If you’ve built any of your Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft decks around the cards Leeroy Jenkins or Starving Buzzard, you might have a tougher time winning games in the near future.
Publisher Blizzard, which produces the online collectible-card game, revealed today that it is taking a scalpel to Hearthstone to reshape how people play certain cards. Specifically, the company is increasing the cost to play Leeroy Jenkins, which has a very high attack for just four mana, and Starving Buzzard, which enables you to draw a card every time you summon a beast.
Leeroy Jenkins will now cost five mana instead of four. The Starving Buzzard, which is a card for the Hunter class that lets you control animals, will now cost five mana instead of two. To make up for that huge cost increase, the card will go from two attack and one health to three attack and two health. Blizzard is aiming to enact these changes on Sept. 22.
In a post on its blog, Blizzard explained its reasoning for these balance adjustments.
“Leeroy Jenkins created a strategy that revolved around trying to defeat your opponent in one turn without requiring any cards on the board,” Blizzard community representative Christina Sims wrote. “Fighting for board control and battles between minions make an overall game of Hearthstone more fun and compelling, but taking 20-plus damage in one turn is not particularly fun or interactive.”
Sims is referring to a strategy where players would combine Leeroy Jenkins with other cards that would buff its abilities. As for Starving Buzzard, the developer pointed out that it enabled players to draw too many cards for its super-low cost.
“This change will allow the Hunter’s opponents more time to react to both the Starving Buzzard and the cards drawn by its power,” wrote Sims.