If Shatter is consistently "good enough" (unlike, say, Gray Ogre), then the times when we get a card that is even better than (the quite playable) Shatter should signal us to clear opportunities for additional value
While you control Into the Pit, you can look at the top card of your library whenever you want (with one restriction
This allows us to make cards that showcase things that happened off-camera in a sense, which we can show on different kinds of cards (for example, artifacts, enchantments, or land) rather than something like a creature card
Populate also synergizes well with other token-centric mechanics, such as Embalm with cards like Angel of Sanctions
Creature - Bird Monk Color tag templates(None) Riptide Turtle Creature - Turtle Color tag templates(None) Snow Fortress Defender (This creature can't attack.) : This creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn
Anytime you cast a Pegasus, Unicorn, or Horse spell, you get to copy that card