It is very hard for your opponents to interact with, as most of your spells will have split second thanks to Shadow's chaos control ability
To figure out if your card is the first edition, you'll need to look at the bottom right corner of the card
If that massive cost wasn't surprising enough, a look back at its rise from below $500 to now will hammer home the point
Blossoming Tortoise If you want to combine self-mill with a bit of ramp, Blossoming Tortoise was designed for you
Yes, you have to wait a turn to use it (or give it haste) and discard a card, but that is frequently a very worthwhile trade, especially in a color known for drawing cards
Incubator // Phyrexian token The instruction to incubate will include a number which indicates how many +1/+1 counters to put on the Incubator token