It quickly became one of the more popular black commanders, and one of the most played black creatures in formats like Standard and Pioneer
If you play it all out right, these two cards could get you to victory pretty quickly
All in all, it's a very straightforward, but very potent recipe for victory
Graveyard decks in particular create an engrossing standoff, since it can be terrifying to risk accidentally accelerating your opponents plan but if you have at least some tech to target the yard, you can also force them to keep their own sequencing a lot tighter than they might be used to
This makes it tricky for white decks to keep up in Commander at times, since card draw is such a crucial factor in the format
4 Empress Galina Empress Galina is an old card, first appearing in 2000's Invasion set