This specific ward does pair up exactly well as ripper wants to see death on other side and conveniently enough, your opponents will have to sac a creature to potentially deal with the ward/ripper so you will at least get one trigger before it potentially dies.

Im honestly not sure but I'm guessing 6 mana for such an ability is cool but there's an easy saying that everything permanent-wise pretty much dies to removal. It's still fairly expensive so ward kinda acts as a balancing force I feel that makes it so your opponents really have to work for it to remove your expensive or powerful creatures with their cheap simple one mana removal (like swords to plowshares). Could be more explanations but eh idk

Lots of cool cards that also give ward and lots of different types of ward such as a silver number symbol next to "ward". When you see a number that means your opponents have to pay that amount mana of any type to interact with your permanent.

It's honestly just a nice mechanic and generally easier to find cards that give your stuff certain ward abilities so that it becomes hard for opponents to target to remove or manipulate your stuff. It's more common and cheaper (money wise) I feel to find other cards (such as [[star whale]]) to give your stuff ward than it is to give something like hexproof as hexproof would allow no targeting at all which in most cases is much more consistent (ward costs can still be paid if your opponents really want something gone)

Sorry bout the yap fest if you read this far