An-Zerrin Ruins Lets time-travel back to 1995 for a minute
With Braids around, cards like Hopeless Nightmare and Tithing Blade become extra powerful: They do something good when they enter, and you can sacrifice them to punish your opponents
She also grows them, meaning you need fewer in play to try and kill an opponent keeping your hand fuller
6th Edition is in my "Magic gap" of 1997-2001 where I wasn't actively playing, so I'm not sure if it was designed to be drafted, and the interwebs were less helpful than usual, but I believe so.) Note that there still would be a small amount of Pauper cards without the proper rarity color coding from Mirage block and Tempest, but that would be it
And without any dual lands or additional mana fixing, a 16-land deck with an 8/8 split of basics is just barely hitting both minimums
Making your characters into ink lets you play bigger/more characters later