Pushing your deck above 60 (or 40) cards makes it harder to find key cards, increases the risk of "mana flood" (drawing only lands, so you have nothing to cast) and "mana screw" (drawing too few lands, so you can't cast any of the spells in your hand), and makes it more likely that you'll draw unplayable hands
Its better than proliferating because the creatures dont have to already have the +1/+1 counters on them (although it obviously isnt going to help with other kinds of counters)
While these cards were technically prizes, as anyone who has played a TCG at a competitive level knows, those cards were far from free considering the time, money, and effort that it takes to win a tournament
To force your opponent to discard an entire hand is akin to death, especially if that affects 3+ cards
The card also has Cypher, meaning that in theory you can do this every combat