The card sleeves were also a potential marking device: one drawback of traditional card sleeves was that they were typically slightly nonuniform, and therefore a potential way of marking cards in a deck on their own
Of course, drawing up to seven cards is nothing to sniff at, but when youre paying this much mana on your commander you want it to do a little more than that
In this format, threats come not only in the form of creatures, but also artifacts, enchantments, and even planeswalkers
Cao De is the largest Ancient Warriors monster, he can easily Summon himself from hand, he is relatively hard to remove, and he also steals whatever he destroys by battle and sends to GY
The closest equivalent is Vanquishers Banner, which has a similar price in foil but has no special versions besides a retro frame in TSR
They also often lend themselves to a Phyrexian theme