It will end up being an investment if you want to do it consistently seeing as the 0/2 totems will need to be defended if you want this to be more than a 6 mana 4/5. The same reason is why Paladins have to rely on Silver Hand spawners to be able to be able to get their synergies off for thse. Against minion based decks in a world without Thing From Below, that will prove to be difficult to consistently achieve.

You are still also investing mana into it no matter how you stack it. That mana may have gone to waste either way, but it’s still mana investment.

That all assumes your opponent doesn’t have minions to clear the low value tokens shortly after they’re summoned. This hardly gives another reason to play Even Shaman because for one card requiring half of the mana investment to make as big, you give up win conditions like Bloodlust and Thrall Deathseer as well as some other generally good cards shamans would want to play like the only good source of draw in the entire class.

That’s not true. Token Shaman decks out there at the moment play all three standard non-basic totems, Manatide, Flametounge, and Primalfin, and Jades play the former two. A totem Shaman deck is likely to play non-basic totems, not so much because they are totems but that helps, but because they are strong cards as it is.

While making a Genn Greymaine Shaman deck isn’t impossible, it would be gaining a very small benifit for a very high cost. You also wouldn’t be able to play Primal Talismans and Stormcaller in such a deck. In such a deck, you’re still investing 6 mana into a 6/7 over at least three turns.

That 4 mana 6/7 has a total of 8 mana invested into it over at least three turns as well as 4 stats and the minor abilities lost from the sacrifice of the totems themselves. This being a good silence target would not be the reason why this would end up being a bad card.

If I were to rate all hero powers on their strength in affecting the game, Shaman’s would be near the bottom in basic, empowered, and (1) cost forms. The Totems just aren’t that great to begin with since they are random unlike Paladin’s and you can only have one of each at any one time, not really worth limiting your card pool to be able to be able to select what single totem you summon, and the reduced cost doesn’t do a whole lot to improve their quality since there is still that randomness and limitation.

Perhaps it will. I am uncertain because it currently is just solid. If it were a 4/4 or higher, I would be more inclined to agree.

Aggro in Paladin will definitely slow down. Both primary aggressive archetypes the class has will be losing three critical cards each and Rallying Blade, which is shared between them. Murlocs are likely to become a niche deck while Dube Paladin if it still exists in the Year of the Raven, will likely shift more towards a midrange playstyle.

Paladin’s healing options aren’t exactly the best at the moment.
Truesilver would probably be the best at the moment, but this and that are both four cost cards so you can’t play both in sequence efficiently.
Lay on Hands is a pretty decent value option but really slow.
Djinn is good on paper, but its slow to gain value.

I don’t think adding this solid, not super powerful but solid, card to the mix of healing synergies and healing cards Paladin has will be enough to push it such a Control Paladin-esque deck into relevance seeing as none of those cards have been good enough to include in Paladin ladder decks as of late.

I hope you’re joking since neither of those cards have really seen play ever since they were released. Neither of them are necessarily bad cards, Commander would be useful in a Control Paladin to get Tirion to their hand and Bolvar would be a powerhouse if a Divine Shield Paladin was workable, but neither of them really do enough to warrant playing them.

It’s a solid card by itself, but unless its some reference to something in Warcraft, I can’t think of any reason why this couldn’t be a a non-legendary minion since Paladin has gotten something similar to this in the past, Cobalt Guardian I believe it was. The card design isn’t that complex or really unique in this case.

Seeing more low cost legendary minions is always cool, but I’d rather have ones that do more with their lower costs like Wickerflame Burnbristle than ones with relatively minor effects like this. If this had Taunt, Rush, or maybe even Windfury, then the constantly respawning Divine Shield would easily become an issue for your opponent, especially if this card had two more health to go with it.

I don’t think there’s ever been a card that has been vulnerable to silencing effect that didn’t see play because of that reason. Blessing of Kings and Spikeridge Stead would be two examples of such cards of the top of my head. Plus, outside of Priest, the only silence card worth playing is Spellbreaker, and the statistics on that card suggest it is usually one of, if not, the worst card in any deck that play it.

This card isn’t good because it both destroys the totems indiscriminately (Both basic and non-basic) and starts off too small for its cost to make it easy to make into a substantial board presence. Now, that could change if a better totem spawner ever comes around.

While a 4 mana Boulderfist Ogre sounds cool, remember you are investing mana and stats into this minion as a sort of pre-overload. Plus, you wouldn’t want to have your non-basic totems on board when you drop this.

It at least gives something for the basic totems you summon when you have nothing better to do, but this has to kill three tokens for it to be worth it since you are losing stats when you summon this. In which case, it will be a 8/9 with taunt.

For a Totem Shaman deck to work, there needs to be better rewards for doing so. Summoning Al’akir would be cool if it wasn’t impossible to get all four basic totems on board at the same time for example.

If this didn’t kill your totems so you could play it with your non-basic totems, it would be fine even if there’s only two totems on board, one in a pinch, and that would be fairly easy with Manatide and Primalfin Totems being rather strong on their own, but no. Instead of pushing an archetype well with worthwhile support, they push out a bunch of slightly less than mediocre support. I can understand why they’ve been doing so since three more good cards on the level of Spirit Claws, Totem Golem, and Tunnel Trog will always push Shaman over the edge to format wraping levels of power, but if that’s the case, the classic and basic card line-up needs to be shaken up. Move Bloodlust out and have something like Elemental Destruction, Lava Shock, or Whirling Zip-o-matic take its place.

While I’d still rather not have Shaman being the only worthwhile class to play, that doesn’t mean I want it completely unplayable, and with Evolve and most of the good cards to use with it leaving Standard, the class will be what Priest was two years ago.

Eater of Secrets was not why Secret Paladin fell off the map. If it was, Secret Paladin would’ve come and gone throughout Old Gods format as play of Eater of Secrets ebbed and flowed. You are right about this card’s quality being directly tied to quality of Paladin secrets and without at least more secrets on the same level as Avenge, Getaway Kodo, and Noble Sacrifice, this is unlikely to see play.

This card still pulls out two low value cards out of your deck straight onto the board, improving your future draws. When secret Paladin comes back in some form or another, this will end up being one of the better cards in it.

A card that is only much weaker than Mysterious Challenger is still rather strong given how Mysterious Challenger enabled a brand new and format dominating deck pretty much all on its own. This won’t ever recreate Secret Paladin by itself but it will be an important piece for the deck when it comes back around with a couple new secrets and another higher cost secret synergy card.

Plus Secret Paladin has never really left Wild. That’s how strong Challenger is.

This card is only as good as the Paladin secrets it can pull out, and without Getaway Kodo, there aren’t enough good secret to make playing this worth it at the moment.

In six months when a couple new and decent secrets have been created, then this card will be great.

Unlike Mad Scientist, this turbos out a secret as soon as its played, not pulls out two when it dies. If Hydrologist is anything to go by, such an effect if there is no choice to it is probably worth about .75 if not a full mana given how powerful Hydrologist is.
Granted, the card’s mana cost and stats would be fine as it is even if it were a deathrattle that pulled out two secrets.
The only issue with the card is not that its a four drop in a class with too many good four drops (Paladin isn’t even that seeing as they’re only good four drops are Truesilver, Lightfused Stegadon, Concentration, Blessing of Kings, and Call to arms at the moment, and you wouldn’t want to play all of them in the same deck), but that there are not enough good secrets for this card to pull out. There’s really only Redemption and Noble Sacrifice at the moment.

You’re last criticism was also the primary criticism of Mysterious Challenger after it was revealed. This may not be able to recreate the Christmas Tree Paladin, but it is powerful in the same way. They both pull out multiple low value cards from your deck directly.

To Warptens

Fireball’s power does come in part from how it can strike a hero directly, but Fireball is a mage exclusive card and the Worgan effect can be a boon just as much as a bust for this effect since it can make this card into a neutral pre-nerf Keeper of the Grove.
The lack of choice to what mode the card exists in at any one time is unfortunate, but at least in theory it would let R&D create cards stronger than Druid’s Choose One cards.
I do agree with how this will see play primarily in midrange or control decks if it does see play, but I do not think it will end up being the worse card in those decks. That’ll usually be Spellbreaker if the statistics on it are anything to go by.

Well, in the late game against decks that aren’t Mage or Druid, a 4/1 stat line will apply a lot more pressure than a 1/4.