­Hapless Researcher but frontloaded. Seems reasonable, I think. Merfolk Traders was always rather bad.

card's fine, but whether or not it's good depends on what's around it

I'd expect to see it get some use in the kind of blue decks that would like a cheaper Merchant of Secrets, but don't have access to green for Elvish Visionary.

Compare to Sage of Epityr. As an aside, I'd say this makes a good discard outlet when you need it. Most of the time, you only want to discard one card anyway.