if anything, Modern has just gotten more powerful to balance out the Looting
This land-heavy card spread makes a lot of sense given that the face Commander (Yuma, Proud Protector) offers you the chance to sacrifice land to draw a card and create creature tokens
For some examples, take a look at the misprints in our high-end online shop
It doesn't provide a continuous mana ramp, but the extra juice you can squeeze makes it one of the best artifacts overall for formats that can play it, like power-hungry Commander decks
Artifacts in general also play a huge role in Commander, with plenty of decks relying heavily on artifacts and artifact subtypes, so this deck does a great job of teaching a new player how the various artifact types work and how to make the most of them
The same is true if a creature card you cast this way later dies