The solution isn't "Value Brain Freeze", the solution is Combo-Control Brain Freeze.
Combo-Control isn't about "value" plays, exactly. It's about working from an axis where the combo isn't the be-all, end-all of the deck; the combo is a way to "oops, I win" while relying on otherwise perfectly sound, standardized win routes of controlling the board state and getting something big into the red zone for 20. It's not a matter of "I'm going to use this as a sweet value play"; it's a matter of, "I'm going to win the game with this card, without relying on four copies of Manamorphose and Gitaxian Probe to do it".
Consider Sulfuric Vortex for a moment. It does 2 damage a turn. Your opponent has 20 life. That's a long wait to win on its own, right? So why bother?
Except everyone knows that Sulfuric Vortex is nuts. It isn't about dealing 2 damage over 10 turns; it's about shitting damage in your opponent's face and holding the box of baby wipes that is life gain out of their reach in such a way that, either through an accelerated process (ie, doing other damage) or a durdly one (ie, well now they've board wiped but they have no board presence and 5 life), it's gonna lock the game down for you.
Think of Brain Freeze Combo-Control in that same vein. Does it win the game for you in one turn? No, not likely. But it can go a long way towards shutting the game down in your favour, by rapidly depleting the number of turns your opponent can win in, and you can position its deployment in such a way to mill them out and win on the spot if you're clever about it.
Let me get one thing perfectly clear here: I run Sorin's Vengeance. It's a very successful Combo-Control card over here.
Look at my list. It's not especially low-powered. Who the Hell has the time to cast Sorin's Vengeance twice? It doesn't seem like anyone would, to the casual eye. And yet, in the grand wonderful majesty that is my cube, it's a deck that has gotten off the ground a few times since its addition not too long ago. When it doesn't deal a clean 20 in a turn or two and generate a laugh riot, it's maybe dealing 10 (and cranking you up 10 life, as well), and that's enough because something else can "get there" instead. And of course, there's the simple fact that, sometimes, you just don't get there. You lose.
The point of Sorin's Vengeance in my list is not explicitly to combo out a win in one turn, but because it's an exciting card to play that has the potential to win you the game, potentially on its own if you plan it right. It it optimal? No, I'd guess not. But is in fun? Hell. Yes.
"Now, wait," you say; "Sorin's Vengeance at least works off a traditional axis! You want to deal damage to win; mill is targeting a different axis than life to win, deck size, and it's a much slower, less reliable one!" Well, that's true, yes. But it's also 2 mana as a combo-control win con, as opposed to a full 7. It's instant speed as opposed to sorcery. It helps to close the door on stalled board wins better than damage, which can be pushed back against with life gain. It has a much lower floor, true, but a significantly higher ceiling, and at a very low opportunity cost. It's also a way to win with mill, which is completely hilarious and memorable and fun, especially when you have to do a little leg-work for it.
I want to draw attention to a particular statement in your post.
Now, I have a few responses to this.
In the first place, the mythical 8+ 1-drop aggro deck is going to wreck a lot of plans. This is a boogeyman you can trot out in response to virtually any card that isn't a defensive low-drop or a board wipe. As such, I don't find it especially useful in the abstract, and it feels a lot like a repurposing of "dies to Doom Blade" mentality. If your format is defined by game-stomping, 8+ 1-drop aggro decks, it's probably time to take some toys away from aggro. Most players know full well that aggro is going to be a problem if their deck runs slower, and as such, make picks in draft to mitigate against this. If a 2-mana, late game spell is too slow and taking up too much valuable deck space that could've been devoted to anti-aggro tools, I sincerely think that the 2-mana, late game spell is not the problem; it's this absurdly powerful aggro deck that's consistently playing solitaire against a garbage control toolkit, which has likely been repeatedly neutered trying to ease Timmy feel-bads and which is now being wrecked by Spike's boring aggro deck.
But to address this 8+ 1-drop aggro deck... Firebolt? Magma Jet? Radiant Flames? Essence Scatter? Condescend? I'm not really 100% sure what pieces of early disruption I'd need in this scenario, but they're pieces I'm sure to pick into in any control deck if I can get my hands on them. I follow the "Legacy" model of cube design pushed here a lot, ie a strong focus on skewing my curve downward, so over 70% of my cube is CMC <4. My "Control Decks" are not all stacked with 6+ drops; they rely on pieces all along the curve, because my environ is highly interactive at all points on the curve. So it's as simple as waiting for a T7 Think Twice, Think Twice (flashback), Brain Freeze in response to an opponent's play to cut them down to 14 cards. If they played two spells that turn, they're down to 11. If they've drawn any cards this game, which is likely, they're down even more. If I can Brain Freeze again next turn, I'm gonna win. If I can Magus of the Wheel and Compulsive Research, I'm gonna win. If I can find a Mesmeric Orb or a Collective Defiance, I'm gonna win.
It's not all in one turn, no. It might even involve stalling the game out for another 5 or more turns. But my format can tolerate that. Since we're in the Low Power Card Spotlight thread, I would hope that the idea of 2 mana and a card's worth of breathing room would not be entirely foreign. I would hope also that the idea of a combo-control mill package being viable would be reasonable, as well - if we're going lower power level, I think the explicit point is to pack in more silly bullshit, isn't it?
And what has this cost me? All of these card draw tools/potential mill tools are things I would gladly run in any control deck, anyway. The only thing that's not a windmill slam pick is Brain Freeze. So why run it? Because it's fun, and because I like the challenge of shaping a game state where I can win through mill. That's not for everyone, granted! But winning through mill is a lot of fun to me, and my drafters like to go for mill wins of their own for fun. So I can see Brain Freeze working out very well, and if anything, too easily.
They key point here is that Brain Freeze does not have to be deck-defining. Combo-Control does not mean "loses without combo". That's kind of the whole point - that you can win without the combo.
An anecdote, which has some relevance, I think: I played a TON of Eternal Masters drafts. Do you know how many games I won off Dream Twist and stalling? The answer is "way more than is reasonable". And that's utilizing anywhere from 1-3 Dream Twists as a very half-assed way to win through mill and synergize with Memory Lapse. I went 2-1 twice with 1 Dream Twist (and 2-1 and 3-0 many times off 3+ Dream Twist). That's the Combo-Control dream right there; tying up the game and getting an "oops, I win" off a bullshit play. Was mill my primary goal of these decks? Not always. It was usually something way more stupid than that. But mill as a backup plan isn't unreasonable in a lot of formats. Control and midrange matchups can be very favourable to it! Straight-up aggro, less so, but it's not too difficult to initiate a stall there and win through a slow mill game, either, once you can throw them off the T4 win trail with some smart removal or blockers.
tl;dr - Combo-Control is cool and I think Brain Freeze is generally gonna be the easiest Combo-Control oops-I-win card to structure around, and now I feel almost compelled to run it and prove how busted it is after defending it as being pretty strong for so long.
Combo-Control isn't about "value" plays, exactly. It's about working from an axis where the combo isn't the be-all, end-all of the deck; the combo is a way to "oops, I win" while relying on otherwise perfectly sound, standardized win routes of controlling the board state and getting something big into the red zone for 20. It's not a matter of "I'm going to use this as a sweet value play"; it's a matter of, "I'm going to win the game with this card, without relying on four copies of Manamorphose and Gitaxian Probe to do it".
Consider Sulfuric Vortex for a moment. It does 2 damage a turn. Your opponent has 20 life. That's a long wait to win on its own, right? So why bother?
Except everyone knows that Sulfuric Vortex is nuts. It isn't about dealing 2 damage over 10 turns; it's about shitting damage in your opponent's face and holding the box of baby wipes that is life gain out of their reach in such a way that, either through an accelerated process (ie, doing other damage) or a durdly one (ie, well now they've board wiped but they have no board presence and 5 life), it's gonna lock the game down for you.
Think of Brain Freeze Combo-Control in that same vein. Does it win the game for you in one turn? No, not likely. But it can go a long way towards shutting the game down in your favour, by rapidly depleting the number of turns your opponent can win in, and you can position its deployment in such a way to mill them out and win on the spot if you're clever about it.
Let me get one thing perfectly clear here: I run Sorin's Vengeance. It's a very successful Combo-Control card over here.
Look at my list. It's not especially low-powered. Who the Hell has the time to cast Sorin's Vengeance twice? It doesn't seem like anyone would, to the casual eye. And yet, in the grand wonderful majesty that is my cube, it's a deck that has gotten off the ground a few times since its addition not too long ago. When it doesn't deal a clean 20 in a turn or two and generate a laugh riot, it's maybe dealing 10 (and cranking you up 10 life, as well), and that's enough because something else can "get there" instead. And of course, there's the simple fact that, sometimes, you just don't get there. You lose.
The point of Sorin's Vengeance in my list is not explicitly to combo out a win in one turn, but because it's an exciting card to play that has the potential to win you the game, potentially on its own if you plan it right. It it optimal? No, I'd guess not. But is in fun? Hell. Yes.
"Now, wait," you say; "Sorin's Vengeance at least works off a traditional axis! You want to deal damage to win; mill is targeting a different axis than life to win, deck size, and it's a much slower, less reliable one!" Well, that's true, yes. But it's also 2 mana as a combo-control win con, as opposed to a full 7. It's instant speed as opposed to sorcery. It helps to close the door on stalled board wins better than damage, which can be pushed back against with life gain. It has a much lower floor, true, but a significantly higher ceiling, and at a very low opportunity cost. It's also a way to win with mill, which is completely hilarious and memorable and fun, especially when you have to do a little leg-work for it.
I want to draw attention to a particular statement in your post.
Now, I have a few responses to this.
In the first place, the mythical 8+ 1-drop aggro deck is going to wreck a lot of plans. This is a boogeyman you can trot out in response to virtually any card that isn't a defensive low-drop or a board wipe. As such, I don't find it especially useful in the abstract, and it feels a lot like a repurposing of "dies to Doom Blade" mentality. If your format is defined by game-stomping, 8+ 1-drop aggro decks, it's probably time to take some toys away from aggro. Most players know full well that aggro is going to be a problem if their deck runs slower, and as such, make picks in draft to mitigate against this. If a 2-mana, late game spell is too slow and taking up too much valuable deck space that could've been devoted to anti-aggro tools, I sincerely think that the 2-mana, late game spell is not the problem; it's this absurdly powerful aggro deck that's consistently playing solitaire against a garbage control toolkit, which has likely been repeatedly neutered trying to ease Timmy feel-bads and which is now being wrecked by Spike's boring aggro deck.
But to address this 8+ 1-drop aggro deck... Firebolt? Magma Jet? Radiant Flames? Essence Scatter? Condescend? I'm not really 100% sure what pieces of early disruption I'd need in this scenario, but they're pieces I'm sure to pick into in any control deck if I can get my hands on them. I follow the "Legacy" model of cube design pushed here a lot, ie a strong focus on skewing my curve downward, so over 70% of my cube is CMC <4. My "Control Decks" are not all stacked with 6+ drops; they rely on pieces all along the curve, because my environ is highly interactive at all points on the curve. So it's as simple as waiting for a T7 Think Twice, Think Twice (flashback), Brain Freeze in response to an opponent's play to cut them down to 14 cards. If they played two spells that turn, they're down to 11. If they've drawn any cards this game, which is likely, they're down even more. If I can Brain Freeze again next turn, I'm gonna win. If I can Magus of the Wheel and Compulsive Research, I'm gonna win. If I can find a Mesmeric Orb or a Collective Defiance, I'm gonna win.
It's not all in one turn, no. It might even involve stalling the game out for another 5 or more turns. But my format can tolerate that. Since we're in the Low Power Card Spotlight thread, I would hope that the idea of 2 mana and a card's worth of breathing room would not be entirely foreign. I would hope also that the idea of a combo-control mill package being viable would be reasonable, as well - if we're going lower power level, I think the explicit point is to pack in more silly bullshit, isn't it?
And what has this cost me? All of these card draw tools/potential mill tools are things I would gladly run in any control deck, anyway. The only thing that's not a windmill slam pick is Brain Freeze. So why run it? Because it's fun, and because I like the challenge of shaping a game state where I can win through mill. That's not for everyone, granted! But winning through mill is a lot of fun to me, and my drafters like to go for mill wins of their own for fun. So I can see Brain Freeze working out very well, and if anything, too easily.
They key point here is that Brain Freeze does not have to be deck-defining. Combo-Control does not mean "loses without combo". That's kind of the whole point - that you can win without the combo.
An anecdote, which has some relevance, I think: I played a TON of Eternal Masters drafts. Do you know how many games I won off Dream Twist and stalling? The answer is "way more than is reasonable". And that's utilizing anywhere from 1-3 Dream Twists as a very half-assed way to win through mill and synergize with Memory Lapse. I went 2-1 twice with 1 Dream Twist (and 2-1 and 3-0 many times off 3+ Dream Twist). That's the Combo-Control dream right there; tying up the game and getting an "oops, I win" off a bullshit play. Was mill my primary goal of these decks? Not always. It was usually something way more stupid than that. But mill as a backup plan isn't unreasonable in a lot of formats. Control and midrange matchups can be very favourable to it! Straight-up aggro, less so, but it's not too difficult to initiate a stall there and win through a slow mill game, either, once you can throw them off the T4 win trail with some smart removal or blockers.
tl;dr - Combo-Control is cool and I think Brain Freeze is generally gonna be the easiest Combo-Control oops-I-win card to structure around, and now I feel almost compelled to run it and prove how busted it is after defending it as being pretty strong for so long.
