Thun is? How the fuck should I know?

It's really hard to judge these new cards in light of the upcoming balance changes on the Basic and Classic cards that is also arrive with the Standard format. I see C'Thun, and I think, "Big Game Hunter says hello." I'm excited for new cards, particularly with the Inspire and Discover mechanics that could have a lot of fun flavor with the corrupted Old God theme throughout... but it's hard to know how exactly this will affect Wild or Standard currently.

I'm still preordering the hell out of it though.

@starvinggamer:Lol. You're reading it as passive aggressive snark because it is passive aggressive snark!

@likeametaphor: You're absolutely right on that. There are still too many unknown variables to judge the new cards. Though, I think C'thun may have a chance since I heard that Blizzard is strongly thinking of nerfing BGH. They recently indicated that in a recent IGN interview.

Mike Donais: Big Game Hunter, I think pushes in a little bit of an unhealthy direction because it means that all the big, high attack minions we ever print will get hit by this, and it sort of limits our design space.

IGN: So it’s safe to say that is one of the cards you’re looking at.

Mike Donais: It’s high on our list.

@acura_max: But mannn, without BGH, people might actually have to use all of those terrible removal spells Druid has! No one wants that! What am I supposed to do, hit a big minion with Recycle or Mulch like a peasant?

@fredchuckdave: Think you sorta misread what I said, what I was trying to say was that it seemed like they had all these cultist cards that buffed "your C'Thun"(variant), and then you had four different choices of C'Thuns that would do different things based on those buffs.

I doubt they're doing the same thing for all four gods though. Not only is filling half the expansion with dead cards unless you play very specific decks very detrimental to deck building (especially with the smaller deck pool introduced with standard), but also for the same reason why I said they made C'thun free. They also said all the C'thun and cultists cards won't be available in arena, so they would be screwing arena over big time if that much of the expansion was exclusive to constructed.

EDIT: Apparently they've confirmed C'thun is the only one that uses the minion support mechanic. http://hearthstone.blizzpro.com/2016/03/11/whispers-of-the-old-gods-announced/

• C’Thun and Beckoner of Evil will be free. They felt this was only fair because it would feel bad if you kept getting minions that helped C’Thun without ever actually being lucky enough to open him in a pack.
• Players will receive 3 free packs of Whispers of the Old Gods during their release event by simply logging in.
• Patch next week includes:
  • Pre-Purchase (includes card back)
  • Thailand localization
  • Additional deck slots
  • Deck recipes
• Classic card nerfs will not be announced until much closer to release. They feel it would feel bad to know this far ahead which cards you own will be getting nerfed.
• No new tribes are added to this expansion.
• C’thun is the only Old God which has the minion support. The other gods will have different style of abilities.
• There will be at least 1 new dragon in this expansion (Brian Kibler was happy).
• Arena will not have the C’Thun cards included. Since they have specific synergy with 1 card they decided to not have them even show up in arena at all.

I don't know how the other C'thun synergy cards will work, but dumping 10+ damage on an enemy plus forcing them to use removal sounds pretty good for 10 mana, even if the synergy cards makes it really easy to see him coming.

@ares42: "No new tribes are added to this expansion." So that's referring to beasts/mechs/dragons? I wasn't aware they were calling those "tribes".

@bisonhero: Yeah, "tribes" is shorthand for "minion type." It comes from Magic, as most card game lingo does.

Another batch of cards have arrived. Could this be eater of secret paladin? Probably not assuming secret paladin does continue to exist. Other wise, he's going to be a weak 4 drop unless your opponent plays 2 secrets at least.

@acura_max: Imagine the satisfaction of eating a full Christmas tree though, particularly if there's a good animation.

Oh boy, Giant Sandworm with Stablemaster sounds fun.

@captain_max707: Yeah, it feels like Blizzard realized that nobody actually wants to use Stablemaster or Bestial Wrath, so they're making Giant Sandworm so there is something that synergizes with them.

Still, I hope they finally give Hunter some card draw since Starving Buzzard was nerfed out of existence almost 2 years ago. Whatever it is, it'll probably just make Face Hunter more disgusting, but it still irks me that they destroyed Starving Buzzard and never replaced it with anything.

@bisonhero: Yeah, that's a tough one. I figure charge decks are always going to be pretty powerful unless they go out of their way to stop them (give more classes secrets so you can sort of answer a charge, make a Mana Wraith-like card that only affects charge minions, etc). Seems too drastic though...

So I'm struggling to wrap my head around the excitement of Eater of Secrets. It's a tech card that's really only going to value against one archetype of one class - which may not be viable anymore with Avenge getting rotated out. Even if it eats a full Christmas tree - it's a juicy Keeper/Aldor/BGH target and still has to deal with a full board of minions includes a 6/6 Challenger.

@c0v3rt: I guess they want an alternative to Kezan Mystic, but yeah, it's weird. Kezan is fine even if only one secret is out, but if only one secret is out for Eater of Secrets, then it's a 4-mana 3/5 that happened to destroy one secret, and that's not especially great, and if no secrets are out it's an awful 4-mana 2/4 (whereas Kezan's stats are slightly better if no secret gets played). All that being said, it's going to be especially rough against anything but Paladin, because I expect secret use to go down in Hunter and Mage once they lose Mad Scientist.

Eater of Secrets feels like the Lil' Exorcist and Scarlet Purifier of this expansion.

@bisonhero: It feels like a crappier Blood Knight. Now if it "ate" the secrets and gained taunt, I'd be interested - or did damage to enemy minions based on the number of secrets consumed, it'd have my attention.

@c0v3rt: Until Hearthstone tournaments do the sensible thing and have sideboards like MtG (which seems like it is never going to happen at this point), it's the kind of card that I don't expect people to put in decks very often.

Pretty good stats. It's at best a twilight drake and at worst a chillwind yeti. But pretty good stats did not help fireguard destroyer.

I wonder what percentage of the new cards will be support for C'thun, they become kinda pointless if you don't run it.

@captain_max707: They said that there will be 16 cards that will support C'thun. Whether they mean 16 different cards or 16 cards in total (including duplicates) is unclear though.

@acura_max said:

I suspect they're leading with a lot of the C'thun cards, then like a week from now they're going to be like "Oh, and here's this OTHER thing this expansion is doing", because yeah, obviously many of the revealed cards have been really C'thun focused but not everyone is going to be very excited by that prospect.

@bisonhero:They're probably leading with a lot of C'thun related cards because that's the old god that everyone is getting for free.

@acura_max:Doesn't seem like a condition that would be that hard to pull off unless Twilight Elder and Beckoner of Evil are the only cards that give C'thun additional stats.

@acura_max: Wait the Klaxxi didn't worship C'Thun....they worshiped Y'Shaarj, I don't think they even lived on the same continent as C'Thun.

Stupid WoW not caring about it's lore anymore since Legion spread to it's card game!

Nerdrage!

As @bisonhero correctly predicted. We are getting more C'thun support cards.

If you though that last druid card's effect was going to be easy to pull off, Ancient Shieldbearer looks even easier. Especially now that we have C'thun's servant. That's double the armor of shieldmaiden and +1/+1 stats for an extra mana. I like it!

Is Klaxxi Amber-Weaver the first card that is exactly the mana cost and stats of Chillwind Yeti, but better?

@bisonhero: Mechanical Yeti is more or less better than Chillwind Yeti; has the mech tag and an effect that is more likely to benefit you than the opponent because of attacker's initiative.

Man, I haven't even done the past 3 tavern brawls. I really need to get back into HS. I'm assuming this is packs like TGT and GVG right? Not an expansion?

@shaunk: TGT and GvG are the expansions. The others are "Adventures".

Ah right, thanks. I always forget about their naming conventions.

Another day, another set of cards. Seems like each class will get a type of card similar to these cards.

That seems pretty awesome, a cool idea to make a card meaningful throughout the game.

@acura_max: Ah, they're finally taking the cue from MtG where you design one concept, then find out how you can give one version of it to each colour/class. For anyone wondering how Magic releases like 600+ cards each year, this is how.

I am instantly intrigued by Forbidden Shaping and instantly skeptical of Forbidden Flame. Mages already have so many removal spells and all of them are more efficient with your mana. Maybe it'll replace flame cannon in some decks?

A get out of jail free, always be able to play a minion on curve card sounds great though. Even if it ends up at the bottom of your deck it provides one last ditch possible win condition. It seems like a good card to have in hand no matter what stage of the game you draw it.