A 2 mana 2/3 weapon has always been stronger than vanilla weapon stats. That is not to say you would want to pay the full 3 mana without the overload here, but this is a card where getting it cheaper with overload is important, because it lets you start clearing stuff earlier when 2 attack is enough.
Ultimately there are a couple of fundamental matters on which we'd need to agree before going round in circles on the Axe, namely
the strengths and weaknesses of the overload mechanic generally, and
what a card being 'good' even means.
I am happy to hold them elsewhere, but right here I'd just say that in the Demon Hunter dominated meta of the last month Stormforged Axe qualifies as a good card by my definition of the term.
Back on Vanish: it was used in more than just quest rogue, as indicated by it being moved to the HoF when The Caverns Below rotated to wild. After people stopped blindly calling it bad and actually gave the card a chance they realised it was actually fairly good in its own right, at least in the metas leading up to its move to the HoF. Besides using the card, the quest opened people's eyes to Vanish's potential, and I am claiming Demon Hunter's 2-health minions are opening people's eyes about Stormforged Axe.
Shaman's early-game tempo is a separate matter entirely and I am not disagreeing with you there.
... We are strangely in a world where Stormforged Axe is one of shaman's best tempo tool early game. Yeah, that's not a good sign. ...
Stormforged Axe has never been that bad, it just happens to be really effective against Demon Hunter due to all the must-kill 2-health minions it has. The other 9 classes were rarely so reliant on 2-health minions so the Axe never took off.
If anything it is a great example of why cards should not be considered weak based purely on how much they are played. Often they just need the right circumstances to find a home. This has happened before of course: I remember Vanish being considered awful until Un'Goro brought OG quest rogue and everyone has respected the card ever since, even to the point of it being moved to the Hall of Fame.
Second try, this one shouldn't be OP and is closer to the lore. I'm still looking for Dragonwrath's art. Is it strong enough? Should I put a cost reduction on the Hero Power (not sure if that wouldn't be too much text)...
Edit: For lore-overkill it should be a Deathrattle effect of course. I like it, but I feel like it misses something like spell damage or cost reduction. Has anyone an idea that doesn't include too much text?
Edit 2: Whoops, missed the "Passive" for the Hero Power.
Having played a lot with Trade Prince Gallywix over the years I can assure you it doesn't need any extra bonuses. Gallywix has a better body but gives the opponent coins and can be removed. While some decks (e.g. zoo-lock) don't care about the effect, it feels really bad to play against with lots of decks when you know every spell will be handed to your opponent.
Given that, I would suggest making it a deathrattle effect so the opponent has some options to prevent it. The stats are large enough for it to need dealing with so it shouldn't be a major decrease in power compared to the battlecry, but the opponent won't feel like there was nothing they could have done about it.
I've currently have saved changes to some cards, aswell as a new card. Debating if the Pirate should be from the game already or should be my new card. Also got a replacement for Mimic Pod, and may reinclude Plaguebringer alongside Assassin's Blade.
Honestly thanks @AngryShuckie for your deep insight!
You're welcome.
Regarding the pirate, if you were to use an existing card I would consider either Cutthroat Buccaneer or Southsea Squidface. Both are a tame power level but have seen some competitive play nonetheless, and have a weapon focus so you keep with the Classic design of the tribe. Beyond that you could choose between a combo or deathrattle effect, both of which are of course ever-present for the class.
The downside is you don't want to overload the rogue core set with weapon buffs, so maybe a pirate with inter-pirate synergy instead is better. Plus the Squidface would probably want a new name and art if moved to Classic since it is currently very Old Gods-y.
I had written a big long response yesterday but that seems to have vanished, so I'll give the concise version:
Sorry, it was marked as spam, probably due to its length or possibly numerous edits in a quick succession, if that was the case. I restored the post, you may leave it or delete it at your pleasure :)
Cheers. I made 1 edit shortly after posting it, which was presumably the trigger since I was able to see it first to edit it.
I have done what I should have done to begin with and used spoilers to make it more manageable, and deleted the second post.
Rogue is by far my favourite class and I have mused on it's design many times over the years. Hopefully my thoughts below help.
Thoughts on weapon related cards
Show Spoiler
I absolutely would have kept Assassin's Blade. Sure it's not competitive good, but it is much better at communicating to new players that rogues want to buff weapons than a 2-durability weapon ever is.
While here, rogue has never had weapon durability buffs. Thematically that is warrior's thing (they temper the metal to make it stronger) while rogues apply poisons, which have no business increasing durability. As a result I think Shadow Poison wants a tweak.
I would also keep Perdition's Blade. It is actually a solid card and, most importantly, it fits the rogue identity perfectly. Getting two small, precise hits in quick succession is exactly what rogue tempo tools are all about.
Single target removal
Show Spoiler
You rightly made a point of it being a strength, then proceeded to remove the poisonous cards without any sort of replacement. Even if you had added some single target removal, I would still object to taking out Plaguebringer and Patient Assassin. The latter captures the rogue fantasy so perfectly that it is worth keeping just for that. Perhaps you could give it 2 health though.
Meanwhile I truly believe Plaguebringer was something Blizzard thought a lot about when they added it 1 year ago. It even lines up perfectly with what you stated for the class identity, by providing single target removal and making use out of low-stat minions. It is also an effect that can have fancy interactions with set cards (e.g. something like Sergeant Sally), meaning it can in principle go in out of the meta with set rotations. Which is exactly what you want from evergreen cards.
Thoughts on the 'Burst and face damage' strength
Show Spoiler
I disagree that this a a rogue strength to begin with: the class has received almost none of it since classic. To me this is one of those quirks of the core sets like damage dealing spells in paladin or the now HoF'd burst damage cards in priest. That is not to say they should be stripped of all of it, but it I think it should be kept to a minimum and certainly shouldn't have a card like Bleeding Blade suggesting to new players that it is what the class is about.
I personally would HoF Sinister Strike and make it obvious that rogue 'burst' comes from (buffed) weapons and stealth minions. That would be a unique route to it, helping distinguish classes mechanically while utilising the rogue fantasy.
Misc thoughts
Show Spoiler
I would avoid adding AoE in Hail of Blades, especially something so volatile against boards with more than 3 minions and where you need the random destroy effect to hit a specific target. There's just too much RNG on something that will often make one player feel bad. A few classes should lack strong AoE, and it is fine for rogue to be one of them.
Once upon a time Headcrack cost 2-mana, and it got nerfed for a reason. Now, HS has come a long way since those days of beta so it is possible it would be fine now, but the hunter hero power is still pretty good so I doubt it. I don't think the game actually wants 2 classes to have persistent 2 damage every turn in the late game, especially now demon hunter is already forcing an aggressive meta. Probably better just to send Headcrack to the HoF.
Preparation: I understand wanting to HoF it, but now it is a 2 mana discount I personally think it is worth keeping it since it helps establish that rogues do lots of things at once. That said, I do remember calling for it to move to HoF while it was a 3 mana discount so perhaps it should just go to be safe.
Positive thoughts
Show Spoiler
I couldn't agree more on replacing Edwin with Xaril, Poisoned Mind. In 1 card he embodies so much of the class while being a reasonable power level that it really was a beautifully designed card.
Swashburglar might actually be a bit much for the Classic set, but adding a pirate is definitely right. Rogue has quietly been given a pirate in most sets (way way more than warrior), so it probably should have something to permanently secure the tribe's place in the class.
I like the extra push for using combo cards. With the smaller pool in Standard it would definitely be interesting to see in which rotations Whirlkick Master pulls her weight.
Cold Blood: yep. Get rid of it. Rogue has so few minion buffs it has always felt out of place to me.
i don’t know about others, but i pretty much never disenchant cards i don’t have two of. who knows what whacky fun decks you’ll be able to create down the line? in fact, i even go so far as to not dust even a packfiller Minion. you never know...
I do the exact same, and I was proud of having made proper use of every single card I owned up until about Un'Goro (after that the replacements of adventures with full expansions made me fall behind).
But at the same time I know that lots of players a) don't have the means to keep up with expansions if they don't dust at least something, and/or b) are not the types of players who would be interested in making use of weak cards anyway. So my advice (wherever possible) mostly aims to prompt people to understand where they stand on this and then to construct their own rules to follow.
Right but across her emotes she is clearly being playful and is sarcastic in a way that could easily be with friends. After all, good friends often would mock each other when they make mistakes in a card game. That is way better to me than sounding like the guy who turns up to a tournament just looking to start a fight, which as I said is perfectly fitting for Gul'dan's character.
Besides, apparently a lot of people like Gul'dan since my original post is down to -7 votes, which is quite impressive for a post that is openly subjective.
Every hero is at least a bit sarcastic or passive aggressive, but at least Nemsy can be interpreted as being friendly. The trouble with Gul'dan is that he is really good at portraying the character of Gul'dan, which is great provided you want to sound like an arrogant villain.
Thank goodness, I can finally get rid of Gul'dan who has been my least favourite hero since the very start. Fireside Gatherings aren't for everyone and I missed Macha Jaraxxus (who quite frankly I don't like either. I always felt that in trying to replicate the classic Jaraxxus he somehow lost the soul and sense of occasion that made Lord J. so cool in the first place), so I have been stuck with a character whose emotes convey the exact opposite of the friendly words I am usually aiming for.
I dint know where op got the chamces of getting them soon is low. If u disenchanted a legendary and proceed to open a pack from said exp u can easily get the same legendary again and waste a good spot for packing a decent one. Never dust classic cards cause u will be opening then until the end of times. If u really want to dust a legendary just for the 400 dust then u have more problems than this. Know how to manage ur dust my friend
As of Ashes of Outland this is not true. Any legendary (and likewise with cards of other rarities) is logged as 'owned' when you open it, and dusting does not change this. You will never open that legendary again until you have owned every legendary in the set. So unless you open enough packs to get every legendary in the set you are safe to dust without worrying about opening it again.
Regarding the rest of your comment: not everyone has the luxury of having dust reserves, and when they do lack reserves it is often not because they are careless with their dust. Besides, Hearthstone is not an economy simulator where the goal is to manage dust perfectly. It is a game and if dusting a legendary leads to a net gain of enjoyment then of course you should do it.
I would say general good practice is to not disenchant anything unless you need the dust right now, so certainly wait for when you have something specific you want to craft and need extra dust for.
Once at the dusting stage, I would first look at cards you personally don't ever expect to make use out of. This could be weak cards because you only play competitive decks, but it could also be strong cards that just don't line up with your play-style. E.g. if I needed dust I would get rid of Mecha'thun long before Millhouse or Lorewalker Cho because I know I sometimes mess around with those two but just don't enjoy Mecha'thun decks at all.
This is all made more complicated if you suspect a card might get nerfed one day, which should make you keep it even if you are never going to use it.
Ultimately it is a game so all that matters is your emotional state, and any decision that you do not regret is in some sense correct. Unfortunately you cannot know what you regret until after you do it, hence why I suggest targeting cards you don't like from the start.
I find it difficult to answer this because I believe the only truly bad cards are those with little to no card text that have low stats (and therefore aren't exactly exciting enough to become a favourite). Everything else has a niche where it is great. E.g. I distinctly remember Anub'arak single-handedly beating control warriors in TGT. Heck, even Bolf Ramshield was central to a strategy in 1 tavern brawl where you could reliably get a 0-mana Tree of Life in your hand then play Bolf and Auchenai Soulpriest with it to win the game.
With that in mind, I am going to pick a card that I don't actually think is bad per se, but it being good, great, meh or disastrous is far enough out of your control that it just about qualifies as a War Golem with potential downside: Flame Leviathan. There are very few cards that put a smile on my face even when they mess up badly, and this beautiful tank never failed to do that.
I haven't tried it, though it is the sort of janky deck I would normally put together.
I suspect it is the sort of thing that will always feel clunky in rogue, since it is a class with no affinity for board flooding (murlocs) or big slow minions (dragons). Indeed it is notable that the only class cards in your deck are card draw and rogue's only dragon, and Flik who's presumably just there because she's generally great but not really pushing the game-plan.
Since you find the deck fun then just play it for that. If you want to refine it however, I would probably just switch class to paladin which has more going for it with both murlocs and dragons, and direct menagerie synergy in Scalelord. Or if that's a little too competitive/mainstream you could try to make a murloc/dragon druid since that class is known for both wide boards and big minions, so at least there's a bunch of class cards to choose from when refining.
More Librams: I just really like the Libram package and would love to see it get some new tools in the next expansion. Specially, I'd love a Libram that has card draw (e.g. "Libram of Focus: 4 mana - Draw 2 cards"), and minion that discovers a Libram (e.g. "Aldor Librarian: 1 mana 1/1 - Battlecry: Discover a Libram.").
More Handbuff: This one is personal. I adore Handbuff and have since Mean Streets and I want more (e.g. "Lead By Example: 3 mana - Give a minion and all minions in your hand +2/+2").
More AoE: I'm sick of using Wild Pyromancer and want some AoE that doesn't depend on 2 card combos (e.g. "Righteous Purge: 6 mana - Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to all enemy minions.")
A Control Win Condition: I'm super flexible on what exactly this is, but Paladin needs something it can do to reliably close the game in a control matchup. Should it be burst damage/OTK? Should it be an infinite-value generator? Should it be a big 10-mana minion? Idk, but Paladin needs something.
In your first suggestion you hit on something people often miss: spells that deal damage are not part of Paladin class identity (in fact I don't think they have had a single one since Classic), and that alone motivates a bit of a rework of the core sets. The same goes for destroy effects, which are almost non-existent in the class.
This observation also goes some way towards answering your 4th suggestion: 1-card AoE requires dealing damage to kill things, which the class just does not do. Its version is to debuff minions (e.g. Equality, Libram of Justice and Shrink Ray), which of course leads to 2-card AoEs if you actually want to kill the minions. This design angle makes Paladin unique and I hope they don't give the class any conventional AoE beyond Consecration.
Regarding your 5th suggestion, I don't think it would be good for the class to have great value generation. It's mix of great healing and value would then look a bit too much like priest. Instead I want its control tools to deal better with aggro from the start, while leaning into what pally does well: minions. It should have more things like Benevolent Djinn as proactive control tools rather than the reactive tools of priest. Sure you might still usually lose to more value-heavy control decks, but it gives you the choice to try to go midrange to win those instead of waiting to lose to value.
True, and the devs make and scrap lots of cool designs. Without their tools to test cards in real game settings we mere mortals can only guess at how good cards will be in practice, and we all know how bad the community often is with that!
What I haven't worked out about The Rift is why you would want to play it in the first place. It seems a lot of work (alongside the cost of having a quest effectively reduce your opening hand size) just to have a second shot at winning a game, especially as your opponent learns as much about what you are playing and drawing as you do about them.
Perhaps I'm missing some great use for it but it looks like an extremely frustrating card to play against without offering any real advantage to the person playing it.
In short: different brawls suit different people. I personally use Tavern Brawls as a place to avoid metas, so am quite happy to have the super random ones where I can just let Hearthstone happen in front of me. It's dumb and shouldn't be taken seriously of course, but it can be fun nonetheless.
Conversely, I barely touch most Brawls where you build your own deck and a small number of strategies are clearly superior to the rest. I have enough of that in constructed.
I think there's so many possible scenarios that the only remotely succinct answer puts it down to general HS experience, including reading your deck match-up and determining your best options for winning. For the lackeys with more complex decisions, consider:
Ethereal Lackey: while this can find you an answer in a tight spot, the spells available to each class are too diverse (except in Demon Hunter, but they're not using lackeys) for it to be worth holding this back like you might with Zephrys. Instead I prefer to play it whenever I have 1 mana spare so I know what spell I have to try to make good use out of in later turns.
Draconic Lackey: as above, play this when you can so you can optimise the use of the dragon rather than hoping for anything in particular. Often the question is whether you want a big or (relatively) small dragon, and that varies from deck to deck and game to game. If you already have lots of big minions, then a cheaper dragon probably makes sense, but if you need more value, then go big.
Titanic Lackey: there are a few common scenarios I can think of. 1) you just need a big taunt to slow aggro, so put it on the biggest minion you can. 2) you want to protect a high priority minion, so obviously don't give that minion taunt unless the 2 health will save it. Even putting a small minion in the way, e.g. another lackey, can be right here. 3) you just need to give a minion the health to value trade. There's nothing complicated in this case.
Witchy Lackey: usually just evolve damaged or low stat minions with high cost as normal. There is some care to take with evolving taunt minions though, because you cannot rely on getting another taunt minion.
Goblin Lackey: sometimes it is right to buff a minion that can already attack, even if that means you don't make use of rush.
Of course you might want to hold onto them for combo activation or lackey synergies, but otherwise I play them whenever their ability is useful.
A 2 mana 2/3 weapon has always been stronger than vanilla weapon stats. That is not to say you would want to pay the full 3 mana without the overload here, but this is a card where getting it cheaper with overload is important, because it lets you start clearing stuff earlier when 2 attack is enough.
Ultimately there are a couple of fundamental matters on which we'd need to agree before going round in circles on the Axe, namely
I am happy to hold them elsewhere, but right here I'd just say that in the Demon Hunter dominated meta of the last month Stormforged Axe qualifies as a good card by my definition of the term.
Back on Vanish: it was used in more than just quest rogue, as indicated by it being moved to the HoF when The Caverns Below rotated to wild. After people stopped blindly calling it bad and actually gave the card a chance they realised it was actually fairly good in its own right, at least in the metas leading up to its move to the HoF. Besides using the card, the quest opened people's eyes to Vanish's potential, and I am claiming Demon Hunter's 2-health minions are opening people's eyes about Stormforged Axe.
Shaman's early-game tempo is a separate matter entirely and I am not disagreeing with you there.
Stormforged Axe has never been that bad, it just happens to be really effective against Demon Hunter due to all the must-kill 2-health minions it has. The other 9 classes were rarely so reliant on 2-health minions so the Axe never took off.
If anything it is a great example of why cards should not be considered weak based purely on how much they are played. Often they just need the right circumstances to find a home. This has happened before of course: I remember Vanish being considered awful until Un'Goro brought OG quest rogue and everyone has respected the card ever since, even to the point of it being moved to the Hall of Fame.
Having played a lot with Trade Prince Gallywix over the years I can assure you it doesn't need any extra bonuses. Gallywix has a better body but gives the opponent coins and can be removed. While some decks (e.g. zoo-lock) don't care about the effect, it feels really bad to play against with lots of decks when you know every spell will be handed to your opponent.
Given that, I would suggest making it a deathrattle effect so the opponent has some options to prevent it. The stats are large enough for it to need dealing with so it shouldn't be a major decrease in power compared to the battlecry, but the opponent won't feel like there was nothing they could have done about it.
You're welcome.
Regarding the pirate, if you were to use an existing card I would consider either Cutthroat Buccaneer or Southsea Squidface. Both are a tame power level but have seen some competitive play nonetheless, and have a weapon focus so you keep with the Classic design of the tribe. Beyond that you could choose between a combo or deathrattle effect, both of which are of course ever-present for the class.
The downside is you don't want to overload the rogue core set with weapon buffs, so maybe a pirate with inter-pirate synergy instead is better. Plus the Squidface would probably want a new name and art if moved to Classic since it is currently very Old Gods-y.
Cheers. I made 1 edit shortly after posting it, which was presumably the trigger since I was able to see it first to edit it.
I have done what I should have done to begin with and used spoilers to make it more manageable, and deleted the second post.
Thoughts on weapon related cards
I absolutely would have kept Assassin's Blade. Sure it's not competitive good, but it is much better at communicating to new players that rogues want to buff weapons than a 2-durability weapon ever is.
While here, rogue has never had weapon durability buffs. Thematically that is warrior's thing (they temper the metal to make it stronger) while rogues apply poisons, which have no business increasing durability. As a result I think Shadow Poison wants a tweak.
I would also keep Perdition's Blade. It is actually a solid card and, most importantly, it fits the rogue identity perfectly. Getting two small, precise hits in quick succession is exactly what rogue tempo tools are all about.
Single target removal
You rightly made a point of it being a strength, then proceeded to remove the poisonous cards without any sort of replacement. Even if you had added some single target removal, I would still object to taking out Plaguebringer and Patient Assassin. The latter captures the rogue fantasy so perfectly that it is worth keeping just for that. Perhaps you could give it 2 health though.
Meanwhile I truly believe Plaguebringer was something Blizzard thought a lot about when they added it 1 year ago. It even lines up perfectly with what you stated for the class identity, by providing single target removal and making use out of low-stat minions. It is also an effect that can have fancy interactions with set cards (e.g. something like Sergeant Sally), meaning it can in principle go in out of the meta with set rotations. Which is exactly what you want from evergreen cards.
Thoughts on the 'Burst and face damage' strength
I disagree that this a a rogue strength to begin with: the class has received almost none of it since classic. To me this is one of those quirks of the core sets like damage dealing spells in paladin or the now HoF'd burst damage cards in priest. That is not to say they should be stripped of all of it, but it I think it should be kept to a minimum and certainly shouldn't have a card like Bleeding Blade suggesting to new players that it is what the class is about.
I personally would HoF Sinister Strike and make it obvious that rogue 'burst' comes from (buffed) weapons and stealth minions. That would be a unique route to it, helping distinguish classes mechanically while utilising the rogue fantasy.
Misc thoughts
I would avoid adding AoE in Hail of Blades, especially something so volatile against boards with more than 3 minions and where you need the random destroy effect to hit a specific target. There's just too much RNG on something that will often make one player feel bad. A few classes should lack strong AoE, and it is fine for rogue to be one of them.
Once upon a time Headcrack cost 2-mana, and it got nerfed for a reason. Now, HS has come a long way since those days of beta so it is possible it would be fine now, but the hunter hero power is still pretty good so I doubt it. I don't think the game actually wants 2 classes to have persistent 2 damage every turn in the late game, especially now demon hunter is already forcing an aggressive meta. Probably better just to send Headcrack to the HoF.
Preparation: I understand wanting to HoF it, but now it is a 2 mana discount I personally think it is worth keeping it since it helps establish that rogues do lots of things at once. That said, I do remember calling for it to move to HoF while it was a 3 mana discount so perhaps it should just go to be safe.
Positive thoughts
I couldn't agree more on replacing Edwin with Xaril, Poisoned Mind. In 1 card he embodies so much of the class while being a reasonable power level that it really was a beautifully designed card.
Swashburglar might actually be a bit much for the Classic set, but adding a pirate is definitely right. Rogue has quietly been given a pirate in most sets (way way more than warrior), so it probably should have something to permanently secure the tribe's place in the class.
I like the extra push for using combo cards. With the smaller pool in Standard it would definitely be interesting to see in which rotations Whirlkick Master pulls her weight.
Cold Blood: yep. Get rid of it. Rogue has so few minion buffs it has always felt out of place to me.
I do the exact same, and I was proud of having made proper use of every single card I owned up until about Un'Goro (after that the replacements of adventures with full expansions made me fall behind).
But at the same time I know that lots of players a) don't have the means to keep up with expansions if they don't dust at least something, and/or b) are not the types of players who would be interested in making use of weak cards anyway. So my advice (wherever possible) mostly aims to prompt people to understand where they stand on this and then to construct their own rules to follow.
Right but across her emotes she is clearly being playful and is sarcastic in a way that could easily be with friends. After all, good friends often would mock each other when they make mistakes in a card game. That is way better to me than sounding like the guy who turns up to a tournament just looking to start a fight, which as I said is perfectly fitting for Gul'dan's character.
Besides, apparently a lot of people like Gul'dan since my original post is down to -7 votes, which is quite impressive for a post that is openly subjective.
Every hero is at least a bit sarcastic or passive aggressive, but at least Nemsy can be interpreted as being friendly. The trouble with Gul'dan is that he is really good at portraying the character of Gul'dan, which is great provided you want to sound like an arrogant villain.
Thank goodness, I can finally get rid of Gul'dan who has been my least favourite hero since the very start. Fireside Gatherings aren't for everyone and I missed Macha Jaraxxus (who quite frankly I don't like either. I always felt that in trying to replicate the classic Jaraxxus he somehow lost the soul and sense of occasion that made Lord J. so cool in the first place), so I have been stuck with a character whose emotes convey the exact opposite of the friendly words I am usually aiming for.
As of Ashes of Outland this is not true. Any legendary (and likewise with cards of other rarities) is logged as 'owned' when you open it, and dusting does not change this. You will never open that legendary again until you have owned every legendary in the set. So unless you open enough packs to get every legendary in the set you are safe to dust without worrying about opening it again.
Regarding the rest of your comment: not everyone has the luxury of having dust reserves, and when they do lack reserves it is often not because they are careless with their dust. Besides, Hearthstone is not an economy simulator where the goal is to manage dust perfectly. It is a game and if dusting a legendary leads to a net gain of enjoyment then of course you should do it.
I would say general good practice is to not disenchant anything unless you need the dust right now, so certainly wait for when you have something specific you want to craft and need extra dust for.
Once at the dusting stage, I would first look at cards you personally don't ever expect to make use out of. This could be weak cards because you only play competitive decks, but it could also be strong cards that just don't line up with your play-style. E.g. if I needed dust I would get rid of Mecha'thun long before Millhouse or Lorewalker Cho because I know I sometimes mess around with those two but just don't enjoy Mecha'thun decks at all.
This is all made more complicated if you suspect a card might get nerfed one day, which should make you keep it even if you are never going to use it.
Ultimately it is a game so all that matters is your emotional state, and any decision that you do not regret is in some sense correct. Unfortunately you cannot know what you regret until after you do it, hence why I suggest targeting cards you don't like from the start.
I find it difficult to answer this because I believe the only truly bad cards are those with little to no card text that have low stats (and therefore aren't exactly exciting enough to become a favourite). Everything else has a niche where it is great. E.g. I distinctly remember Anub'arak single-handedly beating control warriors in TGT. Heck, even Bolf Ramshield was central to a strategy in 1 tavern brawl where you could reliably get a 0-mana Tree of Life in your hand then play Bolf and Auchenai Soulpriest with it to win the game.
With that in mind, I am going to pick a card that I don't actually think is bad per se, but it being good, great, meh or disastrous is far enough out of your control that it just about qualifies as a War Golem with potential downside: Flame Leviathan. There are very few cards that put a smile on my face even when they mess up badly, and this beautiful tank never failed to do that.
I haven't tried it, though it is the sort of janky deck I would normally put together.
I suspect it is the sort of thing that will always feel clunky in rogue, since it is a class with no affinity for board flooding (murlocs) or big slow minions (dragons). Indeed it is notable that the only class cards in your deck are card draw and rogue's only dragon, and Flik who's presumably just there because she's generally great but not really pushing the game-plan.
Since you find the deck fun then just play it for that. If you want to refine it however, I would probably just switch class to paladin which has more going for it with both murlocs and dragons, and direct menagerie synergy in Scalelord. Or if that's a little too competitive/mainstream you could try to make a murloc/dragon druid since that class is known for both wide boards and big minions, so at least there's a bunch of class cards to choose from when refining.
Good luck!
In your first suggestion you hit on something people often miss: spells that deal damage are not part of Paladin class identity (in fact I don't think they have had a single one since Classic), and that alone motivates a bit of a rework of the core sets. The same goes for destroy effects, which are almost non-existent in the class.
This observation also goes some way towards answering your 4th suggestion: 1-card AoE requires dealing damage to kill things, which the class just does not do. Its version is to debuff minions (e.g. Equality, Libram of Justice and Shrink Ray), which of course leads to 2-card AoEs if you actually want to kill the minions. This design angle makes Paladin unique and I hope they don't give the class any conventional AoE beyond Consecration.
Regarding your 5th suggestion, I don't think it would be good for the class to have great value generation. It's mix of great healing and value would then look a bit too much like priest. Instead I want its control tools to deal better with aggro from the start, while leaning into what pally does well: minions. It should have more things like Benevolent Djinn as proactive control tools rather than the reactive tools of priest. Sure you might still usually lose to more value-heavy control decks, but it gives you the choice to try to go midrange to win those instead of waiting to lose to value.
True, and the devs make and scrap lots of cool designs. Without their tools to test cards in real game settings we mere mortals can only guess at how good cards will be in practice, and we all know how bad the community often is with that!
What I haven't worked out about The Rift is why you would want to play it in the first place. It seems a lot of work (alongside the cost of having a quest effectively reduce your opening hand size) just to have a second shot at winning a game, especially as your opponent learns as much about what you are playing and drawing as you do about them.
Perhaps I'm missing some great use for it but it looks like an extremely frustrating card to play against without offering any real advantage to the person playing it.
In short: different brawls suit different people. I personally use Tavern Brawls as a place to avoid metas, so am quite happy to have the super random ones where I can just let Hearthstone happen in front of me. It's dumb and shouldn't be taken seriously of course, but it can be fun nonetheless.
Conversely, I barely touch most Brawls where you build your own deck and a small number of strategies are clearly superior to the rest. I have enough of that in constructed.
You're right. I forgot that with Faceless Lackey you should always try to get Millhouse Manastorm. Any other 'choice' is usually a misplay.
I think there's so many possible scenarios that the only remotely succinct answer puts it down to general HS experience, including reading your deck match-up and determining your best options for winning. For the lackeys with more complex decisions, consider:
Of course you might want to hold onto them for combo activation or lackey synergies, but otherwise I play them whenever their ability is useful.