The disconnect for me here is that the play design team, whenever you catch them discussing recent sets is that they openly admit making changes to the way they design cards with Arena in mind, as well as wanting a healthier/cyclical standard format that doesn't land on one deck.

If you're printing a swath of aggressively costed creatures that are the types from ixalan, that's geared to making things healthy to play in the arena formats.

I don't think you'd have several competitive power level 1 and 2 drops without the presence of arena modern looming.

I'm being speculative, and trying to connect the dots. I could be way off, but saying they're just doing what they've always done, when they've clearly changed their approach, is a miss for me.

If you want casual players to be excited about vampires, you make Elenda and Vona, if you want vampires to be relevant in post-rotation Arena. You give them 1 drops