The former could hit cards like Birthing Pod, Cryptic Command and Splinter Twin all of which were important, but the latter was better versus Burn and Zoo, and also back then manabases were a lot more painful as decks were more reliant on Shocklands, which meant a turn one Thoughtseize commonly saw you at 15 life from the get-go
A Damnation and some other damage based boardwipes would fit into the list nicely if I had gone that way, but I didn't have any of those cards available as I was assembling this list
War Barge Creatures with islandwalk can be underwhelming because they dont tend to have other abilities, but War Barge can help you solve that
Wormfang Crab (Odyssey/Torment/Judgment) The Crab came with a hefty drawback - your opponent got to zonk any problem card of their choice from your side of the board
I love playing PDH (Pauper Commander) and Precons and these are Staples of playing with Power (without the tremendous $ expense!) at the most basic levels of multiplayer
Kalamax, the Stormsire could use this card as another value piece, Veyran, Voice of Duality shows up again, to speed up the hatching and to deal even more damage with the flipped side