his ult makes for perfect initiation, a giant reverse axe call
and his skillset makes him quite XP reliant, but not so farm reliant.
sorta like puck, except less reliant on getting the blink, get a core item or two, move yourself from position 2 to 3. a good scaling offlaner like void or bb could replace him fairly efficiently.
synergy between his ult and others looks amazing. jakiro, phoenix, darkseer and warlock ults sound particularly appetizing.