You're assuming you always get exactly those two choices though, this is some strange dreamworld you're living in. Not to mention the conditions of getting and playing forge early and playing a vanilla 2/4. I played plenty times with Kazakhus cards and you don't always get "the nuts" so you have to look at the card based on all the options not just the high roll

You're still equipping a 3/4 weapon and it takes 4 turns to get random 4 drops, it really just seems too slow to be good not to mention you have to Forge and play a 4 mana 2/4 before you even get the weapon itself.

It won't even be playable on curve unless we get a ton of good and cheap forge cards,  so you have to think what turn we're realistically playing this and the tempo lost on doing so little that turn.

Only the 1 cost options looks reasonably priced to pay, otherwise these effects cost too much mana 

AsQuote from Malfurious >>

Druid could ramp quickly before and drop a big board. They also could gain a ton of armor. A number of armor-gaining cards got cycled out, so they put in Earthen Scales for Druid to be able to gain some armor.

The actual problem now is that it is much harder to clear a big board than before. Druid could drop just as much on the board before and gain just as much armor too. And with overgrowth at 4 mana, and nature’s studies and guidance to discover, they could ramp just as fast if not faster.

There are still ways to take out big minions, but not as easily as at the end of the last expansion, where you could build a board every turn and it would be completely wiped the next.

 That armour gain they had was tied to summoning a random 8 drop, now they summon equivalent 8 drop in stats and can gain more than 8 armour, yeah sure it does take 2 cards instead of 1, but they also have 2 more copies of cards that can fetch other cards with Aquatic Form. Before rotation if the 8 drop didn't have taunt, or at least rush you would be losing a lot more health than the current guarantee of a large taunt minion provides. Aquatic Form also means the Druid can ramp early a lot more consistently and generally tutor key cards easier than before, on top of the Nourish buff, which although slower than Overgrowth the flexibility of drawing cards is well worth the extra 1 mana in a lot of cases.

As far as it's harder to clear board, well yes classes have lost a bunch of removal options with rotation, but even the classes that do have suitable removal for Druid boards (Priest in particular has multiple) the issue isn't not being able to clear boards, it's not being able to out resource a Druid on 20 mana and with Kazakusan (you can actually exhaust every card in Druid's deck, but Kazakusan gives it either too much burst, or resources).

Also for some classes it's actually even way easier to clear boards, such as Pirate Rogue with Plague Scientist and Pufferfist you generally only have to clear 1 taunt vs Druid anyway, because your deck should be able to kill them before they can play multiple or be designed with some kind of OTK/ burst to go over the top, any other type of deck isn't going to have a shot vs Druid.

I really don't think nerfing Mr. Smite the way people have suggested is a good idea, doing so would entirely make Rogue useless as a class for a whole expansion (their only competitive deck is Pirate Rogue and it relies heavily on Smite). This deck is at best Tier 2 anyway as it stands, and I think it will get even weaker with inevitable Druid nerfs (one of it's few good matchups). You could just remove it from The Juggernaut pool and Nellie and I think that would make it more fair in Warrior (I presume the complaints are Smite in Warrior).

As for Druid you could increase Guff to 6 and probably make Nourish give empty mana crystals. Kazakusan needs to be changed as it singlehandedly shuts out any slower strategies, the suggestions for harsher deckbuilding restrictions seem good, such as if your starting deck has only dragons or making treasures = to no. of dragons played. You could possibly nerf Miracle Growth, Scale of Onyxia or Earthen Scales by 1 mana as there is currently quite a small window to push damage for aggro decks.

I can't think of much else standing out right now as stifling the meta, Spitelash Siren could probably do with a health nerf down to 4, seems a bit too sticky with 5 health and dodges quite a lot of removal because of it.

It's easier to play around IF you have a deck that regularly plays minions/goes wide. The problem with Kazakuzan Druid is that it completely shuts out control strategies, so the idea that "just have a minion" to stop Embers is not helpful for these decks. Yes there is 1 exception in that Control decks play Raid Boss Onyxia, but there's also several treasures which are board wipes anyway, so it's not difficult to play Embers onto an empty board (esp. when you have over 10 mana or 0 mana removal with Book of the Dead).

It's just too much unconditional damage in 1 card, it's different to other burst strategies because they generally rely on other conditions to be met and require multiple cards to be used. 

So they kept Embers of Ragnaros, which will still be the highest "burst from hand" especially with Solar Eclipse. At least with Locusts you only took 14 in one turn as opposed to 24- 48 with solar. I mean it's a step in the right direction, but I fear it won't really change much in terms of matchups/variety of decks being played. It seems pretty ridiculous that Blizzard nerfed a bunch of OTK strategies in recent patches and decide to just make more cards that create the same problem.

well we finally got a reason to run Grand Empress Shek'zara

what do you mean by "becoming" unsavory, at least since the 80s being a gamer was practically a slur and while more recently there is less negativity towards the tag (because a lot more people play games) it's still not something i'll openly call myself or be proud of. there's still a fuck load of baggage if you call yourself "gamer" in todays culture.

there are some nice minions in the 6 drop slot if you intended to evolve them as well Imprisoned Antaen Forest Warden Omu Savannah Highmane Lightshower Elemental Ring Matron Kresh, Lord of Turtling Cairne Bloodhoof Onyx Magescribe and Taurajo Brave

ahhh yes shaman really needed a 1 mana fireball+ that unlocks mana crystals /s 

i mean sure, but i imagine this deck is much more minion heavy than current priest decks with the requirement to hit specific mana costs (you'll want several of each mana cost) therefore it's much less likely for mutanas to hit exactly that card.

the puzzles were interesting and some of the other fights had cool mechanics that i enjoyed, i'll say though that the medivh fight seems way over tuned, had to restart it more than 6 times because he has such insane tempo turns with atiesh and your deck is mostly playing vanilla minions on curve. 

deck often relies entirely on discovering several burn spells to finish with bru'kan, might as well just play a straight up burn deck in the first place, or basically any other shaman deck. there's very little reason to be playing this control shell over priest right now outside of enjoying the discover/rng generation aspect (which priest also does better)

necessary for shaman to have a fighting chance, a welcome addition honestly. let's hope this and primal dungeoneer are enough!