Firstly, its very playable in Standard
Your strategy is traditionally what Mono-Blue wants to do: create pressure in a way where you can react to your opponents game plan
While this card has seen a few reprints over the years ( Eighth Edition , Ninth Edition , The Brothers War Retro Artifacts ), the only ones that have unique artworks are the blueprint version from The Brothers War as well as the high-dollar Kaladesh Inventions bonus sheet printing
However, I did find when playing a Black-based deck, that these poor, apathetic creatures doomed to tedium made excellent sacrifices
They were first issued in 1993 with a print run of 26,000 starter decks and 70,000 booster packs
But then my opponent started building up his field