In some of the earliest days of the game, some of the cards released were deemed offensive due to their art, text, and/or name, which were racially or culturally offensive
Shockingly, when you look at all of the cards seeing play in Standard, Harsh Mentor misses on a great deal of them, but even if it does, a 2/2 for two is still reasonable
The real use of this card is that it costs 1 less mana for each creature in your party
The deck adds a number of powerful ramp spells to help you cast Slivers ahead of curve as well as potent removal effects to keep your opponents' most powerful threats at bay
Brazen Cannonade Slamming creatures into combat for value now has even more upside, as if any of them dies, we deal two damage to each opponent with Brazen Cannonade