Pointed Discussion

howling mine has almost the same art.

The problem with lands like this and their potential combinations with Doubling Season / Gilder Bairn or Proliferate is that you still have to spend mana to get mana. Usually, getting a net gain isn't worth it unless you have an cost worth paying.

But if you're patient, I suppose it wouldn't be bad.

Decent card if for no other reason than it doesn't require any input (other than leaving it tapped) to charge it up.

This is part of a cycle of "storage lands" from Fallen Empires which are all plagued by their slow, slow speed. At a time when land destruction was so rampant and cheap, this could easily set you back very very far. To give you some idea of how slow these lands are, note that they all enter the battlefield tapped, and then require you to tap to remove counters. To get more benefit than a simple Swamp, you'd need to invest 4(!) turns. Compare this to the oft-reprinted Ebon Stronghold, and that cycle of lands, from the same set, which provide a little optional burst after they come into play tapped.

This card is overshadowed by one of the most powerful and game-defining spells of all time: Dark Ritual. It's simply faster, simpler, and less prone to destruction than this land. It's just way too slow for most black decks, even for its day. It's also sub-optimal because you need to choose to untap it during your untap phase to use it, thus no longer gaining counters. Good luck surprising anybody with your Terror when you do that.

Here's the storage land cycle for the curious:

: Bottomless Vault
: Sand Silos
: Hollow Trees
: Dwarven Hold
: Icatian Store