The cool thing about the shield is that because its a counter, we can proliferate it to get more
But before your opponent can proceed, you can do a Pokemon Checkup, where you check and trigger the effects of any special condition your Pokemon received
You want to get in for damage early and often, then grab a huge, evasive creature out of the graveyard and make several copies of it to swing in for the win
The card is an excellent enabler for Equipment strategies that bypasses equip costs, and already has a home in Modern Hammer Time decks - but Final Fantasy has added such a slew of new cards that support Equipment that not only is it seeing extra play in Commander, it may be part of an up and coming Pioneer deck
A six mana card that doesnt do anything right away isnt going to get played very often even as a graveyard enabler
There are, however, some absolutely solid reprints