Sure, we got a lot fewer Pokmon and Yu-Gi-Oh movies, but really, any form of promotional tie-in disappeared
While its a lot harder to play Ponder without fetchlands, it has been done to great effect on plenty of occasions
A powerful reanimation/recursion creature makes an excellent commander
There are a couple of decent questers with high Willpower and high lore value in this deck, like Robin Hood, Daydreamer and Starkey, Devious Pirate, but more often than not you'll get more value out of steadily questing with an unanswered Don Karnage than you will with an intimidating late game bomb
Brawl offers a much different experience than Commander, uses a smaller card pool, and has a lot fewer cards to "compete" with
I think more Zealous Conscripts or Mark of Mutiny is worth checking out