Even in this earlier material, Nicol Bolas would be the 'man-behind-the-man' for a series of text stories, which definitely fits the D&D homage
Since support already exists, it is possible that a creature that grows with cheap equipment and still has Lifelink could be good in some matchups
Cavalry Charge (White-Blue-Black deck)100-card ready-to-play March of the Machine Commander Deck with 2 Traditional Foil Legendary cards and 98 nonfoil cards 10 Planechase cards and 1 planar die to trigger unique abilities and jump across the Multiverse 2-card Collector Booster Sample Packcontains 2 special treatment cards from the March of the Machine main set, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare and at least 1 Traditional Foil card Deck introduces 10 never-before-seen MTG cards to Commander Accessories1 Foil-Etched Display Commander, 10 double-sided tokens, Life Tracker, and deck box Growing Threat Commander (1) Creatures (32) Blade Splicer Bloodline Pretender Bone Shredder Burnished Hart Compleated Huntmaster Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor Phyrexian Ghoul Phyrexian Rager Scrap Trawler Shimmer Myr Filigree Vector Graveshifter Master Splicer Vulpine Harvester Cataclysmic Gearhulk Moira and Teshar Phyrexian Delver Psychosis Crawler Shattered Angel Blight Titan Duplicant First-Sphere Gargantua Massacre Wurm Noxious Gearhulk Phyrexian Gargantua Soul of New Phyrexia Angel of the Ruins Darksteel Splicer Meteor Golem Myr Battlesphere Phyrexian Triniform Ancient Stone Idol Instants (6) Swords to Plowshares Despark Go for the Throat Excise the Imperfect Mortify Utter End Sorceries (6) Night's Whisper Victimize Ambition's Cost Path of the Schemer Yawgmoth's Vile Offering Phyrexian Rebirth Enchantment (1) Artifacts (16) Sol Ring Wayfarer's Bauble Arcane Signet Fractured Powerstone Mind Stone Orzhov Signet Talisman of Hierarchy Bitterthorn, Nissa's Animus Commander's Sphere Nettlecyst Orzhov Locket Sculpting Steel Hedron Archive Ichor Elixir Scytheclaw Coveted Jewel Lands (38) Bojuka Bog Command Tower Evolving Wilds Exotic Orchard Fetid Heath Goldmire Bridge Karn's Bastion Path of Ancestry Plains x10 Shineshadow Snarl Silverquill Campus Spire of Industry Swamp x13 Tainted Field Temple of Silence Terramorphic Expanse Vault of the Archangel Commander, Theme, and Strategy Growing Threat is led by Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos, the compleated version of Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Phylath is especially good in budget Landfall lists as the basics are less of a restriction there
Stuff like Snuff Out or Dismember are already heavily played cards, but here, you get to draw a card from them because you lost 4 life, and you also get to drain your opponents for 2 life, offsetting your life loss
