Near-Mint, Lightly Played, Heavily Played, etc are all blanket statements to describe the current condition of a card
It's strong everywhere, but it has enhanced value in archetypes that care about counters generally, +1/+1 counters specifically, proliferate tricks for multicolor brews looking to add loyalty counters for their planeswalkers, four and five-color decks, Commanders with evasion, Commanders with a power that, when increased by 1 get a faster kill, Equipment, Aura, and Voltron decks looking to get in kills with their Commander, and loads more
It stops all triggers that happen when a card dies
Kozilek, the Great Distortion Poor Kozilek often seems to be on the weaker side of the family, but Kozilek, the Great Distortion has mainly seen play as a colorless commander with colorless mana in the mana cost
If you're low on cards, for example, they'll Knock Out Bibarel