This card is pretty powerful in limited. Bonesplitter is already an absurd common in that regard, and the toughness boost makes this much better, though of course it costs more for non-colorless. I'd be pretty happy to first pick this every time.
For those asking for Vindicate, incidental land destruction tends to lead to far worse gameplay than dedicated land destruction spells like Stone Rain. It takes a lot of effort to make use of a dedicated land destruction card, whereas it's a lot more likely that your opponent is playing Vindicate for the universal removal and you just happen to have a land-light draw, causing you to lose instantly. Having those types of land destruction spells around amplifies the natural variance of Magic's mana system, especially in a multicolor environment where manabases will be more vulnerable than usual.
Elesh Norn always has such a grace and beauty about her despite being an inhuman abomination. I loved her original art and her new art (in Rout) is just as glorious.
Green always has the best manafixing, since its ramp spells tend to allow you to fix mana also. Because of that, and because Standard dual lands have generally been very good in the last decade, there's rarely any reason to stay in monogreen. Monogreen is rarely a deck not because green isn't strong, but because it has an easy time adding a second or third color (usually red and/or white), and that's not a bad thing. Hence, the easiest way for WotC to make monogreen show up is to significantly reduce Standard mana fixing, and that's not something I expect to happen.
I like cycles best when all of the cards are playable and somewhat even in power level. By that regard, the Titan cycle is the shining pinnacle of card balance, as each card of that cycle has seen significant Standard play and been the "best Titan" in Standard at one point. Currently, the five Theros gods are fairly well balanced with each other; while some (Thassa, God of the Sea) are definitely better than others (Nylea, God of the Hunt), all are quite powerful and playable in Standard given the right environment. Sadly, the multicolor gods don't live up to that standard, as some are mind-bogglingly bad (Karametra, God of Harvests), while others are playable and quite a bit stronger (Xenagos, God of Revels, not the mention the JOU gods).
A lot of good points so far, but I'd like to emphasize the fact that the life loss matters. While the first copy isn't too painful, if you play 4x Probes in your deck, you're bound to draw multiples at some point, and they do start to hurt if you need to pay for more than one (much like shocklands). I've played the Modern Storm vs Burn matchup a few times, and it's pretty difficult for storm because all of your life payments (fetchlands, shocklands, Probes) make it very easy for them to kill you by turn 4 or even earlier, so you get punished harshly for stumbling or losing the die roll. The card is strong enough that you'd still play it if you can take special advantage of the card (for the information in combo decks, or for synergy in Delver/Snapcaster decks), but you shouldn't just jam it in a typical deck, especially if you can't pay for it without life.
If Mono-U is a deck post-rotation, it's going to play this. Really, Judge's Familiar might be bad enough that this is worth playing over it. The deck is already willing to play a 1/1 flier for U with marginal upside, and the upside on this thing is huge if you get to 7 mana, which, given that mono-U plays 25 lands, happens a good amount of the time.
When it comes to building on a budget, you're much better off playing a deck that doesn't want expensive cards than trying to replace expensive cards with worse alternatives. That said, Vendilion Clique is rarely that central to a deck's plans, so you can usually tweak a deck to minimize Clique's role if necessary.
There wasn't that much broken stuff in Scourge. Just Mind's Desire, Tendrils of Agony, and Stifle.
The storm mechanic in general causes problems. To add to that list, Brain Freeze would be pretty annoying as well. Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens cause enough problems in Modern without adding another batch of storm cards.
I think the best argument for starting with 8th Edition is that Modern gets to avoid Scourge. Now, WotC can just selectively reprint fun old cards in Modern Masters that they want in Modern but not Standard, like Pernicious Deed, Cabal Therapy, Wishes, and the like, without having to live with the less fun cards like Tendrils of Agony, Rishadan Port, and Daze.
I have been playing Magic for roughly six years. The prices are absolutely outrageous for someone in my town and especially of my age. Wizards, I would think, would like to pull in new players and further enlarge their product. The prices don't allow for younger audiences to be introduced into the game. I'm 18 and one of the youngest people playing competitive Magic in my town. Do you think Wizards will at some point try to intervene with reprints or a clever way of driving down the prices? Thanks!
While Magic as a whole is aimed at a wide spectrum of age groups, tournament play is more intended for the college and older crowd, who are more likely to have enough disposable income to play top tier decks, and more likely to have the transportation to go to larger events like PTQs and GPs. Most younger players play casually, with friends and/or at school, so they can play on basically any budget (this was how I played, growing up). Some younger players do play at local tournaments like FNMs, but they don't need a top tier deck to compete at FNM, and even then they need some lenient parents willing to enable their Magic playing.
So no, don't expect WotC to massively drive down their own prices. Younger players have no problem being introduced to and hooked on casual Magic. If you don't have the money to play in tournaments now, just play casually with friends, or build budget decks to play at FNM (or get a part time job, or get really good at convincing your parents). It'll get much easier once you're out of college and have a full time job.
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Because that's what Emrakul really needs: +2/+2.
This is not the reason why a Phenax deck isn't a real thing.
The storm mechanic in general causes problems. To add to that list, Brain Freeze would be pretty annoying as well. Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens cause enough problems in Modern without adding another batch of storm cards.
So no, don't expect WotC to massively drive down their own prices. Younger players have no problem being introduced to and hooked on casual Magic. If you don't have the money to play in tournaments now, just play casually with friends, or build budget decks to play at FNM (or get a part time job, or get really good at convincing your parents). It'll get much easier once you're out of college and have a full time job.