I think this type of card is really swingy.
I agree that this type of card is swingy, but I think the key is to use it with other cards that will make it work well. (Silver flooders, non-terminal sifting, etc.)
Plus, there are plenty of published cards that seem just as swingy. Baron and Explorer come to mind.
Baron is mostly not swingy though, because of such a high chance of hitting an Estate turn 3 and 4. Explorer is mainly a Silver gainer, and I always felt the Gold gaining is more of a boost than anything.
I wasn't talking about the probability of hitting so much as the huge difference between hitting and missing. If you don't line it up with an Estate, Baron is usually awful. The fact that Engraver still does something for you when you miss (gains a Silver) plus the fact that it makes you more likely to hit in the future makes it seem reasonable to me. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the specific bonuses needed tweaking after testing.
EDIT: Of course, it is worth noting that Baron and Explorer can give such huge boosts because it basically takes two cards in hand to do it and one of those cards is dead. Same with Death Cart because the Action gets trashed. Let me think about how it works out with Engraver. When Engraver misses, it's [Gain a Silver], which is really weak, but still better than nothing in a lot of decks. When it hits, you break even on handsize, Coins and number of Silvers in your deck, but you're up one Action. Wow, that's still pretty weak. Am I missing something? I guess if you go on to draw your whole deck, you can draw the gained Silver, but I don't think that makes up for it.
