3 Thunderclap Drake There's value, and then there's this thing Let's compare Thunderclap Drake to Mindsplice Apparatus, Jace's Sanctum, or even Mocking Sprite
It contains everything from the expected (Clone One of the clones that I was loathe to exclude from this deck was, ironically enough, one of the major reasons I wanted to build it in the first place: Jwari Shapeshifter
The rules text on cipher cards says, encoded on a creature you control, and though it might seems that means you are targeting your creature, you're not without the target language
Cumulative Upkeep was a mechanic used from 1995 to 1997, though it was brought back for Coldsnap for the sake of continuity with Ice Age, which was the first set to use the mechanic
By shockingly affordable, I mean Im pleasantly surprised at how cheaply you can pick up copies of Boromir now, despite the fact that he easily slots into literally any white deck thats playing even a minimal number of creatures
It's never great to give your enemies the option of losing life to save their creatures, but black has plenty of ways to turn life loss to their advantage