People love proliferating, people love phasing their board out, and this does both at a reasonable cost
While there's a bit of setup cost here, and it's admittedly difficult for your Owlbear Cub to attack and survive, being able to sneak a giant creature into play has tremendous upside
By attacking and paying 3B, a player may reanimate a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield while also making it a Phyrexian in addition to its other types
There's so much looting and rummaging that you get to churn through your deck quickly, reducing variance and making sure you find the cards you need (and discarding the ones you don't) reliably, WITH ONE MAJOR EXCEPTION (see The Bad) It's very consistent
"State of Product Design 2018"
Jace the Mind Sculptor and Liliana of the Veil, two of the most powerful planeswalkers of all time, are single-colored and can be played in a larger variety of decks