You know, I understand this is an EDH/Joke card, I cant help but feel it is a staggeringly powerful card. Let's not look at the wincon for a moment and just focus on the life gain. In vintage where you are casting and cycling a ton of spells all the time, you are going to gain a ton of life. The gain increases for every single spell, which means you are gaining 1, then 2, then 3, etc.
With cantrips, Gushes, Gitaxian Probes, Ancestral, this card can very rapidly gain you a lot of life. Functional this works in storm decks pretty well, and could be its own belcher type of thing, except without the hatred of land cards. It also works on your opponents turns so it can mess up combat math which is actually becoming more relevant with creature decks being front and center.
Now the Pay 50 life thing is excessive, but I can easily imagine times where you will hit that number in vintage. If your opponent is trying to kill you with blightsteel or has an all at once strategy, you basically only need to gain 31 life to win. 8 spells in a turn will do that from starting life, assuming none of the other spells gain you life or lose it.
Am I off here, or is this belcher 2.0?