Even though the name itself was leaked a few weeks ago, its still good to have official confirmation that the most interesting elements of Warcraft lore, the Great Old Ones, are worming their way in to Hearthstone as well.

The upcoming expansion, titled Whispers of the Old Gods, is bringing with it 134 new cards, Standard & Wild divisions, nerfs to currently overpowered classic cards and much more. Here's the spoooooky trailer and a bit more info on WotOG (which might be one of the worst abbreviations around):

Let's start with what you're most likely interested in, all of the new cards and the fancy effects that they come with:

According to a short comment from Ben Brode, the main man behind Hearthstone, it seems that C'thun will have a massive array of 17 cards supporting him, which means that C'thun decks are now officially a thing. The three other Old Gods: Y’Shaarj, Yogg-Saron, and N’Zoth will also feature prominently, but they will use different mechanics and won't rely on vast armies of minions to make them work. Oddly enough, C'thun and his merry band of madmen will not be present in arena, which makes this the first time a "proper" card has been excluded from there.

If you don't know much about the ladder split in to Standard & Wild divisions you can read more about the announcement here, but allow me to give you the short version. Wild will be exactly the same as ranked today, meaning all cards from all expansions will be available for play, so if you enjoy plopping down Doctor 7 on turn 7, every single game, then you are free to continue to do so.

On the other hand, Standard will be a much more controlled league as it will contain only cards released in the last two years. The reason behind this is to ensure a much more diverse and exciting metagame, as well as to reduce the mountain new players need to climb before getting a competitive deck down to a slightly more manageable hill.

Finally, Blizzard has announced that they will be nerfing some of the more problematic cards such as Big Game Hunter, thought what exactly they plan to do with them, they haven't said. The nerfs will be going live before the expansion, so odds are we'll be hearing about it in the near future. 

Hearthstone's Whispers of the Old Gods card set will be releasing late April/early May so if you were planning on saving gold, now would be the time to start.

If you want to get a slight head start you can do so by playing a few games during the promotional weekend (no date was given just yet) which will net you three free card packs, and two bonus cards: C'thun and Beckoner of Evil. However, if you're in more of a money-spending mood you will be able to pre-order 50 Whispers of the Old Gods packs for the "discounted" price of $50 which will also net you the nifty card back seen below:

And that is it as far as current announcements go. Keep your eyes focused on the official Hearthstone website as Blizzard has said they will be releasing a trickle of information every so often until the Whispers of the Old Gods finally manifests itself in to our world.