Hearthstone’s new hero, a murloc shaman, is unlocked by recruiting friends to the game

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Blizzard’s digital card game, hasn’t had a new hero portrait added since April, when the mage character Khadgar was available as part of an Earth Day promotion. Starting today, however, a new shaman hero is available, and it’s one of the most unique characters in the game thus far.

The new character is named Morgl the Oracle, and he’s a murloc. For those unfamiliar with World of Warcraft races, murlocs are fish people notorious for running in large groups and making really annoying gurgling sounds. In Hearthstone, murlocs have traditionally been associated with rush decks, where you flood the board with these fishy minions that buff each other up and take out your opponent before they can react.

While the initial round of Hearthstone heroes were available as in-game purchases, Morgl joins the more recent trend of characters that are unlocked through other means. In this case, he’s the main gift for participating in Hearthstone’s new recruit-a-friend program.

If you have a Battle.net account, you can send an e-mail recruiting any friends who aren’t already playing Hearthstone. If one of those friends reaches level 20, you’ll unlock Morgl for use on your account. For the next four friends who reach level 20, you’ll receive a free Classic card pack.

That level 20 goal is a sum of the level of all your classes in the game, by the way. If you’re trying to recruit someone whose total levels, across all nine classes, already adds up to 20, it won’t work.

For more murlocs in Hearthstone, check out our video below. You can find more obsessive coverage of the game in the full playlist on our YouTube channel.