Pointed Discussion

fading never does much good. this guy costs 4 and he dies in 4 or less turns.

Run with Cavern Harpy for much annoyance to your opponent.

taps 4 creatures and gives you a blocker for a turn. Not half bad

A decent combo card. Can be used with proliferate, and can combo well with cards that destroy tapped creatures one way or another like Royal Assassin, Norritt or you could reasonably have three fade counters left the turn after you play it to tap three creatures for Sunblast Angel to smash. Also could clear the path for a mass attack in a Merfolk deck, but isn't so splashable since it takes two blue.

This would be awesome as a 3/3.
Still rather useful if you flicker him (or Momentary Blink him) or bounce him (e.g. with Trusted Advisor, so this doesn't cost you additional mana).

With Gilder Bairn this should easily get your opponent's side tapped (except for the untargetable ones, like Silhana Ledgewalker or Goblin Piledriver.)

Have this card and Arctic Merfolk in your Merfolk Deck and you're good to go:D Such a pain

Use with Gilder Bairn to tap it, then add lots of counters, then tap down a whole lot of things.