Sorry editors! I’m ruining your day! (No lol)

If the card only needed one charge counter, maybe it would be decent. Otherwise, it's really only appropriate in Limited.

I’d submitted this article a while ago because no one was mentioning this card and i saw an opportunity. Now I get the joy of watching its price plummet over the last week. Fun! All in all I still love the card, but I should have waited 2 more weeks before buying in because of the Pre-re hype.

All points that were made by Etienne hold true for the most part.

I’m going to hold onto the 80+ that I bought and see what happens mid-long term. With no “man lands” aside from a rotating inkmoth nexus, this is going to be the only “free” creature left! Yes, I still call it “free” because you’re not investing that R1 when you have something else to do, you’re only doing it when opportunity permits. It’s another option, not something you HAVE to do. In the right situation, it will still win games.

Hopefully you’ve at least taken 2x things out of this:
1) Not every spec is a good one. Don’t blindly invest in a spec opp if you don’t feel it, and don’t just listen to a “Joe Random” without thinking about it yourself! I made a move most wouldn’t have and have to pay the price. There was a good article on legitmtg about speculation recently. There was also some twitter heat about sites that “pump and dump” cards. Aka: buy 80 hellion crucible, try to make it sound awesome so more people buy in, raising its price so that the original buyer makes good money on a spec they pumped up. Believe me this was not MY intention. I saw a card, recognized an opportunity (albeit askew), pounced. Learn from my losses!? Lol
2) the part at the bottom explaining how to evaluate a possible spec should still hold true, and should still help you at least compare old playables to new ones. Then again, by that info this should be a good spec, right?

I’m crestfallen about this card / article, but am still holding out some hope, and feel it will still see play, though the amount is now in question. I appreciate the feedback, and certainly feel like a chump on this one!

Nobody’s perfect, and I hope to be of more use next time!
Carl Szalich

Red in M13 is horrible, apart from the Hellkite. Which means mono-red (unlike mono-green, which made out like a bandit) won't be a significant threat until rotation. Once a Standard environment is complete, only the highest powered new cards generally make a difference in an established meta, since both inertia and existing powerful cards play in the favor of existing, well-honed, decks.

In the decks you mentioned, R/U Delver already has bad mana, R/G Aggro has much better things to do with its mana, Wolf Run is already playing too much colorless lands (Cavern of Souls, Glimmerpost), RDW isn't well positioned right now (and this won't be enough to take it to the next level). I'm not sure about Boros tokens and BR Vampires, except that BR Vampire probably don't have room for extra colorless lands.

Regarding some other points in your analysis :
– The Delver matchup : "They pray for Vapor Snag I guess?". With 4 Vapor Snags, 4 Snapcasters, 3-4 Restoration Angels to reset Snapcasters, not to mention the amount of cantripping Delver does, it's not for them to pray for Vapor Snag. It's up to you to pray that they don't have it in hand, in graveyard with a Snapcaster in hand, or in graveyard with a snapcaster in play and an angel in hand. "There is nothing in the Delver deck that stands toe to toe with a Hellion token and survives solo" : well, anything with a Sword of War and Piece on it (which I heard is seeing some amount of play right now), since the token is red.

Now for some of your Magical Christmas Land scenarios:
•"Copy effects like Parallel Lives / Doubling Season" : notsureifthisisserious.gif ? With Doubling Seasons, there are some far more interesting things to do with your mana, and Parallel Lives hasn't seen any amount of play. Tokens are badly positioned right now because Ratchet Bomb is still a card. The token doesn't have any of the strong points of manlands (still a land clause, invulnerable to sorcery speed removal).
•"Them using up a Doom Blade against your token." Since this token costed you a land drop, a card, and 6 mana other 3 turns, them Doom Blading or Vapor Snagging the token is a seriously good tempo play, one of which you are coming out way behind.
•"DoJ on your turn, activate Gideon and Crucible, swing 10." If you have just wiped the board with DOJ and you have an active Gideon, then you are already winning. So this is the exact definition of "win more". I'm also curious to see a deck list that would run Gideon and DOJ and be happy to get rid of its own lands.

"It’s almost even scary to drop this T3 and charge it vs control." Against Control, you would drop this T3, charge it (in essence passing the turn), play a 1-drop T4 and charge it again, and pop it turn 5 for 4 points of Hasty damage ? Either they have a Doom Blade (which they could have kept at the ready, since you didn't do anything of note for 3 turns, which they spent building up their defense, ramping their mana, sculpting their hand…) or not, in which case they eat 4, and drop a Grave Titan on their next turn. Now that Hellion doesn't look so hot anymore… They can also drop a Gideon, a Tamyio, a Ratchet Bomb, miracle an Entreat the Angels, or resurrect an Elesh Norn… Against Control, either you kill them before they establish control, or you go other the top. This card does neither.

"5.Produces something out of nothing. It doesn’t cost a card in hand, just a few turns of activating for a big payoff (5 turn clock)." This does cost you a total of a card, a land drop, and 6 mana over 3 turns, not even mentioning the opportunity cost of running extra colorless lands. That's not "costing nothing". I'm not sure why, in the current environment, you refer to a five turns clock as a "big payoff". This is an environment of Wolfyr Silverhearts, Titans, Rancored Dungrove Elders, and Sworded Restoration Angels. A 4/4 Haste Token sadly doesn't count as a "big payoff". An important part of Haste creatures is the surprise they provide. This does not provide any.

There are some cases were this card is good, and you listed them. If there is a good aggressive deck playing red post-rotation (either mono-red or 2 colors with good mana), this card will probably be good in it. But that doesn't mean the time to buy is right now, and the opportunity window to dump them at a profit will be very small, since aggressive decks typically only dominate for the first weeks of a format.