That's definitely an improvement, but like you I'd be curious to see if it was enough of one. There were still other ways of getting fast, early gold in the deck version we playtested, though none faster than our friendly Peddler here. I'd have fixed the hireling hydra too… hireling is a novel mechanic, and it's good that it has a hard cap on it based on how much colourless mana is needed to cast the critter. This gives it some balance. Having an X-creature throws that limitation right off. There is some precedent for larger critters in an intro deck with ROE's Invading Spawn and Eldrazi arisen, but there they have a flavour and theme that was a core component to the set and the decks were built around them.

Since you have to pay a mana before you get a Gold Counter, it's pretty much equivalent to the storage lands from Time Spiral. Strong, but it comes with a transient loss of tempo.

In any case, this series of assessments have been great. Thank you for writing them!