That’s a lot of planning ahead and really slow. With the tempo loss and net zero card advantage generated by the card, you would be better off using it to find Witchwood Grizzlies.

The only issue with that is the card will end up being dead in your hand if Hadronox is drawn before this. Branching Paths, while it can’t guarantee you Hadronox, has much more flexibility and is never dead in your hand.

Predatory Instincts seems far too slow to work well in constructed. While there are beasts one would want to have doubled health, Witchwood Grizzly would be probably the best example off the top of my head, this is four mana’s worth of tempo and one card going into generating a net zero in card advantage.

It can find Hadronox rather quickly and relatively early, but Taunt Druid would rather have the flexibility of Branching Paths over the exactness of this card. Plus, if you draw Hadronox before this, it ends up being dead in your hand for the rest of the game.

This is not going to do much when released.

Trades better.

Saronite Taskmaster looks to be a retrain of Zombie Chow that could heal for more or less health depending on the exact state the board is in. While this format will be very different from where it was when NAXX was around, this should still see some play if snowballing early is important, especially in April. Five stats for one mana will tend to be good as long as whatever drawback it has is neither immediate nor gives your opponent something that will actively impact the board. Simple as that.

You’re still better off silencing other things.

This will both rotate AND can’t be played on curve. That’s the most important difference between this and War Ax.

Deathrattle and Recruit Hunter

If this were a 3/6 instead, I could almost agree with you, but with its current statline and that it can only ever be played reactively, it’ll never be even a quarter of what Giggling Inventor was.

I suppose so, but decks that would get the most value out of the card would not be the ones also playing Unleash the Hounds.

Blast Wave can become a nightmare for Odd Paladin decks. A little bit of Spell Damage, something Odd Mage can provide with relative ease, could also turn this into a reasonable card generation engine. With this and the Loa, Odd Mage is beginning to take a concrete shape, but it could probably use a couple more decent minions.

The statline of Soup Vendor is good enough to remain on the board for at least a couple turns when played on curve. It’s effect is obviously meant to be used in the healing based midrange/control Paladin deck that the recent reveals want to be played in.

However, the effect is slow and doesn’t stack to turn Lay on Hands into “Heal 8, Draw 5,” or anything stupidly decent like that.

If Healing Midrange Paladin works out then this should see some amount of play there, but only some.

If Rabble Bouncer were around during Pirate Warrior go in Standard, it would be a format all star. However, that level of intense aggression will likely never be repeated in Standard. It does need to be played at three mana for it to be worth playing, much like Second Rate Bruiser, but the stat distribution on the Bruiser was better for trading and clearing while this won’t always manage to kill opposing minions before it dies.

When or if this sees play, it’ll be as a release valve to force a format to slow down.

Once its stealth goes away and even before that, it’s already very vulnerable when it hits the board.

Walk the Plank is a cheaper Assassinate with a restriction. That’s obvious. It can also be seen as a one mana bump on Shadow Strike that will always kill a minion.

It’s a fine card that might end up being just a little too expensive to see play in constructed in this next Standard format. Reason being, Rogues current line of single target removal, Backstab, Eviscerate, SI:7 Agent, and Vilespine Slayer, are all either more flexable or just straight out better.

Most other class’ single target removal do a lot more for the same cost as Walk the Plank or the same effect for less. Comparing what one class’ spells do to another isn’t exactly a fair thing to do, but it does at least give a reference point. Walk the Plank just comes out short.

Paladin’s Secrets are too easily triggered and too low value overall that would allow a Secret deck to really work. Granted, if Secret Paladin finally gets to the point of critical mass of good secrets and support, Masked Contender will be part of it.

Hunter would probably rather play Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow, or another one of the myriad of three cost cards the class already has at hand. Plus, this doesn’t improve Emerald Spellstone and Subject 9 already fulfills the same purpose as Masked Contender.

The secret support mage has at hand is also currently better than what this would do for the deck, especially as long as the full extent of the secrets in the deck is two Explosive Runes, two Counterspells, and maybe another secret of somesort.

The odds are currently against this card, but in April, it will more likely find a place than not.

To Piterno.

Yes, it can, but only when that deck has a restriction on it that lowers the average quality of the cards in it. I don’t think people are saying Raid Leader and Stormwind Champion are suddenly excellent cards because of their usefulness in Odd Paladin or Voodoo Doctor and Lightwarden in Heal Zoo Warlock. The are excellent only in the context of their respective decks.

Even then, I’m unsure if Even Paladin would want to play this over anything involved in the Corpsetaker package. The two would conflict with each other at least with the current logic behind Even Paladin.

I understand the point behind High Priest Thekal, but his effect is extremely niche. Paladin does have quite a few health restoring cards, but the deck that currently exists that might of been interested in playing this, Even Paladin, is locked out of the card entirely.

This is the sort of unique and exciting effect I like seeing on legendary cards, and it will likely have some implications in Wild where Reno still runs around. However, the long term value the card wants you to get won’t even start to be developed until quite a while after you’d play this on curve.

This probably won’t work out during this next standard format.

This card is only really playable when you’re ahead already. Obviously, it’s low cost does mean it won’t take that much to get decent value out of it, but you do need your beasts to die on your turn, something that isn’t exactly easy at points.

Revenge of the Wild is a very efficient card, but this screams win more rather than lose less. If you can use your big beasts to trade up into even bigger minions rather than dealing direct damage to the hero, you were probably going to win anyway.

It’s good, but it’s good in the same way as Kel’thuzad.