You can’t really powercreep a card that does not see play at all from being too weak.

I think this blog by Mark Rosewater of Magic the Gathering will illuminate as to why weak to bad cards even exist in card games: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28.

It is worth a read.

Most card games have a many beautiful pieces of artwork used on weak cards. Would you rather the commissioned artists put in less effort into the obviously weaker cards or put their all into everything they’re asked to create?
Granted, that does assume the cards have been finalized and the artists are fully aware of the quality of the card before the artists put pencil to paper.

It’s a good versatile neutral card that can be a fireball to a minion or a pre-nerf Keeper of the Grove if it kills a Knife Juggler or Dire Wolf Alpha. While Getawat Kodo never saw play in Hunter, the class never really needed such a tool and that doesn’t stop it from being one of the better choices when making a Zombeast.

Not being able to choose the mode it exists in on any particular turn suck, but the individual modes themselves are pretty strong in spite of the versatility. Granted, the lack in active choice in what the card looks like when played will probably be the downfall of this mechanic in general, but if one of the unidentified cards from K&C is able to see play, at least one Worgan card should be able to claw its way into a competitive deck.

Flame Lance didn’t come with a body that could potentially survive running into a minion, plus Mage had better, cheaper options to work with especially once Flamewaker was released in BRM.

Would you rather Hearthstone never experimented with anything and kept to the same 7 or 8 general mechanic on every card?

The specific Aggro Paladin deck is still losing Ralying Blade. Furthermore, the specific Aggro Paladin deck is basically the third and worst choice of the “three” (It’s really two seeing as Aggro Paladin is seeing so little play and it’s winrate is rather low compared to them) aggressive Paladin archetypes.

Pirate Warrior was an aggro deck in its heyday in spite of it not being called aggro Warrior.
Spiteful Priest is still a midrange deck in spite of it not being called midrange Priest.
Freeze Shaman is still a crap deck in spite of it not being called crap Shaman.

A deck not outright named aggro can still be aggressive. The label of aggro, midrange, control, tempo, and combo are used to identify decks within classes that either do not have another deck that fits within that archetype (Midrange Hunter), or decks that use the same general strategy associated with that label but are different enough from another deck in the class using a particular package of cards (Cube Warlock vs Control Warlock, Murloc Paladin vs Dude Paladin vs Aggro Paladin).

Or you could play Sprint.
It’ll take cards out of your deck, but at least you’ll have idea of what you’re getting, and you might be able to put something on the board after you play it.

This blog post by Mark Rosewater of Magic the Gathering can explain why bad cards must exist: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28

Also, saying this card is outright bad is to assume Aggro Paladin will be the only way to play Paladin forever. I can see this being played in a control Paladin over Vinecleaver if such a deck comes around while it is in Standard.

It is bad in aggro, but with the substantial loses both aggressive Paladin archetypes will be experiencing due to the rotation, Paladin as a whole will likely slow down to more of a midrange play style as a whole.

Granted, even in that Vinecleaver would still likely be better in most cases, but a control deck would be more likely to prefer Silver Sword over Vinecleaver.

Well, Vinecleaver has been sing play in the current Silver Hand Paladin deck, and that’s a 7 mana in an aggro deck. I doubt Paladin decks will be able to be as fast as they are now with several critical cards to both aggressive archetypes getting lost to the rotation. To be more precise, I think Murloc Paladin will no longer be viable and the remaining Silver Hand Paladin core will become part of a more Midrange Paladin.

Anyway, I don’t think this is better than Vinecleaver in most circumstances for a midrange deck. Summoning 1/1s is just more reliable and faster than giving everything +1/+1. Cleaver also front-loads the attack rather than the durability.

There is a lot more value in Silver Sword, and a Control Paladin would likely play it over Vinecleaver if it isn’t focused on winning through Uther of the Ebon Blade. However, without the healing offered by cards like Ragnoros Lightlord, Forbidden Healing, and Ivory Knight in standard, a control Paladin is unlikely to emerge during The Witchwood format.

There are a couple simple, interesting, and powerful instant kill combos that can be done with this card. Baiting out a transforming removal card to take out a 1/1 is also really powerful in a control match-up.

I don’t really see thing seeing play in faster decks, but that’s fine. Not everything has to.

This will see regular play in midrange, control, and slow combo decks.

This is okay, slow but okay. In a control oriented metagame, this would be played to duplicate high value minions that managed to survive the turn they’re played. Outside of that niche situation though, this will never see play. Maybe if it was a 4 mana 4/4, it would be far more splash-able but still slow.

If this was a discover card instead of just a random card generator, it would be at least a dozen times more playable.

I am getting tired of seeing these random legendary generators. None of them have been anything more than meme cards with Sindragosa being the only one to get close to being playable, and it would if Control Mage was more than a pipe dream and the format was defined by control decks generally.

Decent stats as is, but this will only end up being playable if Echo is a mechanic that is allowed to extend past the set it originates in. None of the Echo cards revealed thus far have been anything particularly amazing, It’s pretty obvious HS R&D is rather afraid to push this mechanic since something like this will be on the knife’s edge of breaking the game in any form it takes.

I think this should have been a Echoed version of Swashburgler. At least with that, it would’ve put a small body on the board. As is, it might be a meme choice for streamers playing with Miracle Rogue.
Pure random card generation has always been an issue within Hearthstone. It is cool when you get the perfect card for the situation, but you’re just as likely to get a Paladin Secret, a Freeze Shaman card, a Possessed Lackey, or any other outright bad or archetype specific card.

Well, how many would be enough? Even the old Face Hunter decks from the Grand Tournament didn’t play more than about twelve three drops. I understand most of the good one cost cards hunter would want to use are rotating out and such a deck would be unable to use two cost cards, but a deck with twenty three drops sounds like it would have more fundamental issues than just playing bad cards.

All three sets from last year gave hunter at least a couple useful tools each to the point where Spell/Secret Hunter is considered a teir 1 deck. Druid’s card line-up has been rather weak, but last year, especially Frozen Throne, gave the class a lot of tools to play around with. As long as there is one playable Ramp card, the class will be okay.

Also, Priest will be losing half of its good cards, one set’s worth of support will not be enough to fill the massive gaps all current Priest archetypes will have, and Warlock’s new cards likely will not see play within Cubelock other than maybe Godfrey. Cubelock will also be unable to go into the long game nearly as well as it currently can without N’zoth.

Warrior and Shaman, even though the were the only two consistently playable classes during the Year of the Kraken, are getting some useful tool even if those tools are maybe a slightly above average. Granted, with the most popular classes getting knocked down a couple pegs, the Taunt Warrior and Elemental Shaman, two archetypes that will be pretty much untouched by the rotation, may be able to rise to the forefront of the metagame.

This is pretty similar to Imp Gang Boss, but at least for this, it will always spawn two tokens when the condition is meet. On turn four, playing Kobold Librarian into this can be rather strong, putting 6/7 worth of stats on the board in four bodies and drawing a card.

A Witchwood Zoo Warlock deck would play this and try to find ways to fill in the other gaps caused by the rotation that will be occurring. The deck should be decent enough to climb with as long as there is another Zoo card about as powerful as Darkshire Councilman is printed.

With the Lifesteal, this is pretty okay, but it won’t replace Doomgaurds in Zoolock and the healing it offers doesn’t compare to Amethysts Spellstone or Dark Pack. I like the idea of bringing back the Floating Watcher condition. I don’t think this is unique enough to justify it being an Epic, but it could be far, far worse.