While it was relatively rare to see cards banned in Standard before the release of Magic the Gathering: Arena, the sheer volume of games being played today means that players identify key strategies much faster
For whatever strength of your opponent's monster, you get to special summon a monster with equivalent attack, meaning you can keep your defensive line going
Path to Exile Path to Exile is brilliantly efficient, even if it comes with some costs
Because any deck can run them, their power needs to be mitigated so they dont overwhelm the meta, as we saw with The One Rings domination of Modern: Practically every deck could run it, so they did
This monster can copy the stats of other monsters that your opponent controls
Zendikar had a strong counter and token theme (as many of my designs do), and it was the perfect fit