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This doesn't look too bad. You get 8/7 worth of stats for 7 mana, this lets you look at the bottom of your deck each time it attacks, and with divine shield it might let you do that twice, and the claw draws you a card. The one you just dredged if you are even slightly smart about the order you attack in.

Oh man, I didn't think about Cariel!

I did manage to complete this using Mukla's ability to toss some stats around. It got awkward though - by the time I had Smolderwing down to a killable range, I had to heal him before he attacked a Merc large enough to finish him off. 

So that's my hot tip: include somebody (like Xyrella) who can apply a targeted heal to friend or foe. 

Anything that can get to 0 mana is dangerous, more so if its does that while you're playing spells. I already know it'll see play simply because of that. Whether it'll take the meta by storm Im less certain, because there's no yet much pay off. An 8/8 is hardly the end of the world, even if its 0 mana.

As for reliability, turn 6 is a bit too early, perhaps the only part of my own comments that Im willing to agree I got wrong. But turn 7-8, AoE remove the board and swing with 0 mana 8/8s. That's still a powerful enough play that I think it'll happen reliably.

The minion is good, but what it essentially allows is to play spells (removal, etc.) and put out a 8/8 as early as turn 6 (or less if youre druid). To do it you have to play nothing but spells until turn 5, and then whatever spell you play on turn 6 will be followed up by a 8/8 filling up the rest of your mana. Is it really as impossible as it seems? Its not like we haven't seen decks doing exactly that.

Now all we need is a payoff worth going through all that. If its true that Zola the Gorgon is coming back, that would be one of them. Brings back memories of playing giants rogue back in the day.

The most controlling deck I know of, in this game, is one that uses The Howling Abyss as the wincon. Literally endless value once you drop it. Some lists include early blocker units, like Avarosan Sentry, but you can also just play it with all spells, plus 1 landmark (which is functionally basically a spell as well). The full spells version looks like this. Go Hard means that you can never deck yourself out. Abyss gives value indefinitely. Spells let you kill basically anything. Also has healing.

This is the closest I can come up with, for what you seem to be asking for. Disclaimer- A deck like this is very hard to pilot in LoR, which is not really meant to support this type of deck. So, don't expect to win a ton. But I think you'll find it fun to play.

much druid ramp is going away with rotation 

Jesus, this in Wild with Drek'thar, the two frogs and burn spells! Probable T1 deck incoming. It's already good as is.

This card doesn't contain Colossal keyword.

IMO your worst take yet. Sure this can be played for 0 mana before turn 7, but that would mean spending all mana in the previous turns only playing spells (1+2+3+4+5+6=21) and as much as the community likes to joke about minions being a new mechanic, I don't think this is a reliable way of playing this giant.

Besides, we've seen Flesh Giant being played at turn 4 before. I don't think a giant that can come at turn 6 for 0 mana unreliably will be playable since it's not that much of a threat to begin with.

Proving Grounds DH? I need more Dormants for them.

Other than ramp shenanigans this comes down turn 6 at it’s earliest, which makes it a lot less problematic than other giants. Not sure how strong this is, good in spell decks that want to go to the late game? Maybe druid but I doubt it’s good enough for any other class.

Usually cards like these are typical fodder trash stuff that was included into your packs as filler. But this one actually has applications other than being part of the bin.

For one thing, paladin can actually capitalize on this card better than they could with Imprisoned Vilefiend, because the dormancy is only 1 turn. Play this turn 1, turn 2 buff and take a value trade. Given how difficult it is for paladin to stick a minion down if they're not starting first, this card offers an advantage in terms of tempo, and a chance to use those buffs instead of praying or waiting another 1-2 turns on a sleeping minion.

In other decks, this is removal for 1 mana. And because of the dormancy you can easily time it to do a wipe sweep of the board, and your opponent has to play around it for 1 turn.

All in all, this card definitely has a mountain to climb for viability. Its always going to be outclassed, but if you wanted to, you can just play this card and suffer little drawbacks Id imagine.

any comment regarding a new card that starts with "I mean, ..." is enough to tell that the card failed

how much mana does Druid use turn 1-5 nowadays? does this have a chance to see the light of day?

Ahh! I see. Yeah… it didn't do that.

Imagine if they brought back Luna's Pocket Pu Galaxy

Big spell mage support?? Wiping the opponents board and dropping a big guy can be game winning.

While i think this card is good, i don't think this card goes in the same style of deck that Arcane Giant went into. Arcane Giant played really well with spell reduction and low-cost spells, where low 0/1/2 cost spells could be cast super quickly and often in order to get super cheap giants. This doesn't work very well with this guy, as 0 cost spells offer no reduction, and a total of 20 1 cost spells would need to be cast in order to play him for 0 (10 to play him at all). I think this fits more into a big spell mage style of deck, which plays large spells, as those offer more reduction for the mana cost. Cool card tho

It is Arcane Giant in all but name

Not really, Arcane Giant reduces the cost for every spell you cast while this reduces the cost for every mana spent on spells. It's not the same thing. 

The Dormant keyword was added in Year of the Phoenix (specifically, for Ashes of Outland), but the mechanic already existed for some earlier cards (like Un'Goro's Sherazin, Corpse Flower and Kobold & Catacombs' The Darkness), so they went back and added the keyword to those cards. (Which they don't usually do -- e.g. they didn't go back and add the recruit keyword to other "summon from deck" cards.)

And since, right from the start, Dormant was in more than one card set, it looks like they've felt free to keep adding it later on.

Why bother to remember when you are on a site that has cards search... So searched and yes Arcane Giant is the latest neutral one before Naga Giant

Slimescale Diver is the better of the three. But that's hardly a surprise. Its a murloc that actually seems like it could survive a trade and will almost always kill its target.

Interestingly I think these dormant minions are better than the 'imprisoned' minions from AoO. Mostly because its less punishing to play off curve, and also because your opponent only has 1 turn to play around it.

There was the Timebound Giant from the special Arena event but yeah it is the first collectable neutral giant since Karazhan

Oh shit, here we go again.

It is Arcane Giant in all but name, and likely like arcane giant we'll see plenty of this guy.

Im fairly certain the team5 have playtested this card, because the cost is 8 mana higher than arcane giant, and surely even they should know how easy it is to play enough spells to get this to 0 mana.

I dont think a review is needed here. If there's a deck that plays plenty of spells and this can be 0 mana before turn 7 then it'll see play for sure.

Damn this is pretty powerful, although I like that it cannot be cheesed by just spamming cheap spells.

If you spend mana on exclusively spells the earliest this comes down for free is turn 6 (which is fair I think). Since I doubt that in this new meta you can get away with just playing spells and no minions it's probably not gonna snowball out of control. Now the real question is, what can you possibly combo this with?