Hearthstone: A Look Back - Mean Streets of Gadgetzan

The third part of my look back to the sets rotating out of Standard, this time with the final and perhaps most divisive and controversial set of all, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.

As always, I'm going to review the cards based on their entire run throughout the Year of the Kraken and Year of the Mammoth, so cards that were good at a point in its time in Standard meta will all get 4/5's and 5/5's. A good example would be, say, Mark of the Lotus, which never saw play during the Gadgetzan era, but one of the most powerful cards for aggro druid during the Frozen Throne era; or Raza, who was a fun little gimmick legendary during Gadgetzan but one of the most powerful legendaries bar none during Frozen Throne and Kobolds & Catacombs, so much that it got nerfed. Will also try to keep this short and rapid-fire.

Druid: 

• Kun, the Forgotten King: 4/5. It took a while, but Kun eventually saw a neat place in Jade Druid when they realized that, yes, they can combo Kun with Ultimate Infestation for a monstrous turn 10 play. Kun's also part of a bunch of wacky decks, especially in Wild, among them in concert with Twig of the World Tree, or one where you combine Kun, C'Thun and Aviana together. Addendum: there are a lot of degenerate things you can do in Wild especially in subsequent sets, with some particularly fun combo decks involving newer cards like King Togwaggle. A card that was decent when it first entered the meta, and now occupies a neat little niche of its own. 
• Lunar Visions: 1/5. Nourish is just always better. 
• Pilfered Power: 1/5. I genuinely forgot this card exists! But way too unwieldy and expensive for a ramp card. 
• Jade Idol: 5/5. THE uncontested king of the meta during the Frozen Throne era is definitely Jade Druid. It's already strong in Gadgetzan and Un'Goro, but became especially oppressive during Frozen Throne, and a good part of that is the sheer power of Jade Idol potentially going infinite, and synergizing very well with Fandral Staghelm, Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Druid's ramping capabilities. It's also, y'know, 1-mana. Has indirectly led to the nerfs of many other cards in Druid's arsenal. I'd honestly go so far as to say it's the second most-powerful card from Gadgetzan.
• Virmen Sensei: 1/5. Haha Beast Druid. Virmen's understatted, and not a beast himself. Silly rabbit.
• Celestial Dreamer: 1/5. This card genuinely made me go "huh". It's not bad, but it just has so little applications. 
• Mark of the Lotus: 5/5. While initially looking like a poor man's Savage Roar, it turns out that it helped the genesis of Token Aggro Druid, especially bolstered throughout Un'Goro and Frozen Throne. Mark of the Lotus is one of the cheapest permanent mass-board buff, and rightfully one of the scariest.
• Jade Blossom: 5/5. Another reason why Jade is so awesome? Why don't you ramp while you jade? Yeah. Jade Blossom's so powerful that some decks that aren't strictly jade even run this to ramp. 
• Jade Behemoth: 4/5. Like the rest of the Jade Druid package, Jade Behemoth's pretty damn powerful. Wouldn't be as powerful if not for the power of Jade Druid itself as an archetype.

Hunter:

• Knuckles: 1/5. Too slow to see play. Effect's cool, the cost and stats aren't.
• Piranha Launcher: 1/5. WAY too slow. Fun art, bad card.
• Rat Pack: 2/5. Rat Pack didn't actually see play in hand-buff Hunter (which suck), but turned out to be a very decent 3-mana beast for hunters to play. Ultimately ousted out due to Hunter's huge amount of great 3-mana cards, especially with newer additions like Bearshark. 
• Hidden Cache: 1/5. The hand-buff gimmick for the Goons faction is the only mechanic that straight-up flops in Gadgetzan, but Hunter gets hit worst because of the weird ask of having beasts in hand. Cache's a delayed buff and also a secret... and secret decks don't actually run beast minions. 
• Trogg Beastrager: 1/5. Oh, a beast-handbuff card that isn't a beast. Wonder why it didn't work out?
• Dispatch Kodo: 1/5. With the caveat that this card is amazing when you stitch it with Deathstalker Rexxar and something with lifesteal or poisonous. As a playable card? Stats are too low to really see play. 
• Alleycat: 4/5. A very powerful early-game card. Sadly, Hunter itself isn't that good of a class in this period of time, but Alleycat's still one of Hunter's stronger and most stable tools, especially with the follow-up of Un'Goro's Crackling Razormaw. 
• Smuggler's Crate: 1/5. Handbuff hunter sucks. 
• Shaky Zipgunner: 1/5. Delayed handbuff hunter sucks even more. 

Mage:

• Inkmaster Solia: 1/5. Solia saw some experimentation in highlander mage decks, but ultimately there's just not that many mage spells you want to cast for zero, and it's not like you get it for free -- you pay the 7 mana for Solia. Modern Wild Reno decks cut her out.
• Manic Soulcaster: 1/5. Never really saw serious play, I think. Recycling minions isn't what mage as a class wants to do. Absolutely outclassed by newer card Zola the Gorgon in Wild. 
• Greater Arcane Missiles: 1/5. It's not a bad card, it's just extremely inefficient in terms of damage output and randomness. Actually sort of an indirect buff to "add random mage spell" cards, honestly. 
• Potion of Polymorph: 3/5. Not the best secret that mage has access to, but a legitimate tech choice when Un'Goro and K&C made the Secret Mage package work. 
• Volcanic Potion: 3/5. A fun little AoE for mages to control the early game, but ultimately phased out in favour of cards that have the flexibility of going face.
• Kabal Crystal Runner: 5/5. Secret Mage doesn't find its legs until Un'Goro added Arcanologist, but Kabal Crystal Runner is definitely one of the most powerful cards in that deck. Especially revitalized in conjunction with Aluneth, which allowed you to just wantonly dump cards and secrets and eventually free 0-mana 5/5's. 
• Freezing Potion: 1/5. Another in that "mage random mage spells suck" pool. 
• Kabal Lackey: 4/5. He actually sucks for the longest time, but when Aluneth became a thing, Kabal Lackey ended up finding a niche by being another way to cheat out secrets for free and just dump your hands before Aluneth reloads it up. It's very interesting to note that no version of Secret Mage really ran Kabal Lackey until Aluneth.
• Cryomancer: 1/5. Conditional 5-mana 7/7 isn't bad, but not what Mage wants. 

Paladin:

• Wickerflame Burnbritle: 2/5. Burnbristle is a card that kept seeing some sort of fringe play, as part of a weird divine shield paladin during Gadgetzan, and later as a legitimately good card to activate Corpsetaker during Frozen Throne. It's not the best card that Paladin has, though, and would end up being outclassed due to lack of real synergy.
• Meanstreet Marshal: 1/5. Conditional draw isn't that good, and hand-buff didn't work that well. 
• Small-Time Recruits: 1/5. 3 mana to draw three 1-cost minions? Yeah, Small-Time Recruits didn't work. Clearly the prototype to the far superior Call To Arms, though, which just summoned the minions instantly. 
• Getaway Kodo: 1/5. No one ever really put Getaway Kodo in a deck, since you're wasting a card slot, but it's definitely one of the more popular secrets to discover via Hydrologist, and honestly due to the nature of Murloc Paladin, it's actually one of the better secrets to discover.
• Grimestreet Enforcer: 2/5. Probably one of the few only hand-buff card to really be good or decent, and that's because Enforcer has a continuous effect. It's great in arena, but not that amazing in constructed. 
• Grimestreet Protector: 1/5. Too weak for control paladin, actually. You'd rather play Tirion or Ragnaros. 
• Grimscale Chum: 4/5. Grimscale Chum didn't see any actual play during the Gadgetzan era, but as more and more Murloc support is added for Paladin, and especially when Patches eventually got nerfed, Grimscale Chum returned as a very powerful one-mana option for Murloc Paladin alongside Tidecaller and Inquisitor. It's very interesting how Grimscale Chum ended up being rendered essentially unplayable due to charging Patches. 
• Smuggler's Run: 2/5. A decent hand-buff card due to its cheapness, but, y'know, handbuff kinda sucks. 
• Grimestreet Outfitter: 1/5. A two-mana 1/1 is a pretty bad tempo loss. It's not as bad as some of the hunter or warrior hand-buff cards and is barely decent in arena, but still never saw play. 

Priest:

• Raza the Chained: 5/5 [pre-nerf], 2/5 [post-nerf]. I am one of those people who was 'unfortunate' enough to crack open a Raza during the Gadgetzan era, and he never saw play. It's a very neat effect, and I built a Shadowform-Reno deck with Raza, but it's cute at best. Raza, of course, saw immense play coupled with the mighty Shadowreaper Anduin as one of the most devasating and powerful combos in the Frozen Throne era's mightiest deck, the highlander priest, which got even stronger when its biggest competitors, pirate warrior and jade druid, were nerfed. Eventually Raza himself got hit with the nerf bat during K&C, and the change of your hero power costing 1 and 0 is a significant one. Raza/Kazakus Priest still sees some amount of play in Wild, but hardly the powerhouse it once was. 
• Mana Geode: 1/5. Very interesting effect, and genuinely powerful if you get him going, but it's so hard to reliably damage Geode and heal it in the early game, and by that point you're better-served using more stable cards. 
• Dragonfire Potion: 5/5. Wow, Priest got a lot of great cards in this set, huh? Dragonfire Potion is straight-up the best AoE spell in the game, easily sparing a huge chunk of Priest's powerful dragon minions. It's so powerful that even non-dragon priest variants ran it. Essentially replaces Holy Nova and Excavated Evil in a huge way.
• Pint-Size Potion: 4/5. Initially very unassuming, but when zoo and aggro decks became rampant, people realized that Pint-Size Potion combined with Shadow Word: Horror, an unsable card from Old Gods, ended up being one of the most powerful mass-murder tools in Priest's arsenal. Once it made the jump to Wild, the two-card combo sort of fell out of favour for more efficient removal.
• Greater Healing Potion: 4/5. Essentially replacing Darkshire Alchemist, Greater Healing potion is a card that activates spell synergies for priest, is discoverable by Shadow Visions, and heals nearly half of Priest's health -- a very powerful tool that makes Priests even harder to kill.
• Drakonid Opeative: 5/5. One of the most powerful cards in Priest's arsenal, it's extremely well-statted, and you even get to choose the card you want to copy from your opponent's deck! Easily a powerhouse that single-handedly kept the Dragon Priest archetype together even as Blackrock Mountain rotated out. 
• Potion of Madness: 4/5. The reason Priest could survive against aggro decks is to take control of their tokens and make them murder each other. A big "fuck you" to Patches, and is basically obligatory in all Priest decks when Patches ran rampant. 
• Kabal Talonpriest: 5/5. A Dark Cultist, but with a battlecry effect? Kabal Talonpriest is one of Priest's most stable early-game minions, and honestly is a card jammed in many non-Big-Priest decks simply because of the potential trading benefits it could give. 
• Kabal Songstealer: 2/5. A powerful silence-on-a-stick. Eventually sort of phased out as Priest got better tools, but Songstealer's a genuinely powerful card nonetheless... it's just that even in a singleton deck, Priest has way too much good stuff.

Rogue:

• Shaku, the Collector: 3/5. Shaku's a very balanced card that saw a lot of sporadic play due to its fun effect, but never truly defined an archetype. He's versatile more than anything else.
• Lotus Assassin: 1/5. Great concept! Just never really had a spot anywhere.
• Luckydo Buccaneer: 1/5. Oh wow, I forgot this card existed. 
• Counterfeit Coin: 5/5. A lot of people, including myself, scoffed at this card... but turns out that it's amazing to activate combos, Edwins and Gadgetzan Aucitoneers. It did admittedly take some time for Counterfeit Coin to find its way into Rogue decks (I think it's Vilespine Slayer and later Elven Minstrel that really made it good?) but it's practically a staple of most rogue decks at the moment.
• Gadgetzan Ferryman: 4/5. An interesting card that was mocked endlessly for being a shittier Young Brewmaster back in the time when he's released, but Quest Rogue showed up in the next expansion and no one is smiling anymore. Quest Rogue ended up being nerfed, but shit, Ferryman was one of the deck's enablers back in the day. 
• Shadow Sensei: 1/5. Stealth rogue didn't work.
• Jade Shuriken: 2/5. Jade Rogue's... cute, and worked as a sort of a low-tier borderline-playable deck, but it's not particularly good compared to its druid and shaman compatriots. Not bad, which is what 2/5 means. 
• Jade Swarmer: 2/5. Ditto with the above. 
• Shadow Rager: 1/5. Funny, but a bad card.

Shaman:

• White Eyes: 2/5. White Eyes is a strong effect and you're so happy to discover him from Stonehill Defender, but never a card that fit in the 30-card deck slot. 
• Lotus Illusionist: 1/5. Too slow to really see play, and doesn't work with Shaman's game plan. Actually decent in Arena. 
• Finders Keepers: 1/5. Haha overload. The idea of overload is to vomit value onto the board, not to maybe kinda-sorta get a card that does something useful. 
• Devolve: 4/5. Surprisingly good, especially when Aggro Paladin and Aggro Druid became popular. Turns out all those murlocs and living mana tokens end up being turned into a bunch of harmless 1-drops and Wisps once you devolve them. A very powerful tech card when Shaman wasn't a bad class. 
• Jade Claws: 5/5. Essentially replacing Spirit Claws, Jade Claws helped to build a board while being a decent weapon to trade, and I think is the reason why the jade package really worked in Shaman at all. 
• Jinyu Waterspeaker: 2/5. Interesting tech card and a very well-designed card, and sort of flitted in and out of shaman decks, but was eventually left out of the more streamlined Evolve Shaman decks.
• Call in the Finishers: 1/5. Funny to use with Everyfin is Awesome, but once that card rotated out Call in the Finishers ends up pretty much unplayable and you're better off spamming murlocs with actual murloc cards. 
• Jade Lightning: 4/5. Like Jade Claws, it's in itself a slightly-weaker-than-normal spell that comes with a body. Plus, it goes face and Shamans get spell damage rather easily, so it's neat to finish off the enemy. 
• Jade Chieftain: 2/5. Actually left out of Jade Shaman decks, or reduced to a one-off, which aimed to be more of an aggro/midrange build that doesn't have a place for a 7-mana 5/5. By late turns Jade Shamans resorted to evolve and bloodlust shenanigans, so while not technically a bad card, Chieftain just didn't work in the deck.

Warlock:

• Krul the Unshackled: 3/5. Highlander Warlock didn't necessarily pan out that well, at least not until more demons are added in Frozen Throne and Kobolds & Catacombs, so Krul didn't really saw that much play in standard. In Wild, the Krul package as a whole is more of a greedier tech choice that's sometimes left out.
• Kabal Trafficker: 2/5. Kind of a neat tech card currently to bring in more demons without diluting the Possessed Lackey gimmickry, but ultimately too unreliable. There's a lot of bad demons, too, the sort that you never want. 
• Unlicensed Apothecary: 1/5. Oh, look, a bad demon, the sort that you never want.
• Bloodfury Potion: 3/5. Saw some legitimate usage in zoo warlock variants that uses more demons, and can definitely catch people off-guard. 
• Seadevil Stinger: 1/5. Haha, murloc warlock. 
• Felfire Potion: 1/5. Saw some use initially until it was cut for being way too masochistic. Warlocks have far better removal.
• Crystalweaver: 3/5. Same with Bloodfury Potion, saw some fringe use in demon-zoo warlock variants. It's just not in all the zoo Warlock variants, sadly, because zoo warlocks kind of want a mixture of pirates and demons. 
• Abyssal Enforcer: 3/5. Hellfire on a body! Abyssal Enforcer's a very solid minion, it just didn't find that much space to really work. Easily one of the most powerful Warlock options in arena, but ended up being cut out of many warlock decks for not synergizing with what they're trying to do.
• Blastcrystal Potion: 1/5. A neat bit of removal, but eventually got phased out as people realized Siphon Soul's almost always better. 

Warrior:

• Hobart Grapplehammer: 1/5. I tried to make this card work so much, but it's just way too slow, even in Pirate Warrior. His stats are too low to really work in that deck. 
• Sleep With the Fishes: 5/5. One of Warrior's more powerful tools. Not exactly mass execute, but a damn good board clear, even if  it does take some effort to get this to go off it's insanely cheap, and is particularly great when you can recycle it and whirlwind effects with Dead Man's Hand.
• Brass Knuckles: 1/5. Delayed handbuff! Haha. 
• Stolen Goods: 1/5. Handbuff! Hahaha.
• Grimestreet Pawnbroker: 1/5. Weapon handbuff! Hahaha HA. 
• Alley Armorsmith: 4/5. Okay, this card's actually pretty decent. In conjunction with Bloodhoof Brave, Alley Armorsmith ended up being a pretty solid card in control warrior decks, especially in Quest/Taunt Warrior in Un'Goro. Ultimately Warrior ended up hedging towards Pirate Warrior almost exclusively in the Un'Goro/Frozen Throne era, but Alley Armorsmith did some good work before that. 
• I Know a Guy: 1/5. Turns out one mana discover a card isn't that good. Probably the best out of the 1/5's here,  though that's not saying much. 
• Public Defender: 1/5. Zero attack taunt, HAHAHA! Oh man, poor Warrior!
• Grimy Gadgeteer: 1/5. It's a continuous effect, which I guess is good... but you compare this with Grimestreet Enforcer, which buffs your entire hand, and Grimy Gadgeteer just sucks. 

Tri-Class:

• Aya Blackpaw: 5/5. Aya herself isn't the most exciting card, with decidedly sub-par stats, but she's a hugely aggressive card that summons a jade, and summons a second jade. She won't win you games, but she does end up causing that mid-game plan for Jade Druid and Shaman to be particularly powerful. 
• Lotus Agents: 1/5. None of the "discover a card from three classes" cards really worked out. Lotus Agents is decent in arena, but the stats are pretty bad. 5-mana 5/3? Really? 
• Jade Spirit: 4/5. Jade Spirit isn't necessarily the best Jade card, but she's very solid and stable, making her an auto-include in any Jade deck as the early-mid card to quickly ramp up the Jade Idol game-plan for druids or the Bloodlust gameplan for Shaman.
• Kazakus: 5/5. Six out of five, even. One of the most powerful cards in the expansion, Kazakus has always seen play in some shape or form, being powerful in warlock and particularly highlander priest, which, as mentioned above, became the de facto oppressive deck for a while during Frozen Throne and K&C. Kazakus's ability to simply create such a huge value spell that can either push damage to the face, clear the board or build a board depending on the situation is just so versatile, skill-testing and amazingly balanced. 
• Kabal Courier: 2/5. Kabal Courier's stats are slightly less shit than Lotus Agents and Grimestreet Informant, and the nature of highlander cards ended up causing him to be slotted in as a more-value early game card.
• Kabal Chemist: 1/5. Decent in arena, but a lot of the potions are way too situational or class-specific for constructed.
• Don Han'Cho: 1/5. Okay, I guess I should talk a bit about why hand-buff sucks, huh? The idea of building up stats to win is interesting, but the hand-buff cards are so weak and are such a huge tempo loss in the early turns, and none of them really let you choose to buff, say, a charge minion, so by the time you actually play the buffed minions you end up losing out to decks that just play decently-statted minions every turn. Handbuff decks are outsped by aggro, and countered by silence and devolve effects. Don Han'Cho, in particular, is a 7-mana 5/6, a pretty huge loss in board tempo that the +5/+5 buff to whatever minion comes next ends up balancing itself out into a hefty tempo loss. To rub salt in injury, Bonemare, a common card released two expansions later, is essentially a more powerful version of Don Han'Cho who adds the stat buff to a minion already on board to smash the face. 
• Grimestreet Informant: 1/5. 2-mana 1/1's suck. The reason Jeweled Scarab worked is because it curves really well. Informant doesn't. 
• Grimestreet Smuggler: 1/5. Handbuff cards don't work well, as mentioned.

Neutral Legendaries:

• Patches the Pirate: 5/5 [pre-nerf] 3/5 [post-nerf]. Here he is. The man in CHARGE of the metagame for four expansions straight. If I could give a card more than a 5/5 rating, it would be pre-nerf Patches. This innocuous "Stonetusk Boar that jumps out of your deck" is surprisingly amazing, especially in conjunction with so many other pirate synergy. Swashburglar, Small-Time Buccaneer, Bloodsail Corsair, N'Zoth's First Mate, Southsea Captain... throw in the fact that Frozen Throne would introduce Keleseth, which made Patches even more oppressive... it got so bad that so many aggro classes introduced the package of Bloodsail Corsair, Patches and Southsea Captain; or alternatively Golakka Crawler; simply because Patches is just that good. He's nerfed and is now shit (and I've mentioned how many other cards became playable because of the Patches nerf), but never forget how he was, quite literally, in charge. 
• Addendum: This addendum was added when I made the switch to Wild around the time of Witchwood... and turns out that Odd Rogue and Pirate Warrior? They still play Patches! A 1/1 in the early game is still pretty nice to have, especially with the early pirates both Rogue and Warrior both have, and with Ship's Cannon and Southsea Captain, Patches actually ends up still seeing a surprising amount of play -- but a balanced amount. He's not in charge anymore, but it's a happy ending for everyone's favourite Beholder Pirate.
• Auctionmaster Beardo: 2/5. Interesting effect and good stats, but never really saw play outside of a combo deck with Uther of the Ebon Blade, which is a fringe deck at bes. 
• Sergeant Sally: 1/5. Never saw play.
• Genzo, the Shark: 1/5. There was a brief moment when Genzo was played in some aggro decks, but turns out he just doesn't have any real synergy with anything. Neat card, though.
• Finja, the Flying Star: 4/5. A powerhouse in murloc paladin and murloc shaman (when it existed). Turns out a stealthed murloc that recruits two Murlocs is just pretty damn powerful. Finja ends up being somewhat dropped from murloc decks when they became more aggressive due to the introduction of Rockpool Hunter, but he's still a legitimate mid-game choice. 
• Madam Goya: 1/5. Stats are too low, and the effect is too inconsistent. 
• Wrathion: 1/5. Cool character! The card doesn't actually work well, though, being rather under-statted and unreliable. 
• Mayor Noggenfogger: 1/5. The Mayor of the Memes! Unplayable, but funny as hell. 

Neutral:

• Weasel Tunneler: 1/5. Another meme card. Interesting card, but not actually good, despite what Weasel Priest might want you to think. 
• Dirty Rat: 5/5. An amazing tech card that has the huge potential of backfiring. It's sort of like Doomsayer, I think, where it's not a card that's going to work in every match-up, and not a card you play on tempo, but sometimes you just rip a combo piece out of someone's hand -- it's not a drop-it-and-forget-it tech card like Loatheb or Geist, and I appreciate Dirty Rat a lot for that. One of the most frustrating or satisfying cards depending on how he swings the game, and a very powerful tool in Combo-centric metas.
• Blubber Baron: 1/5. Too unwieldy. 
• Fel Orc Soulfiend: 1/5. Too masochistic and doesn't really do enough.
• Burgly Bully: 2/5. Uther/Beardo combo decks and some Quest Mage decks tried to run burgly Bully, but otherwise the effect just isn't strong enough to really justify running him. A very neat design, though.
• Defias Cleaner: 1/5. Too situational -- you'd rather just run Spellbreaker. 
• Fight Promoter: 1/5. Stats are way too low. 
• Leatherclad Hogleader: 1/5. Too situational, and even when it works it's not better than Leeroy.
• Wind-up Burglebot: 1/5. Oh my god this card exists. Pretty much unplyabale. 
• Small-Time Buccaneer: 5/5 [pre-nerf] 1/5 [post-nerf]. Like I said, all cards that needed to be nerfed is a 5/5 before it. What's essentially a 3/2 that summons a charging 1/1 will basically just lock down any board. And yes, he's a conditional 3/2, but Rogues, Shamans and Warirors can all reliably equip a weapon on the second turn and the fact that he comes with Patches, which helps clear the board, causes STB to freely hit the face for 3 damage a couple of times. Eventually got nerfed, and was never seen even while Pirate decks flourished. While Patches bounced back, his buddy never did.
• Backroom Bouncer: 1/5. Neat in arena, but if Cult Master saw no play, neither will the Bouncer. 
• Bomb Squad: 1/5. Cute, and it's tried in Evolve decks, but not good enough. 
• Doppelgangster: 4/5. Everyone hyped up Doppelgangster for handbuff synergies, but turns out Doppelgangster's true home isn't with hand-buff but with Evolve. Three 6-drops on turn 6 is an insane play. And the existence of the Doppelgangster/Evolve combo is honestly the only reason Shaman's even still able to muster some sort of resistance during its 'dark days' pre-Witchwood. Afterwards, Evolve Shaman sort of fell out of favour both in Standard and Wild. 
• Second-Rate Bruiser: 1/5. Saw some attempt to be used as a tech card against zoo and aggro, and it's admittedly decent -- but turns out AoE spells are just better. Not a bad card, though, and great in arena. 
• Spiked Hogrider: 1/5. Decent in arena, but there are so many better 5-drops than the silly hogriders. 
• Mistress of Mixtures: 5/5. One of the most powerful 1-mana drops, essentially replaces Zombie Chow of the past. Mistress of Mixtures saw a lot of play in aggro druid and especially multiple variations of Warlock, which just allows them to tap without repercussion as the Mistress will trade and restore health to the Warlock. Easily one of the more deceptively powerful cards. 
• Blowgill Sniper: 1/5. A more expensive Elven Archer with one more stat. Tried out, but not even the murloc tag works. 
• Friendly Bartender: 1/5. Great in arena, actually! Doesn't do enough in constructed.
• Gadgetzan Socialite: 1/5. Outclassed by Earthen Ring Farseer, and even that rarely sees play.
• Backstreet Leper: 1/5. This card is so bad and there's no real way to make this dude good. 
• Hired Gun: 1/5. Very decent in arena! Doesn't do enough in constructed, though, and essentially replaced by Stonehill Defender and Tar Creeper, far superior 3-mana taunts. 
• Street Trickster: 1/5. Haha, 0-attack minions. 
• Toxic Sewer Ooze: 1/5. Absolutely outclassed by Acidic Swamp Ooze. Not even that good in arena.
• Daring Reporter: 1/5. Tries to kind of tech against enemy draw, but doesn't actually do enough.
• Hozen Healer: 1/5. Very decent in arena, but his stats are too low and it's very hard to find the right moment where Hozen Healer will actually do something significant. 
• Kooky Chemist: 1/5. You want the effect, not the stats, to the cheaper Crazed Alchemist is strictly better. 
• Naga Corsair: 5/5. Saw a great amount of usage in multiple pirate decks, since Naga Corsair has an offensive statline and a weapon buff effect. Particularly great in Pirate Warrior in conjunction with Bloodsail Cultist. Recently found a new home in Kingsbane Rogue, where her buff is appreciated very much.
• Tanaris Hogchopper: 1/5. When is your opponent's hand ever empty?
• Worgen Greaser: 1/5. AKA Pack Filler. Can we give this guy a 0/5?
• Grook-Fu Master: 1/5. Actually saw a brief amount of usage to activate Windfury on Corpsetaker, but itself is a pretty crap card. 
• Red Mana Wyrm: 1/5. Was briefly experimented upon in Mage and Rogue, but it's way too expensive. Even lampshaded by the flavour text. 
• Streetwise Investigator: 1/5. Doesn't do enough to warrant being run as a counter card..
• Ancient of Blossoms: 1/5. Neat in arena, but there are way better taunts out there.
• Big-Time Racketeer: 1/5. Tried out in Evolve decks and with Brann, but turns out that just a pile of stats doesn't really warrant spending 6 mana on. Again, okay in arena.