Balance changes for Starving Buzzard and Leeroy Jenkins are in place.
Earlier in the month, Blizzard announced that they would be making changes to Leeroy Jenkins such that it cost 5 mana to play instead of 4, and Starving Buzzard would cost 5 mana instead of 2 and gets a stats boost to be 3 Attack and 2 Health.
The changes were slated to take effect on Monday, September 22.
In a forum post, Blizzard community manager Zeriyah explained that Leeroy Jenkins “created a strategy that revolved around trying to defeat your opponent in one turn without requiring any cards on the board” with cards like “Power Overwhelming, Faceless Manipulator, Cold Blood, Shadowstep, and Unleash the Hounds.”
Blizzard feels that the game is more “fun and compelling” when players fight “for board control and battles between minions,” and not when players take “20+ damage in one turn,” hence the nerf to Leeroy Jenkins.
As for Starving Buzzard, it gives Hunter players a “broken” draw mechanic that “ultimately ended up being too excessive for its low cost.”
The change to Buzzard gives Hunter opponents “more time to react to both the Starving Buzzard and the cards drawn by its power.”
Leeroy Jenkins can be disenchanted for its full dust value for a limited time after the balance changes takes place. Blizzard hasn’t given a date to when the dust offer ends.
In other news, Blizzard still hasn’t given any fresh updates on the Android and iPhone app availability.
In an interview with Digital Spy, Hearthstone senior producer Yong Woo said that the Hearthstone development team has a “dedicated mobile team actively working on” the Android version, and it remains “on track” for a 2014 release.
Hearthstone senior game designer Mike Donais also said in the series finale of Chris “ChanmanV” Chan’s Value Town show that Blizzard Team 5 are “working super hard… Sweat, tears, really hard…” on the mobile phone version of Hearthstone, but can’t give a date.
