Even with the downside, the benefit you get from information and making them discard a key spell is worth the life loss, and control/combo decks hate to see a turn-1 Thoughtseize
Not background necessarily, but some other line of text that says something along the lines of Whenever you sacrifice a Treasure token, give a creature a +1/+1 counter and trample until end of turn. That would make it a lot more interesting and powerful, but I suppose not every card needs to be great
You can walk into the market and buy a box for what it costs, or less
As if that isnt enough, Ral, Cracking Wit, protects himself by making Otters with prowess, has a fairly costly Brainstorm effect, and then a massively powerful emblem that gives all your instants and sorcery spells storm, which is huge for Magic
At sorcery speed tap this for no mana to make your dork convert all damage it would take into card draw and life loss too
It relies on a lot of trickery to frustrate your opponent