With Ranar the Ever-Watchful as your Commander , you can create flying spirit tokens whenever you foretell or exile a card, steadily building board presence
The second card was Up the Beanstalk, a throwaway uncommon from Wilds of Eldraine that was intended to support a limited archetype about casting expensive stuff but ended up being hilariously broken in just about every format it was legal in
If they die this turn, you get the experience
Both the Junun Efreet and Juzam Djinn are examples of 'price of power' flavouring, with the Djinn dealing damage to the summoner every turn, while the Efreet demands a price just to maintain it on the field
I love cards that can make my cards uncounterable
That's not to say the block is perfect - many of the cards, which set benchmarks at the time, have been made obsolete by later evolutions, and some of the guild mechanics were more successful than others