Orcish Siegemaster makes your orc army a massive threat by giving it trample, and in return it also gains a power bonus whenever it attacks
(2010-08-15) The last ability will cause you to lose the game even if you somehow manage to have a life total greater than 0 at the time the Lich is put into the graveyard or if some other effect would prevent you from losing for having 0 life
A deck of mostly mana dorks can often suffer from drawing too many cards that generate mana, so having a way to refuel the battlefield once you've run out of cards in hand gave a deck like this more late-game power and made it more fun to play
Volcanic Vision: It can be an easy board wipe against all opponents
GX introduced stronger effects, ultra-rare cards, and once-per-game GX attacks, while Pokmon EX cards were strong basics with simpler mechanics
Trophy cards are printed on US card stock rather than Japanese, so I expect they are still printed in the US