The card allows you to shift gears from being purely aggressive to biding your time, and creates interesting tension around combat rather than a simple determination of whether to use a removal spell on one creature
He reduces the cost of your creatures based on how much life your opponents lost
Pair it with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Archon of Emeria to build a full-on tax fortress that makes every spell your opponents cast feel impossible
Ramp into Clive, Ifrit's Dominant with cheap red permanents like Charming Scoundrel, Sunset Strikemaster, and Grabby Giant
The extra benefits of flying and +2/+0 just make it 'more' value for 3 mana, but still good value
This lets you cast things outside of your color identity in red for Commander without needing to actually cast the spell, and you'll be left with a 3/2 dork to block and kill or trade or save you from a lethal attack and you can exile sorceries and cast them at instant speed