Whispers of the Old Gods

Greetings Travelers!

I'm back as promised to discuss the newly announced Whispers of the Old Gods Hearthstone Expansion! Blizzard had a nice little presentation prior to the start of the Americas Winter Championship today, but unfortunately they were forced to show up late to their own party. Earlier this week a bunch of Hearthstone content creators and professional players were flown to California for a sneak preview of the announcement. The information was put under embargo, but that didn't stop a Spanish website from posting basically all of the information we got today. This kind of thing happens a lot more than it should in the gaming industry and it really sucks when an announcement like this gets a lot of wind taken out of it's sails on the eve of the event. Sure, they got a ton of traffic to their site in the last 24 hours, but they have basically assured that they won't be invited to a similar event in the future. The worst-case scenario is Blizzard just decides not have similar things take place going forward, and that sucks for everyone. We get less content from our favorite community members and we get it later than we would with these kinds of invitations going out. But enough about the shitty actions of a few jerks. Let's get to the good stuff!

Whispers of the Old Gods is a 134 card expansion based around the idea of the awakened Old Gods messing with things all over Azeroth including our beloved Inn, and it is set to release in late April/early May. This is a little later than a lot of people expected, but I can't say I'm surprised. In addition to a new set of cards we are also getting a new format and with it Blizzard has to review quite a few base set cards and rebalance them according to the current state of the game. Most players agree that things like Big Game Hunter, Knife Juggler, and Force of Nature/Savage Roar are the primary offenders but I'm sure they want to make sure that they hit everything they need to in this pass. They need to ensure these cards are where they want them when the formats hit initially or they risk turning off a portion of the player base if things are too far out of whack and require a second set of changes.

If I'm being honest, I was a little underwhelmed by the announcement as a whole. We only got 6 cards previewed along with the pre-order card back (which the picture above does no justice. the animations are awesome). No game board, no talk of mechanics outside of the Old Gods themselves, and the presentation itself was a lot shorter than I expected. I thought we'd get something more along the lines of the Grand Tournament event. Show off the mechanics and have a few show matches to showcase them. It's not like they didn't have dozens of community members and pro players on site for the event anyway. I don't know maybe I'm just spoiled at this point. But anyway, let's take a look at the cards we did see today.

The first two cards were described as corrupted versions of cards we have seen before. In this case Loot Hoarder and Antique Healbot. Polluted Hoarder seems underwhelming on the surface but we also have to remember we will be in a post Piloted Shredder world. Depending on what other 4 drops we see in Whispers this guy could find a place despite an underwhelming 2 health. Corrupted Healbot is basically a mid-game version of Zombie Chow which seems a bit odd. Chow was at it's best while picking off early game minions and ignoring the drawback of giving your opponent health. Corrupted Healbot is certainly going to be bigger than most things on the board before turn 5 but chances are the opponent has taken more damage by then and the drawback becomes more relevant. It may not matter and controlling the board is the primary goal the deck this is in, but I'll have to see it when the time comes. I do love the idea of playing an Auchenai Soulpriest then trading off my own Corrupted Healbot for the equivalent of a Ragnaros hit to the face.

The other 3 cards I want to talk about are the most interesting by far. (Validated Doomsayer is not a good card and I am spiteful that it was one of the cards previewed.) The Old Gods are the face of the expansion so they need to either be really impressive, or create new and interesting ways to play the game ala Reno Jackson or even Sir Finley. C'Thun and his cohorts clearly are aiming to do the latter. The example Blizzard gave of a late game 14/14 C'Thun wiping out an entire opposing board may be hyperbolic but the possibility is certainly there. What I really like about the two God buffing cards we have here is that the stat distribution is right where you want it to be. A 2/3 for 2 and 3/4 for 4 has become the standard for a playable minion. Because of that these minions are capable of holding their own despite the fact that the game may not reach the point of casting the Old God or you may just not draw it at all. It is a small sample size but I like what we have so far with these 3 cards. There is a lot of potential design-wise if the other 3 Old Gods and their followers are made in this vein. Perhaps we will see a minion that reduces the cost of the God or maybe a minion that gives the Yogg-Saron a Battlecry that spawns a tentacle minion. There are a lot of possibilities and with the limited information about what is in the set this is what has me the most intrigued. As more cards get previewed I'll be sure to review them as best I can. It would be cool to nail down some predictions.

That's it for Hearthstone talk this week but speaking of predictions, I have been doing some thinking about the inevitable Overwatch story content and want to do a probably short post sometime soon with some fun tin foil hat theories I've been cooking up. So chew on that!

Thanks as always for reading team! Until next time,

Chris