>>96165205
Combo Winter 1999 was when the incredible design advancement of Wizards was "A block that's drafted together should have a common theme". That is to say it was a very rudimentary time. They successfully made Urza's block mechanically an enchantment block, but marketing fucked it by calling it the "Artifacts Cycle" (due to Urza's connection to artifacts). And yeah they made a ton of broken cards.
The system makeup at that time was Design and Development as it would be for years after, but the philosophy was not very advanced. They were less than 5 years past from their philosophy being "Our design team is Richard Garfield's friends" or "buy a custom set from that guy who likes Magic and repurpose it"