Decent as a two-drop, Hobgoblin Captain can become your opponents nightmare with Pact Tacticsgaining First Strike until the end of the turn
This way, you can create a well-tuned and optimized deck that can hold its own in any playgroup
Beyond that, green also offers you ways to add extra lands to the board, even at instant speed
Fifteen is a whole lot of toughness and protection from spells rules out the majority of the cube answers
It features Mishra, the Grixis-aligned brother from the titular war, squaring off against his brother Urza (Esper-aligned at this time, and also just as much of a war criminal as Mishra)
Its flexible, but this red instant still hits your own board, so it rewards decks whose creatures naturally survive (big toughness), or decks that dont care about their creatures living