Mai, Scornful Striker might be sideboard material at best, but I expect it to matter a ton against spell-based matchups
We looked at them as Hey, look at these cute little business cards we can give away with our art on them! In that era when the internet was still an obscure, burgeoning thing, APs predominantly functioned as the TCG equivalent of magazine tear sheet for artists something you could hand to an art director to show youve had work printed and were worth hiring
It helps show off a love for a specific card or character, and great custom ones can go even further than that
That is written in the Reminder text for Undying, but the actual text for Undying in Comprehensive rules reads: When this permanent is put into a graveyard from the battlefield
Emrakul though is perhaps the first of this bunch that has a really wide appeal, any go big deck would love a flying 13/13 with trample and protection from instants, let alone a cast trigger that let's you control a player on their next turn
You have a lot of different sizes of Soldiers, and the many level-up creatures give you a nice late game
