The discussion for Cackling Flames on Gatherer clearly shows that the people judging cards from back in the day are often doing it without playing them. Cackling Flames is boss. It's what made Incinerate have to go bye-bye in my set. If you are playing red 'the right way', you shouldn't have any cards in your hand anyway. Dealing 5 damage to target creature or player for turns out to be very good.

Wow, calling Dissension "back in the day" makes me feel old...

It's interesting to compare this to Brimstone Volley.

Back in the when? Is this some kind of newfangled post-legends set?

Anyway. Mmmm.... It's not lightning bolt 5-8, but yes, it's a nice chunk of damage ratio. (Incinerate is still worth using, nuking regenerators is occasionally nice, but it is mainly bolt 5-8 paying the cost to have more copies.)

Well, that's my "Too old to have played with 'back in the day' cards pennysworth :)

One thing I dislike about this is that you pretty much HAVE to run it in pure aggro. It's not a sensible thing to splash. Which is a shame. Brimstone volley would seem to partly help that - many more decks want (or can't stop) creatures dying than want to empty their hands.

Mmm. That's a fair assessment. For draft, it's removal and gets taken early no matter what your deck looks like. In that sense, it pushes you to make your deck faster. For constructed, however, it only really 'works' when you expect Hellbent. I suppose I can appreciate the negative comments on Gatherer, even if I disagree with them. This card doesn't work in the type of decks they play.