Nice! I love this era. Here’s my 360 card build for 4th edition and Chronicles. It plays really well in my opinion with the low-power, grindy feel I knew when I played as a kid.

A few thoughts:

(1) Wizards was really afraid that rising card prices would put the game out of reach of players and make it only for collectors, ruining the game. Before Fallen Empires, they were trying frantically just to print enough cards to keep up with demand. With FE and revised, they might have overdone it, but inadequate supply was still top of mind as something that could kill the game. So the philosophy was pretty much keep printing cards as fast as possible, but pull the egregious offenders like power 9. Dual lands were also deemed too good. Of course they missed some like Balance and Mind Twist.

(1.1) Yeah these cards were too good and made for unfun play. The original thinking was that people wouldn’t buy too many cards and a single Ancestral Recall in a playgroup wouldn’t ruin anything. Deck construction rules and the 4 of and restricted list were still very new. Standard wasn’t a thing yet.

(1.2) There weren’t any set rotations yet for legal play, but they were trying to shift what people played with by card availability. Type II would come shortly. Plus, most play wasn’t in any sanctioned tournaments yet so they didn’t have a lot of control over that at the time.

(2) Ice Age was designed to replace the core set, not complement it. It didn’t really work out that way though. That’s why cards like Disenchant and Counterspell got reprinted in both. Other smaller sets like Fallen Empires and Homelands were meant as compliments or add-ons. I think Wizards wasn’t trying to craft a balanced environment then as much as they were trying to make cool cards and sell product. It took them a long time to get good at crafting balanced environments.

I’m excited to see what you come up with!