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Hearthstone making balance changes to Leeroy Jenkins, Starving Buzzard

Leeroy's reign of terror is over! (Well... ok, not really 'over,' so much as 'slightly tempered.')

Ozzie Mejia

September 11, 2014 6:40 PM

16

You've seen the battle cry. It's the universal sign that you've lost your game of Hearthstone.

"LEEEEEEEEROY JEEEEEEEENKINS!!!"

And as we learned through the recent Curse of Naxxramas expansion, Leeroy had only become more powerful. Well, his reign of terror is about to end... or get tempered, at the very least.

The Battle.net forums have revealed details on the upcoming 9/22 patch, which will see two favorite cards get some significant changes. Leeroy will now cost 5 mana, as opposed to 4 mana, which will rattle some Rogue cages that love to use the Miracle Rogue strategy. Meanwhile, Hunters will see a major change to Starving Buzzard, as he will now cost 5 mana, a whopping change from its original 2, though its stats will be boosted to 3/2, as opposed to its original 2/1. The reasoning here is to shift the minion to a late draw strategy, as it can often be combined with Unleash the Hounds to draw several cards in a single move. Of course, now that combination will run for 8 mana, following UTH's own changes earlier this year.

Hearthstone is available now on PC and iPad as a free-to-play game. Thanks to poster Junktown for the tip.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?