First was this: These cards use the +1/+1 counter as a means to permanently grow something else (and to be fair only Weaponsmith did this out right, Transmogrant kind of hinted at it without directly naming the +1/+1 counterthis would later be fixed in Oracle)
For a Commander deck, I start with 8 packages of 8 cards
Wrap Up Magus of the Wheel | Illustration by Carl Frank Reds card draw isnt great compared to the other colors, but you can make it work as a reasonable approximation in the right builds
For one generic mana and one blue mana, Borne Upon a Wind , when successfully cast, allows you to cast all spells at instant speed while drawing you a card
Looking through the list of the included cards, there is a lot here that I wish were not present
The slight downsides of Baneslayer as life gain is that it is five mana and has no immediate change on the life totals