God: Sephylon is based on the one from Judaism (and the other Abrahamic religions), though the card itself is named after the Sephirot as a whole
This status effect can be applied as early as the first turn, putting major pressure on the opponent
I'm really into the competitive side of the card game, but don't know any history of it
Nguyen tells me that these decisions are generally more art than science, taking into account a cards desirability in the playerbase, the bandwidth they have for coordinating artists and other resources, what each individual drop might call for thematically, and more
For just three mana, Out of Time sweeps the battlefield of creatures, phasing them out for turns equal to the number of time counters on it