I can't tell if you mean when SoG was introduced or when the other shards entered the game.
I didn't watch the forums back then, and didn't play much, and I just checked the past patch notes. I stopped at 1.28, when 1.29 was probably in trainer. So the SoG, SoR and SoD should have been out already, but weren't useable without upping them. well, my bad, it looks like shards where awailable already, although I never got one and there weren't any used in anti false god decks appearently.