As it was a Knight and white-black (the two colors with the most Knights), Knight tribal seemed like a cool theme
If you ever see someone discard two lands to Bandits Talent in the early game, its a great time to follow up with targeted discard whatever non-lands they hold are clearly worth protecting
In fact, those two cards chain together superbly: casting a Rampant Growth on turn two allows you to cast Explosive Vegetation on turn three and start turn four with seven lands in play
Noncopy effects that have already applied to Identity Thief will continue to apply to it
Its also fair to point out that WotCs design and test process wasnt nearly as advanced as it currently is, with sets being tested a few months prior to the release
Equally, it is pretty hard to kill her in combat, you need a very significant board advantage, or at least 5 power worth of evasion dorks, necessarily split up over at least two bodies due to the -3 ability on Elspeth