Update: The expansion is now live! Enjoy!
Whizbang’s Workshop is the first expansion of Year of the Pegasus (2024). The genius inventor and toymaker, Whizbang, has opened the doors to his magical workshop – and all of the Azeroth’s invited! This place is teeming with plushies, Miniatures, and more. With nonstop nostalgia and options galore, you’re bound to find a new favorite toy – or even build one yourself. Welcome to a world of whimsy and wonder, welcome to Whizbang’s Workshop!
The expansion will add 145 new cards (with a mini-set adding 38 more at a later date), as well as a variety of new mechanics and synergies. Learn everything you should know about it below!
Release Time
Let’s start with the most important – when does the new expansion launch? Hearthstone sets have a simultaneous launch across the globe, so Whizbang’s Workshop should be out on every server at the same time. However, the time it launches for you depends on where you live – some countries from the Eastern Hemisphere will have it out on March 20 instead of the “official” March 19 release date because of time zone differences. There was also a switch to daylight saving time in the US already, but not in many other countries, causing further confusion. Here are some example launch times for different time zones:
- 10 AM Pacific Time on Tuesday (March 19)
- 1 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday (March 19)
- 6 PM Central European Time on Tuesday (March 19)
- 3 AM Korean Standard Time on Wednesday (March 20)
- 4 AM Australian Eastern Time on Wednesday (March 20)
Since the expansion was already pre-loaded a week ago, you won’t need to download a big patch when it launches. It also means that mobile release should happen exactly at the same time as PC. Just make sure to open the game early and download any patches if you haven’t been playing lately.
Freebies
When new expansion launches, players are usually greeted with some free stuff, like packs, free Legendaries etc. Here’s what we know so far about Whizbang’s Workshop:
- A big part of the rewards were already given out before the expansion, including a bunch of freebies from Twitch drops. But even if you missed them, don’t worry, you won’t be far behind.
- Colifero the Artist was given out as a free Whizbang’s Workshop Legendary in Patch 28.6. If you haven’t picked it up yet, just log in and it’ll be waiting for you in-game.
- Li'Na, Shop Manager is unlocked on Level 1 of the new Rewards Track, which means that you will get it as soon as the expansion releases.
- A new in-game event (Whizbang’s Workshop) will launch a week after the expansion. Players can get 2 Whizbang’s Workshop Packs, 5 Standard Packs, and a new Warlock skin for completing it.
- Not exactly “free”, but if you plan to buy a Tavern Pass, you can get a Diamond version of Joymancer Jepetto on Level 2. While Tavern Pass is mostly about XP boosts and Cosmetics, the extra Legendary you get at the start is also a nice bonus. If you already own a regular version of the card (you opened him in the packs), getting a Diamond copy will let you reroll the normal version into another Legendary card you don’t own.
- The first few levels of rewards track require almost no XP, so they are meant to be unlocked nearly instantly as you start playing. You will unlock three extra Whizbang’s packs over the first 9 levels, which you should easily be able to achieve on Day 1 (only 1550 XP is required to get there). You can get even further into the rewards track if you keep your Weekly and Daily Quests to get a jump start on the new rewards track.
- If you’re a new or returning player (haven’t logged in for over 90 days), you will be offered one of the updated free decks. To be more specific – you get to borrow all 6 decks for a week and play them as much as you want, but after a week is over you have to pick one of them and only that will be added to your collection.
New Keyword/Mechanic – Miniaturize
Miniaturize is this expansion’s new keyword. The way it works is very simple. After you play a card with Miniaturize, you get a 1 mana 1/1 copy of it added to your hand. The only difference in the card’s effect is that the 1/1 version is a “Mini” not “Miniaturize”, so it no longer gives you another copy.
The advantages of this kind of effect are obvious. Not only you get an extra, small minion that can be useful in Token strategies (or give you an extra Corpse as a Death Knight), but you can double dip on the card’s effect. While the mini version has weak stats, the effect has a much higher tempo. Because if you take an effect from an expensive card and put it on a 1-Cost card, that effect is going to be proportionally much stronger this way.
The keyword also opens some interesting opportunities, like in the case of Toy Captain Tarim. The first, big version is best used on a friendly minion to buff it. You can, for example, turn a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit into a 3/7. However, the mini version is a 1/1, so its Battlecry now turns a chosen minion into a 1/1. That can be a great way to deal with a big minion on your opponent’s side of the board. To a lesser extent, Chia Drake also has an interesting dynamic. You probably won’t pick Spell Damage +1 on the first 4 mana body because it’s hard to combo it with spells on the same turn. Drawing a spell will usually be the way to go. However, on the 1/1 version, Spell Damage +1 will be much more enticing, as you will have 3 more mana to work with (and you can easily combo it with, for example, Swipe).
Overall it’s a simple, but cool mechanic.
Zilliax Deluxe 3000 Customizable Legendary Card
Another interesting feature of the expansion is the new Zilliax Deluxe 3000 card. It’s the first Hearthstone card you can customize yourself when putting into your deck (well, E.T.C., Band Manager was also customizable, but in a different way). When you add Zilliax to your deck, you pick two different Upgrade Modules (out of eight), then finish things off with a cosmetic skin. The final cards will have a combined Mana Cost, Stats and Effects of both Modules you picked. This way there are a total of 28 possible combinations. Here’s how it looks in practice and Modules you can pick from:
For example, if you combine Twin Module and Perfect Module, you end up with a 9 mana, 6/5 minion with Divine Shield, Taunt, Lifesteal, Rush and Battlecry: Summon a copy of this. That’s very powerful, but also very expensive. However, you might decide to go for a different strategy and combine Pylon Module with Ticking Module. This way you end up with a 7 mana, 3/5 minion that gives you other minions +1/+1 and costs (1) less for each minion in play. It’s a really good combo for Aggro/Token strategies that rely on flooding the board with multiple minions. For example, it would combo incredibly well with Paladin’s Showdown! spell (it would bring him down to 0 mana with just a single other minion on the board, and +1/+1 on your minions means that your 3/3’s can trade into your opponent’s and survive).
Of course, not every combination will work well, but after thinking about it just for a few minutes I found a few combos that are very interesting and potentially powerful. The card is really interesting because it’s incredibly flexible – not in a gameplay sense, but in a deck-building sense. One Legendary can serve completely different roles in different decks.
Splendiferous Whizbang
Splendiferous Whizbang is one of the cards releasing in the upcoming Whizbang’s Workshop expansion. If you were playing the game back in 2018, I’m sure you remember the original Whizbang the Wonderful. Putting him into your deck and launching a match gave you a random Deck Recipe (premade decks for every expansion). You can still play him in Wild, of course, but he wasn’t very competitive even back in Standard, so it might be pretty tough to win matches. However, competitiveness wasn’t his main draw. The card was so fun because it gave F2P players an opportunity to play with cards they don’t normally have. A new player could just craft Whizbang and enjoy the game, playing decent, diverse decks.
The new card is obviously a reference to the original, but it works a bit differently. Instead of using Deck Recipes, it has a fixed list of decks. However, instead of just being “normal” decks, each one of them comes with some special twist. Some use cards from multiple classes, other features cards we have never seen before in Standard, and so on.
You can find a full list of Splendiferous Whizbang decks with some gameplay tips in a dedicated guide.
New Signature Cards
Another batch of Signatures has been released in Whizbang’s Workshop. And they come with a significant update compared to the previous ones. Not only the frame is different, but shape of rarity games changes with rarity (so Common gem looks different than Rare gem etc.). It’s also the first time Signature cards have a consistent theme – they have been “mechanized” by Dr. Boom. And while they might not be my favorite Signatures ever, some of them look really cool!
We’ve gathered all of the Whizbang’s Workshop Signatures in a separate post, but you can find a few examples below:
New Rewards Track
The rewards track, first introduced in Darkmoon Faire, is getting another refresh. When Whizbang’s Workshop launches, all players will get reset to Level 1 and will work their way up through the track again. If you were playing the game last expansion, then you pretty much know everything you need to know. Both the free rewards track and the Tavern Pass look exactly the same content-wise (of course, the exact packs, cards etc. you get are different, but they come in the same amounts and rarities). And in case you’re new to the game or returning after a long break, you can learn more about the track and find a full list of rewards in this post.
Your daily & weekly Quests will NOT reset when the new expansion launches. It’s not a bad idea to save them for after the launch to give you a nice boost through the early levels of the rewards track. The only situations in which I’d recommend finishing all your Quests under the old rewards track is if you have Tavern Pass right now, but you don’t plan to buy a new one after launch (this way you’ll get 20% extra XP), or you haven’t finished the previous rewards track and you’re close to leveling for some good rewards. In the second case, if you want to min-max, try to hit a new level on your current rewards track and stop there because any “excess” XP won’t carry over. Ultimately this is not a big deal and no matter what you do, you should come up with a similar amount of rewards in the long run. But a free pack here and there can’t hurt, right?
Additionally, we have an update to the Level 100 rewards track and “Tavern Regular” achievement skins. Those are the free skins you pick based on your rewards track progress… but some players already ran out of options, while others were close. Because of that, Blizzard decided to add 6 new skins to each of those options (so 12 in total) last expansion. Then, with this expansion they made another update and added the final 5 – now every class has a second option (besides Death Knight, which only got its first option now since it’s a new class). I think they’re an upgrade compared to the ones we had previously, so even if you still had some options, you might consider picking them instead. Check out how they look here.
New & Returning Players Experience
I’ve already mentioned it in the freebies section, but let me expand on it. If you are a new player or haven’t been playing the game in a while (90+ days to be exact), you might be happy to hear that some extra goodies are waiting for you once you log in. You get two things – an extra Quest Chain with some nice rewards and a free Standard deck of your choice. Those free decks are updated every expansion but notably DO NOT include any cards from the latest set (so, for example, Whizbang’s Workshop decks include cards from Festival of Legends to Showdown in the Badlands). However, they are a nice start and can serve you early into the new set before you can open enough packs or craft something else.
An extra feature added recently is that you no longer have to pick your free deck right away. You get access to all of them for a week, and only after that week passes you have to decide to keep one. It means that you have enough time to test all of them and see which one fits you the best.
You can find an updated list of Whizbang’s Workshop free decks here with our reccomendations.
Whizbang’s Workshop Decks
Once the expansion launches, I will be compiling decks from pro players & streamers in this post. I’ll try to add decks for all 11 classes, but it’s hard to say whether every single class will be viable around launch. The post will be updated every few hours over the early expansion period (roughly the first week). We also generally do compilations of best-performing decks in separate posts – one after ~24 hours and the second one a week after launch. So if you want something to base your early crafting decisions on, that would be your best choice (it’s still not a guarantee that those decks will remain viable, but it’s better than nothing).
Until we get some actual decks, you can check out Old Guardian’s theorycrafting impressions. He talks about each class and how it might fare in the upcoming expansion, plus he showcases some decks from the event. Those never translate into the expansion meta once it launches and everyone gets to play it, but some decks that are strong during theorycrafting also end up being good once the set launches. So you can get some ideas this way. Here’s the article! Vicious Syndicate also always prepares an article with lots of decks to try on Day 1. And they are usually really good at predicting some upcoming meta builds. Of course, most of them turn out to be bad (because it’s just theorycrafting), but when they get something right, the resulting build is usually pretty close to a full meta version. You can check them out here.
Really excited for this expansion. A wide range of varied decks and cool cards.