@Darth Sonic  
Dragon is barely an archetype anymore. Even with the new expansion, dragons have yet to make a meaningful comeback. And, if you’re playing a dragon deck anyways, there’s plenty of dragons that can activate others that won’t be dead in your hand. As long as it’s a dragon, you’re fine, so even faerie would be better.
 
But, regardless, nowadays this doesn’t mean much. It’s killed too easy, especially with things like Patches still in the running. The game is aggro oriented right now, and they wouldn’t care too much about this. The viable control decks don’t want anything like this, and dead cards in either can be a death sentence nowadays. Save for in cube lock, as lock has tap.
 
The reason mistress of mixtures is still so good, is that 4 health, is negligible when you’re winning, and when you’re not it’s a heal, and your probably don’t care taking it slow at that point. This is just unplayable at anything after turn four or so. Imagine having your opponent down to 12 health, and instead of drawing damage, or a way to stabilize your board till next turn, you draw a card that would put him all the way back to full, and then some.
 
It’s a really good card design, but if it at least always started in your hand it’d be viable, a little broken, but at least it wouldn’t be useless 50% of the time.

@pinkamenaislove  
It’s been awhile since I’ve played, but wouldn’t this card still be useful as being a cheap as fuck way of activating Dragon synergies late game?
 
And it’s still insanely useful early game. Dead cards sitting in your hand aren’t dealbreakers for everyone.

This would be good if you gave it one more attack, and if it was always in your starting hand(like a quest). The drawback of drawing it late and it being dead in your hand is too big otherwise. It could be a 10/10 for 1, and the fact you could draw it late and end up giving your opponent a Reno+ is too much of a drawback. Great concept though.

@Darth Sonic  
Ah, the curse of the Timmy. I get it. I’m a Johnny/Timmy myself, so I’m more interested in big wacky combos than big critters, but it’s a similar thing.

@Background Pony #7E8B  
Oh, I know this. What I mean is that I get distracted evaluating endgame cards like Nefarion and such.

@Chaoslux  
Like I said, I don’t think they’d miss that gamebreaking interaction. Would be funny if they did, though.
 
 
@Darth Sonic  
Cards like this are super valuable because they let you get to the late game against aggressive decks. Giving your opponent an extra 5 hp usually isn’t a problem if you’ve got a lategame-focused deck, but giving yourself an extra 6 (plus overkill, plus killing off a few early drops) is super valuable against fast decks. Hell, Zombie Chow was the best 1-drop in the game for slow decks, and it had 2 less stats and no taunt.

I have to admit, I’ve always have had some trouble evaluating the relative value of early game cards like this one, because my becks are all very late game focused. Mostly because I find ultra short games really boring, so I make decks that force games to last at least 8 turns, usually 10+. Lots of Taunts and Secrets.

@Chaoslux  
Actually, Alexstrasza’s effect may count as healing. Try using her when Auchenai is on board on a hero with less than 15 health.

@Background Pony #7E8B  
Alexstrasza already used the same wording, and Amara’s effect is inconsistent with it.  
Alexstrasza sets your health to 15 and call it a day. It doesnt count as damage, it doesnt count as healing.  
If you use Amarra while you turn healing into damage through Auchenai or Embrace the Shadow, Amara will simply kill you.
 
Now if this card worked like Amara, it absolutely couldnt be printed.
 
Turn 2 Embrace the Shadow Coin, Ponyrider = Two card combo Turn 2 Lethal.
 
Beyond broken. Even if that interaction didnt happen and it worked like Alexstrasza, it should be a 2/3 Taunt at best.

@Darth Sonic  
We now have a card with a very similar effect and identical wording (modulo which hero is affected). Amara sets your max health to 40, then heals you for 40. As a Priest player (you may laugh at me now), I would be happy to see this card at any point in the game if it was implemented the same way. Not that it would be. People make fun of the balance in HS but I don’t think anyone seriously believes that Team 5 would miss that gamebreaker.

@Liggliluff
 
A new card that sets your hero’s health to 40 has been announced. Eventually we will be able to see for ourselves how it turns out to work exactly.

@Ledvi  
It’s an incredibly useful turn one card that becomes totally useless outside of dragon synergies late game.

Not sure if broken or useless legendary. And please don’t give me the “it’s a joke” card. I’ve used that excuse too many in the past and it didn’t suit well with the viewers.

@Vengir  
It’s the card description inconsistencies I’m mostly talking about.

True, the description discrepancy is weird, but at least it is clear from the behaviour on board. It’s quite unlikely that the first time you see either of these cards in play, it will be your minion that later gets silenced.

@Vengir  
The following will transform, and can’t therefore be silenced (except taunt):  

 
These will instead gain a buff that can be silenced:  

 
By reading the description alone, what group does this one belong to?  

 
The name gives away which group it behaves like. All they need to do is to add “transform” to remove this confusion; but they refuse to. They want this inconsistency as it’s easier for newer players.

What is that silienceable transformed minion? I don’t remember it.

@Vengir  
Look up the “transform into one of two minions” where one gives a new minion with fixed starts, while the other is a base-minion with buffs instead that can be silenced.
 
Or the cases where demon-spells can sometimes affect, and sometimes not affect demon-heroes.
 
This is what Disgusted Toast has brought up among other things. Blizzard has said that they don’t want to fix these inconsistencies, as it would confuse players O_o
 
But they also said that we’re too stupid to handle more than 9 decks … (which they included anyway).
 
They try to do consistency most of the time; but not always.

@Liggliluff  
They kinda do care about consistency, only sometimes they implement a behaviour inconsistently. If you are interested more in Hearthstone mechanics under the hood, check out Disguised Toast channel on YouTube.

@Vengir  
But we should assume the rules are applied the same on a hero and minion.
 
…actually we shouldn’t assume that with Blizzard, because they don’t care about consistency … but … still …

From what I remember, Keeper of Uldaman will heal wounded minion it is used on to full health, so Ponyrider Spike should do the same. There is no card currently in the game that I am aware of that lets such modyfication to be applied to a hero, except for the cards that let you replace a hero with a different one (Lord Jaraxxus or Majordomo Executus).

@Balh blah blah  
Okay; adding health adds to remaining and max values. – But setting heath to a specific value should in that case heal it fully to the new health value.
 
There’s some cards that do set health value, and does heal it fully in the process: reverse attack/health. = The max and current health is set to the current attack value.
 
@Vengir  
And that one sets max and current health to the same value? It should work the same for a hero.

Keeper of Uldaman is a fine example of a “set to” card, although intended for use on minions.

@Liggliluff  
Yes. Actually, the “add health” cards work like that. Priest’s power word:shield add 2 health to the max value of minions health, thus if minion had, say, 3 health, but got damaged and now has 2, and then was buffed by PW:S you will be able to heal it up to 5 health.
 
On that note, I don’t think any other card sets health to a specific value

@Vengir  
In Hearthstone, the one card that sets to 15 says “set the remaining health to 15”; what other cards sets the health to a specific value?
 
If a minion takes 1 damage, gets “add 1 health”, can it still heal for 1?