New Hearthstone Expansion

By: Garrett Speller

Online collectible card game Hearthstone is being expanded again next Tuesday, adding 134 new cards to the game. Announced on May 11th, the expansion, titled “Whispers of the Old Gods” also brings with it a bevy of new changes to the game, the most important of which being the game rotation, in which older (and less refined) sets of cards are rotated out of the standard ranked game mode. Blizzard, the creators of Hearthstone, have also introduced nerfs to several basic cards that saw widespread play, changing several meta-defining decks, such as combo druid and face shaman/hunter. When players log in next Tuesday, they will automatically receive three free packs, along with a quest to play three games in standard to receive five more.  Upon opening your first “Whispers of the Old Gods” card pack, players will unlock the legendary minion C’thun along with two Beckoners of Evil, cards that interact with C’thun. Because just over 12% of cards in the set interact with this legendary minion, Blizzard decided to give it to all players for free. This gives newer players a considerable advantage as well, because they are receiving a powerful card that would otherwise be extremely difficult to acquire. This expansion is expected to shake up the meta, improving previously worthless classes such as shaman or rogue, and leading to new deck archetypes. All in all, the expansion is looking to bring in many new changes and shake up the long stagnant game experience, breathing new life into the collectable card game.