Soup And Salad's Comments
Swamp Leech
I’m unsure if adding a couple cheap lifesteal minions will do a whole lot more for Deathstalker than the hero power already does for it. You will see one of the cheap lifesteal options just under 30% of the time in the second pick, but the other cheap option tends to be better since that has Rush.
The issue with Deathstalker Rexxar has always been the class its in, not the power of the card itself
Swamp Leech
Voodoo Doctor tends to be better and more reliable as a source of healing if that means anything.
Witchwood Imp
Blood Imp tends to be better and this would be a rather poor thing to revive off of Bloodreaver.
Chief Inspector
It’s a bog standard responsive tech card to potentially deal with future threats to the meta game. It could see play if Spell Hunters are still running around, but those secrets tend to trigger really rather easily and are often gone by the time this would hit the board. Unfortunately, the primary target for a card like this, Ice Block, will no longer be in standard, and in Wild, Eater of Secrets will come out earlier and have better stats for its cost.
Fiendish Circle
This at least won’t see play as long as Cubelock is around since the Imps are demons as a result the worst thing you could get back with Bloodreaver Gul’dan.
If this came with deal 2 damage to a minion, then it would definitely see play in a Witchwood Zoo deck as the return of Implosion. As is though, unless Warlock gets another version of Quatermaster for demons in future expansions, this will rarely see play unless Zoo really needs it for whatever reason.
Deranged Doctor
If that were a battlecry, it would be a new version of Healbot. Granted, almost all deathrattles would be better if they were a battlecry.
Walnut Sprite
It’s pretty cute, but at all mana costs you can play this at, there are better options.
Divine Hymn
I would hardly call this broken. It will quite often restore all of your guys back up to full health and the six health to your hero will help out against aggressive decks and in the late game, but this will be about as much playable healing as Priest will have access to since there’s no Reno or Greater Healing Potion.
A lot of the time this won’t do much more than Binding Heal will at least without health buff cards like Kabal Talonpriest. I’m not doubting this will be a widely played Priest card, but I don’t think this will be gamebreaking with all of the good cards Priest will be losing to the rotation. Unless Spiteful Priest sticks around in some form, Priests just can’t really go wide.
Cutthroat Buccaneer
This won’t make up for the lack of worthwhile midgame minions a Kingsbane Rogue will have access to coming into the Witchwood. It is nice to have a new Goblin Auto-barber around and the stats are okay enough.
This will find its way somewhere before it dies and goes to wild.
Unpowered Steambot
I love the artwork and there isn’t a better minion to use the Divine Spirit-Inner Fire Combo for the price, The absolute lack of attack on this card does make it difficult to play as anything more than a wall, but at least there’s some decent deck building experiments that might be able to be done with it.
Granted, Witchwood Grisly will usually be better.
Nightscale Matriarch
This is hardly a Drakonid Operative, but on a damaged board with a Circle of Healing, this can end up being okay.
If the dragon package remains playable in priest, I see no reason why this also can’t be playable. It won’t be anything more though.
Hench-Clan Thug
Self buffing cards have rarely seen play, and its safe to say this will be another one since it doesn’t buff itself fast enough to make it worth playing over some of the best three cost cards out there at the moment.
Tanglefur Mystic
This might be useful in a aggro vs control match-up since the aggro deck will probably get more out of the 2 cost minion than a control deck will. This card does remind me of a less random version of Spellslinger from the Grand Tournament, and that did see limited amounts of play when it was around. Perhaps that’ll be good enough for it to see play in aggressive decks that really need the draw, but that would be about it.
Rabid Worgen
This can be comboed nicely with Woodcutters Ax, turning it into a 5/4 that should be able to survive killing whatever your opponent put up during your last turn. This also gives a nice curve to the Rush Warrior deck.
Super unsexy, but rather decent.
Darkmire Moonkin
If this were a 3 mana 1/1 instead, it would’ve been great as a combo enabler, but it is unfortunate how expensive Spell Damage has to be to make sure it doesn’t break the game at times.
Nice artwork, but needed at least +3 attack to be worth the cost as is.
Marsh Drake
None of those cards would allow this to be played on curve in Standard, other than Candleshot which doesn’t make it into Midrange Hunter decks currently. Maybe it will since Alleycat is leaving standard, but Hunter has access to more consistently better 3 drops.
Marsh Drake
This seems to be a high risk, decent reward sort of card. Unfortunately, without having a minion you’re willing to lose on the board as it is or have a very cheap alternate removal option, you are unlikely to get the reward of a 3 mana 5/4.
Granted, a vanilla 3 mana 5/4 might not be good enough as it is to see play. The dragon tag would edge it closer to being playable, but I can’t think of a vanilla minion that has see play in quite a while. Even Flamewreathed Faceless was dropped from Shaman decks when Mean Streets and the Jade Package was released. The game is such that if a minion does not come with a bit of a bonus, it is unlikely to see play.
That reason is likely why none of the over-statted minions that give your opponent stuff have seen, and I doubt the two in this set will see extensive play too.
Marsh Drake
In that case, it’s a slightly overstated vanilla minion. Rogues have been able to do that with VanCleef for quite a while now. If this were a 4/5 instead of a 5/4, you may be right, but if you can’t deal with the token, your opponent has just been handed a free minion kill.
Curio Collector
Daring Reporter didn’t see any play and I doubt a +1/+1 for 1 more version of it will either, especially when restricted to Mage.
The class may have gotten a couple nice tools for draw power as of late, but I don’t think they’ll make this seem any better since if you play with with Book of Specters and draw all 3 cards from it, it’ll just be a 7/7 you spent 7 mana to make. Outside of Shade of Naxx, there hasn’t really been any cards that buff themselves every turn that have seen too much play, and I don’t think this will either.
That sounds awful to be honest, mostly because of the quest part of that equation though.