Even if your creature has protection, cards can still affect it in ways that dont involve damage, enchanting, equipping, blocking, or targeting
Shifting Shapes At first, my spin on it was having a bunch of Shapeshifters with changeling as my early drops, so when I played one of the Tarkir Dragons like Silumgar, the Drifting Death that had Whenever a Dragon you control attacks in its text box, I could immediately get triggers right away
They're a topic that generates a lot of impassioned discussion, mostly because every time they come up, everyone starts arguing about the affordability of Magic and how WotC makes the game too expensive to play. There is increasing acceptance of proxies in certain situations , especially provided you are not trying to use fake cards and pass them off as real or using them in tournaments where they're not allowed
He's just a 1/1, but he also only costs 1 black mana