I did NOT say peper MD is better. The point is, this is the tier where the cards need set up to become effective, it doesn't have enough immediately value to be in the "this card is strong" tier for me. I use it to compare to cards like the great zucchini, which when played, you can reap rewards immediately. Over time, the card will gain a lot of value, never denied that, but having immediate value outweighs over time value, that's the entire point. Also, Pepper MD is a really strong because it is at worst 2 for 2/2, which is an average 2 sun body. The cost is also important in considering a card. You make it sound like the healing is useless, and the sole purpose is to make Pepper MD stornger. The fact is that the healing allow your other plants to make favorite trades, while boosting a 2 sun (again, this card costs 2 suns!!!) up to 4/4, or 6/6.
The biggest misunderstanding of my post by you seems to be the difference between a card being overall strong, and a card effect being strong.
Overall strength:
I take into account GAME META, GAME SPEED, REWARD OF PLAYING CARD. All the legendary cards have SUPER strong effects, but due to other facts, a lot of legends are "weak", and hard to play. Example
1. Bowling. I use this because it is a 10 sun card. In a CCG that needs to deal big damage fast (before your opponent gets too many superpowers), the game is usually decided around 6 or 7 suns, so a 10 sun card will be really hard to play in this meta. The effect is definitely insane, creates 3 nuts, and 6 damage in 3 lanes? That's worth 12 suns at least.
2. bananasaurus - the issue I have here is that zombies play tricks after plants. which means you have to be really careful playing this card, or else it can be eliminated right off the board, Even if it doesn't, you gain steady rewards each turn. I can make this comparison to threeheaded chomper, which it not eliminated by a zombie trick, immediately allow the plant player to reap HUGE rewards.
The main point of the post is also you don't need legendary cards to be competitive. I beat plenty of players with rare or below