After reading his article a couple of times, I feel like I can distill his thesis down into the following three arguments: 1
The sheer difficulty of this cards acquisition meant that there are now very few officially distributed copies in circulation, making them exceptionally rare and incredibly desirable by fans and collectors alike
that is, I first pick Stoneforge, then never see a decent equipment card
More backgrounds should use this kind of faint, muted linework albeit not to the extent that it becomes an engagement-bait puzzle on Facebook in the vein of How Many Triangles Do You See? #56: Worldbreakers: Advent of the Khanate Worldbreakers has a very similar card back to Force of Will , but sports a colorful gradient in exchange for a worse title
You can drop things like Phyrexian Soulgorger, or Rotting Regisaur to draw tons of cards and gets massive life loss to smash with early
Arguably, cards like Hard Evidence, Thraben Inspector, and Novice Inspector fulfill a similar role, but they require more mana investment in the long run