Pointed Discussion

will channel emrakul replace channel fireball? next on Fox!

It does seem like the superior play.
And you're still hard-casting him, even, so you get his time-warping effect.
And, if you're lucky, you'll have enough time on your second consecutive turn to gain a bit of life past the lethal Lightning Bolt.
That, and Emrakul, in addition to ending the game in two turns, will completely and utterly shut down any attempts to respond that take more than one turn, which, by the way, they don't have.

Nope. Emrakul is harder to win first turn.

Channeling Emrakul into play is basically game over.

A great example of a card that seemed so harmless (after all, you pay life for the mana, so it's not free!), and yet ended up so broken. I'm surprised this survived print into later sets.

He kind of looks like Uncle Istvan's cousin.

My favorite for this in casual was Gelatinous Genesis. I kept around Dawnglow infusion and manaplasm for hilariously large chained X spells into a monstrosity.

That all said, this also hoses blue by making you immune to tax counterspells; which become expensive Shocks/Bolts to the face.