That awkward shuffle-struggle is a rite of passage
This actually came as a surprise to me, as conditional mana ramp that adds extra hoops to jump through beyond having fewer lands than your opponent is almost always unplayable, but when that hoop is take this creature off the battlefield, and the reward is both ramp and potentially filling your hand with any land with the Plains subtype, the results are surprisingly effective
Not only that, its restriction is forgiving, only locking you for the rest of the turn after you use it
Check Payments Checks should be made payable to Branded Promo
He'll let you prevent all damage that would be dealt to a target creature with a +1/+1 counter on it, useful if you've already got Kyler handing out counters like there's no tomorrow
It lets you risk milling yourself out, but can give you a whole host of board presence in the late game