Take a closer look at Cabal Shadow Priest's artwork. Now compare it with Northshire Cleric's. Did you notice they both have black hair and wear the same clothings? Sure they may not be the same person, but at the very least they are from the same order. And the Cabal Shadow Priest's flavor text makes it all the more chilling.
The boss fight against Vaelastrasz in Blackrock Mountain. He's depicted as being in very real pain because of Nefarian's experiments, and it just gets more and more pronounced as the fight goes on. It gets worse if you play Alexstrasza - you get an Easter Egg, but instead of something funny or cute, he tearfully begs her to save him.
The trailer for Whispers of the Old Gods. It still has its moments of whimsy, like the frog with tentacles for a tongue, but it's largely a grim look at what Azeroth is like under the influence of the Old Gods. Made all the creepier by the excellently voice-acted Fortune Teller, who gloats about how hopeless it is to resist their influence, before revealing her true, frightening appearance at the end.
While some of the things he says are far from creepy, it's still startling when C'thun whispers in your ear after getting buffed and you're not expecting it. Especially if you're wearing headphones, which makes it sound like he's breathing down your neck.
The Doppelgangster is a 2/2 Dwarf who summons 2 more 2/2 minions as a Battlecry. But considering his very unusual appearance (purple skin) and the minions he summoned are Faceless Ones, it's very likely that the 'Dwarf' is a Faceless himself. Another is the Darkshire Councilman; when you look closer at his shadow, they're very tentacle-y. What's particularly chilling is that Faceless Ones are usually found underground, or close to areas with significant Old Gods' presence. But these 2 cards showed that the Faceless Ones have started to infiltrate local organizations...
Abominations are very disturbing on their own, especially if you've played WoW and are familiar with their lore. However, Rotface, a Warrior legendary that summons a Legendary every time it survives damage, has a design even more horrific than the other abominations, with his face reduced to a lumpy, fleshy mass with no nose and one eye, and arms, eyes and gaseous pores growing out of his body in almost any place you can name. He also speaks like a Psychopathic Manchild with an extremely agonized voice (as opposed to the typical Abomination's Simpleton Voice). Even worse is that his quote implies you'll be stitched into an abomination like him if you die to him...
Rotface:Daddynote Professor Putricide make toys out of you!
The Kobold's You No Take Candle is a memetic Running Gag. But come Dungeon Run mode, and you find out exactly why they insist you don't take any candles. In fact, when the relevant card is in play, you will hope you don't take any candle.
There's a reason to always keep a light on down here.
Enjoy using the spellstone cards? Read the poem made by combining the flavor texts of all nine of them in a certain order, and you'll discover some disturbing lore: they were created by Azari the Devourer to tempt mortals into corruption, and most come with nasty side effects: the Amethyst spellstone drew Rin the warlock in a frenzy for power that cost her family and her at the end their lives, the Onyx spellstones are Artefacts Of Attraction so powerful that adventuring parties turn on and kill each other to have it, the Mithril spellstones protected the dwarves from demons by entombing them alive inside stone golems, the Emerald spellstones turned the tauren hunters that used them into the same beasts they hunted, the Jasper spellstones turned night elves into satyrs, the Sapphire spellstones caused the murlocs to multiply out of control and the Diamond spellstones resurrect the dead at a cost unknown to its users...
Thankfully, the Ruby Spellstone was used by a nameless magician to seal Azari once and for all, and thanks to the events of the Dungeon Run, Azari should be done for, right? Nope. Whizbang's Workshop introduces two more Spellstones for the classes that weren't around for Kobolds & Catacombs, and the Spinel spellstone's description indicates that it was completely forgotten both by Azari and his enemies, and pawned off to shops as a harmless trinket... which it very much isn't, implying that there's a good chance Azari isn't finished after all, and at the very least his influence will continue to be felt.
The Witchwood's Monster Hunt involves fighting a number of creatures twisted by the influence of Hagatha the Witch, but there are some in particular that are more horrifying than others.
Crooked Pete has the ability to give his minions Stealth, letting them evade your attacks. Not very scary, right? Wait, WHAT?!He's aWorgen now?! Yes, he's become Beastly Pete and he starts with 50 health and 15 armor, with an aggressive deck to boot. You'll end up having to think on your feet before Beastly Pete clobbers you into submission.
Experiment 3C is a Frankenstein's Monster-esque hybrid. It is able to eat one of its own minions to draw three cards via its Hero Power, and it possesses the Amalgamate spell to combine every single minion on the field into an Amalgamate just like itself, having all of the tribes in the entire game (shared by its card counterpart Nightmare Amalgam). However, the most disturbing part is its origin: Experiment 3C isn't one of Hagatha's creations, but was created by Dr. Boom. 3C has several lines that show that its components were turned into this monstrosity against their own will; it shows signs of trauma when you play a Spare Part or Unstable Portal as it is reminded of Boom's lab in the Netherstorm, and it does a Freak Out when seeing Dr. Boom, begging not to be taken back to the lab. Its death quote is "We... finally escaped!" suggesting that Experiment 3C has all of its components' mindsand they were aware that they were trapped the entire time!What the hell, Dr. Boom?!
Gnomenapper, a cursed tauren with an unhealthy obsession with kidnapping live gnomes. Imagine all of the terror in the gnome villages! To fit his kleptomania, he has a deck full of gnome cards that he presumably stole (even Millhouse Manastorm!) and his Hero Power lets him kidnap one of your minions and put them in a sack, which you must break them out of. His trump card, Sack of Gnomes, lets him fill his board with gnomes, which again, he presumably stole. If you choose Toki, a gnome hero, then Gnomenapper will consider taking her next...
Toki's final nemesis, her future self Infinite Toki. Toki's time-travelling shenanigans somehow went horribly wrong and resulted in her scarred everywhereincluding her mind, causing her to descend into madness. After becoming Infinite Toki, she aims to hunt her past counterpart down and Set Right What Once Went Wrong. Her signature cards can be quite scary when you think about it, such as her Hero Power Chronoacceleration, which speeds up a minion so they can attack four times in one turn at the cost of them dying from Rapid Aging at the end of her turn and Alternate Timeline, which completely restarts the match in a different timeline except you will retain your lost health while Infinite Toki fully heals. And even worse, you can't stop her from using Alternate Timeline.
Even outside of Monster Hunt, The Witchwood has some rather unnerving foes. Case in point? Dollmaster Dorian. He looks normal enough... until you realize that he sewn one of his eyes onto a doll he's making. Then there's his case file on the Blizzard official site (for comparison, all of the other ones are several paragraphs in length):
The final boss of Tombs Of Terror has a card titled "The Final Plague". What does this card do? It summons all four Old Gods to the battlefield. How did Rafaam find a way to free the Old Gods from their prison, and what could this mean for his plans?
We learn that the final Plague in question was the Plague of Undeath. The Old Gods is just a test run to see if it is sufficient for the "Progenitor of Dragonkind" himself, Galakrond.
While mostly goofy, the trailer for Galakrond's Awakening shows just how far off the deep-end Rafaam has gone. His attempt to recap the story by holding a puppet show, after getting derailed by Reno's grandstanding, turns into him rushing through his song while pulling out a gigantic Galakrond puppet he uses to violently bludgeon the puppet theater into splinters before stopping in a mixture of catching his breath and what sounds like quietly sobbing. And, as shown by the adventure itself and it's E.V.I.L. ending, his plan goes off without a hitch.
That was the plan, because I am a fan of the most evil thing that has ever walked land. It's a dragon I claim, Galakrond is his name, the UNSTOPPABLE beast of NEFARIOUS FAME! ONCE YOU'VE RUN OUT OF TIME, AZEROTH WILL BE MINE,THIS WORLD WILL BE BURNIIIING!!! But i'll just...''
The League of E.V.I.L.'s ending in Galakrond's Awakening. Both the Alliance and Horde are flattened and Galakrond himself would have destroyed the rest of Azeroth if it wasn't for Rafaam. Azeroth (or what's left it) is essentially at the mercy of an individual who just defeated the Progenitor of Dragonkind in single combat, a feat that was only possible with the combined might of the Dragon Aspects. As of the present, only Alexstrasza remains out of the original team. Unless Kalecgos (if he survived The Dalaran Heist), Chromie, Merithra, Wrathion and Ebonhorn pick up the slack, Azeroth is doomed.
Scholomance Academy initially seems to be a lighthearted, Disney-esque romp, but in truth, it pays homage to its terrifying source material with some genuinely creepy stuff:
Kel'Thuzad is the headmaster of the Scholomance Academy.. and while this might take place before his lichdom, it's very clear that he is already well past the Moral Event Horizon, necromancy is going beneath the floorboards, and his school is not safe.
Immediately on its reveal, the artwork for Flesh Giant◊ made people piss their pants. It's an extremely grotesque amalgam of corpses with various bits of flesh, fur, bone, a part of its brain exposed, an arm hanging from its chin, and most notably, a giant, menacing eyeball protruding from its chest.
The Darkmoon Faire is fun for the whole family! The trailer is like a puppet show! The new keyword for this expansion is Corrupt, giving elekks more trunks and having paladins screaming...in fun. Plus there is a wonderful amount of Old God legendaries to play with. And don't worry, the cuddly 1/1 this expansion is a 10-mana epic Darkmoon Rabbit with Rush and Poison that also damages the adjacent minions.
The final fight in Tamsin Roame's Book of Mercenaries campaign is against her father, Cornelius, who she hates with a burning passion. Cornelius's Hero Power reduces all damage dealt to him by minions to zero... so instead, you use encounter-specific Mind Demon minions and other deck destruction tools to burn his cards and put him into fatigue. This doesn't seem that horrifying at a glance, but it becomes nightmarish once you understand what's actually happening: Tamsin and her demons are eating away at her father's mind, destroying his memories and slowly turning him into a mindless monster she can control, with zero remorse on Tamsin's end. As fatigue kicks in, Cornelius begins losing himself, first becoming unable to understand where he is, then feverishly begging his daughter, who he'd long thought to be lost to the Scourge's attack on Scholomance, to please stop. The extent of Tamsin's heartlessness and immense dark power had been hinted at and alluded to before, but this fight lays it all bare, and it's utterly terrifying.
Cornelius: My mind is going... *screams in sheer agony*
Tamsin: I can't wait to see what kind of monster you become.
What makes this even worse? Cornelius, after his Face–Monster Turn, is never referred to by his name again. His boss fight in Cariel's Book of Mercenaries refers to him as "A Twisted Monstrosity" and simply "Monstrosity" when he turns up as Tamsin's Battlegrounds buddy. It goes to show that, despite looking like Cornelius, this "Twisted Monstrosity" is anything but.
for Whispers of the Old Gods. It still has its moments of whimsy, like the frog with tentacles for a tongue, but it's largely a grim look at what Azeroth is like under the influence of the Old Gods. Made all the creepier by the excellently voice-acted Fortune Teller, who gloats about how hopeless it is to resist their influence, before revealing her true, frightening appearance at the end.
