"The flavor is fun, but a shield counter seems too good to give away for free." That didn't stop 1,137 players from building the deck, so perhaps I overvalued shield counters
For instance, if youre playing the classic Ixalan red sorcery Star of Extinction which deals a staggering 20 damage to all creatures if you have the Altisaur in play, all of your Dinos only take one damage from that spell, which will activate all of their Enrage abilities while wiping out the entirety of your foes boards
We're talking recursion on cards like Eternal Witness, Baleful Strix or Selfless Spirit
It also makes it much harder to run people over with tempo, unless you curve out with strong rares or can manage to double-spell using mayhem multiple times in the first few turns
Captain Ripley Vance Captain Ripley Vance is less of a pirate commander than a spellslinger commander to my taste, and in mono-red, too
This all happens at instant speed so unless you have a way to stop Protean Hulk's effect from resolving, everyone loses