Correlation does not imply causation does not imply falsity or non causality either. In the absence of a controlled double blinded experiment, we cannot realistically determine, with certainty, the true strength of any hero, but that doesn't mean that the correlation is not an indication of a potential causal relationship. In fact, in the absence of the possibility of conducting a controlled experiment, a correlation is acceptable as inductive evidence of a causal relationship.

Gazlowe is far more complex than most other heroes to play. I know it's daunting to try and expand one's view of things beyond what the masses say. He's not the kind of hero you play once, twice or twenty times and get good. Unfortunately, that turns many off after a couple of lined up losses. Ever noticed how these master gazlowes always seem to have such a large impact on games?

It's not about daunting and expanding views past what the masses say. Appealing to a sense of superiority is not a logically valid argument. And no, I don't notice how "master gazlowes always seem to have such a large impact on games" in fact its quite the opposite, but anecdotal evidence is far worse than the real statistics we have available to us, which is that gazlowe is associated with a lower win rate.

He's a high skill capped hero in a low skill floor game. As mentioned in my above example, these heroes tend to start doing a lot better as the game grows. Why do you think tyrande is seeing more and more play as of late, despite no changes to her or any of her direct/strong counters?

Is he really? Where is any evidence that master gazlowe players do better against master players than other non-master gazlowe players vs. other non-master MMR players. In fact, go to HotSlogs, the opposite is true; gazlowe does far better in lower ranked queues. Gazlowe is a low skill ceiling character, because the room to outplay him is so damn high. After you increase the skill of your opponents

Also, that argument is non-sequitur. You have not established that gazlowe nor tyrnade is a high skill capped hero. You have not excluded the fact that maybe the meta game shifts and allows different heroes to be played or that the limited pool of competitive games does not allow for accurate statistical analysis.

The community's simply not ready for him. That doesn't make him bad.

Actually in fact this DOES make him bad. If he were high skill capped and BETTER than every other hero if mastered (say something like lost vikings currently), then he would be playable, but if you have to be in the top 0.001% of players to make gazlowe good enough to compete, then he is "bad for 99.999% of the players" then its moot to argue that "he is good for the best players" because that argument is irrelevant for practically everyone.