These made sense from two angles: First, these were top-down Egyptian-inspired sets, and d4s look suspiciously like those pointy triangle things everyone associates with Egypt
Otherwise known as a Stripped Deck, a modified deck is simply a deck of cards that has been reduced by removing a card or several from the original 52-card deck
It cares about more expensive spells rather than just cantrips and cheap interaction, so it plays a little differently than typical spellslinger decks
Queen of Hearts, Capricious Monarch Off with the opponents head
To determine the total cost of a spell, start with the mana cost or alternative cost you're paying (such as a flashback cost), add any cost increases (such as kicker costs), then apply any cost reductions (such as that of Lyse Hext's second ability)
So just make a rectangle of that size and align the main card area against that