Either 4 or 8 life is a lot to pay to get ahold of two extra cards, but life is a resource after all
Whenever it connects in combat, it deals damage, draws cards, and gains you life based on the number of different color pairs you control
(You may put the top card of your library into your graveyard.) Once Patchwork Beastie is attacking or blocking, reducing the number of card types among cards in your graveyard won't remove Patchwork Beastie from combat
Better still, theres no need to limit ourselves to just one of the above themes, since the creatures you want both enable and benefit from a mill plan
This also counters most red instants and sorceries, the odd one from other colours too
Basically, we've reached the point where any Magic carddown to Expeditions , Inventions , and other Masterpiece -series cardscan be counterfeited, and with the cost of real Magic cards on the rise, especially in older formats, there is a huge incentive for the counterfeiters to hone their craft and make their fake cards as realistic as possible
