Back when Blizzard announced the debut of the Standard format for competitive play, they also hinted about the next expansion pack that would be released as well. Those whispers became loud enough to hear today as Blizzard unveiled the details of the upcoming expansion, Whispers of the Old Gods.
Consisting of 134 new cards, the smart money is to bet on this set having more of an effect on the meta -- both tournaments and day-to-day ladder play -- than the last full-scale expansion, The Grand Tournament. With the Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs. Gnomes sets leaving play combined with the upcoming re-balancing of a portion of the cards that make up the classic set, the expectation is that unlike previous new card sets, use of the Old Gods card set will entail more than simple further refining of deck archetypes almost set in stone.
So who are the Old Gods and why are they whispering? Whereas the last set of new cards, the League of Explorers, was a light-hearted adventure with its 1920s retro charm, this time Blizzard went back to darker source material from World of Warcraft. In World of Warcraft lore, the Old Gods are Lovecraftian entities, imprisoned for eons and subverting characters, driving them to evil or insanity. In other words, a rather significant change of tone from Reno Jackson promising that "we're all going to be rich."
But let's get to some meat, the cards. Blizzard didn't reveal everything, but we did get enough to whet our whistles.
C'THUN
We start off with C'Thun, the legendary card that was unveiled and the focus of a few of the other released cards. C'Thun is one of the five Old Gods listed in Warcraft lore and goes along with Blizzard's dubbing of this competitive year as The Year of the Kraken.
As a ten mana card, it would need to do a lot to see play. The Battlecry of dealing its damage to split among all enemies calls into mind a Paladin card, Avenging Wrath, that deals eight damage randomly split among all enemies for six mana. If you call six random damage worth 4 mana or so, that leaves the base card a six-mana 6/6 with a mini-Avenging Wrath, which isn't terribly exciting value on its own. Just to illustrate, Boulderfist Ogre is a six-mana 6/7 and classes have ways to do similar damage for four mana, such as Paladin's Consecration (two damage to all enemies), Mage's Fireball (six single-target) or Warrior's Mortal Strike (four or six single-target damage). And you're not forced to play those cards together, either.
But wait, there's more! C'Thun doesn't necessarily start off as a ten-mana 6/6. Blizzard has created more cards that have effects that change cards in the deck, for example, The Mistcaller that adds +1/+1 to all cards remaining in your deck. Malevolent ancient deities need servants and in this case, there are cards that specifically change the C'Thun card. We already know two of them.
BECKONER OF EVIL
One of the keys to making these kinds of deck-altering effects work is that the triggering cards themselves have to be at least somewhat playable. Else the tempo loss can become too severe to overcome and you end up losing long before you ever can get the effect. An example of this being instituted well can be found in Elise Starseeker from League of Explorers. Elise herself is a four-mana 3/5, which is playable, the two mana Map to the Golden Monkey is likely to come out in the later game when two mana isn't as big of a deal, and the Golden Monkey is a good card in its own right as a four-mana 6/6 with Taunt.
Beckoner of Evil, as a two-mana 2/3 is along these lines as the baseline stats are competitive, meaning that you can push the card out and not fall behind relative to other two-mana cards. To get more than five base stats for two mana, cards typically either have a significant condition (to be a 2/4, Wyrmrest Agent requires you to have a Dragon in hand) or a significant downside such as the 3/4 Totem Golem's Overload or the 4/3 Succubus discarding one cards. We also see the effect of Piloted Shredder leaving the meta as a 2/3 can't even take out the first half of the 4/3 Shredder without assistance.
To get the +2/+2 buff to C'Thun, you obviously need to be playing some kind of C'Thun deck, but just one Beckoner of Evil makes C'Thun an 8/8 that does eight random damage. Both of them and you now have a 10/10 doing ten damage. And the buff to C'Thun triggers whether C'Thun is on the board, in your hand, or somewhere in your deck.
CORRUPTED HEALBOT
The Corrupted Healbot is in that category of "powerful stats with a drawback" in this case, healing the enemy hero for eight. It's a significant downside, but one that's not necessarily a cripping drawback on its own because if you're playing a midrange or control decks, the board control is more important than your opponent's health total. That's why Zombie Chow, a one-mana 2/3 that has a Deathrattle that restores five points of health to the enemy hero, is such a staple of slower decks.
But is a 6/6 good enough for five mana? That's harder to see. Going from a 1/3 to a 2/3 card on turn 1 (the aforementioned Zombie Chow) is a more effective power increase than going from a 5/6 Pit Fighter to a 6/6 on turn 5. One possibility is in Priest, in which Auchenai Soulpriest is a staple that subverts the whole healing mechanic, turning healing into damage, in essence making the Deathrattle inflict eight damage on the enemy hero, so long as you can get the Soulpriest on the board when the Healbot dies.
POLLUTED HOARDER
Drawing a card in Hearthstone is an effect that's generally considered to be worth roughly 1.5 mana. Four mana for a 4/2 is very weak in the stat department. Is a 4/2 for 2.5 mana enough value to go along with the free card? It's a tricky case to make. The natural comparison is Cult Master, a four-mana 4/2 that draws a card when one of your other minions dies. While you're somewhat more likely to get at least one card from Polluted Hoarder than the Cult Master, the Hoarder just doesn't have the upside of Cult Master, which can potentially draw many cards.
VALIDATED DOOMSAYER
Geting 7/7 worth of stats for five mana is an excellent value, especially if Big Game Hunter gets nerfed, but as you might guess, it comes with a significant drawback. While you wouldn't be able to attack with it anyway for a turn even if it started out with the seven attack, giving an enemy a free shot at removing it greatly reduces the value of this card. It's difficult to drop if you're behind on board, simply because the other guy can remove it without damaging any of his minions. And if you're ahead to the degree that your opponent cannot remove it, you likely were in the lead anyway. The Doomsayer, its 0/7 cousin, can also be removed or silenced quite frequently, and given that you need five mana to even play this card, your opponent is practically guaranteed to have significant mana resources. A Win More card, but a flavorful one.
TWILIGHT ELDER
Like the Beckoner of Evil, the Twilight Elder has comparable stats, with a three-mana 3/4 being a fairly standard "solid minon" stat line. The Elder gives +1/+1 to C'Thun at the end of your turn, meaning that you ought to be able to have it trigger at least once, with the exception of some unusual scenario, such as the target of a Warlock Shadowflame.
Six down, 128 to go. Whispers of the Old Gods goes live sometime in Late April/Early May.