Its used to keep threats under control, to interrupt combos, and to prevent players from snowballing out of control
As such, it still takes time and effort to set up
And while it cant double all of your counters, the fact you can sink mana into it to double the counters on one of your creatures is bound to be a powerful effect on most board states
Alpharael, Stonechosen is one of these, and you can combine it with cards that make players lose twice the amount of life to straight up win, like Bloodletter of Aclazotz
These creatures get HUGE in Commander games, often with powers of 100 or more
It is a one-mana legendary monkey pirate creature at 2/2 that, when it deals combat damage to an opposing player, creates a treasure token and exiles the top card of the defending player's library, and you can cast that card until the end of the turn