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I'd go echo. Let's you play a value game with your 2 flamestrikes. Spellbender can lead to some funny turn 3 concedes against priests, but usually it's kinda underwhelming.
I thought about it for quite a while but ended up going with spellbender. I was really aware of having no three drops, and I tend to think it's pretty useful, particularly against some of the classes you see at 7+ wins (blessing of kings, fireball, polymorph, even things like blessing of might can be a huge tempo swing). It's probably weird calling a card that doesn't do anything right away a choice made in the name of tempo, but I think it contextually makes sense once we throw in the potential for mana wyrms, apprentices, kirin tor mages and mad scientists - particularly compared to echo. And when I doubt I tend to prefer the higher tempo option.
With the way my deck panned out I think Echo was the better option, and going back I think I'd pick it and just commit to playing a slower, more value-based game like you said, but I think it was still an interesting spot *shrug*