Raphael, the Nightwatcher I'm sneaking Blade Historian in for one less mana which is a huge difference, as is the element of surprise
That way you had two combos in the deck to use to pull out, which makes it pretty unique for dominant combo decks
Both can protect from exile removal on your creatures, too, which is nice to have
You can notably use its second ability on Sazh itself, so it can attack as a 5/5 at minimum and potentially even more if you have other ways to place +1/+1 counters on it
These elemental kin were named similarly and visually close to the Flamekin from Lorwyn, but were distinct in a number of ways
When it ETbs, you choose a creature type and then it arrives with your number of those you control in counters and that kindred type is increased in size by the counters