It is a land, if you need it, but if you dont need the land, it is also a potential removal spell
The only decks that don't happily auto include a Sol Ring when they can are those like RDW and white weenie (sometimes) where the vast majority of the cost of their cards is R or W mana and not colourless
This ability reminds me of a rare in Red (Raging River) that was printed way back in Alpha that divided grounded creatures into two sides of a River and then they could only block or be blocked by that side, so this is a clear call back to that, but color shifted to Azorius, which makes no flavor sense to me
Finally, it has the Welcome Return ability, which states that whenever this character quests, you may return a chosen character of yours with a cost of one to your hand (from your discard pile), and if you do, you may play a character with a cost of one ink for free