Yes, more and more cards are designed with ward dialed up and down to be a protective boost, and the range of influence is quite wide
As for how good the actual card is, you don't really have to extrapolate a whole lot more than "it's eight mana"
Vintage Cube players sometimes splash green in their blue artifact decks just so this Eldrazi can fetch Tolarian Academy, and it grabs various Sol lands in formats like Historic and Modern
Why Japanese Boxes Have Guarantees Japans consumer protection framework requires products with randomized contents to deliver minimum value thresholds
You could tap down some lands to keep them from casting spells, I guess, but then they tap them in response and draw that mana for later anyway if they needed it
Its very hard to focus on the positives of this latest MTG set when theyre accompanied by major caveats