MementoMori is correct with the timings. Bloom came out in Spring, then it was a few months later we had the special rule that pushed AP spam and it became a huge part of the meta. Arboribratus came out right in the middle of that time, before we got anything that countered AP spam.
It happened more than a few times that my opponent didnāt see the lock he could go for and pretty much gave me the win, but that not really the point.
Iām surprised you donāt see the monsters to pull it off though. I meet Dusicyon, Ahurizard, Novadrake and Padrinorca pretty much every match, donāt you?
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Oh yeah I see those for sure. But you need depth to do it effectively. If you kill one or two of them the opponent has real problems when non raw enters the field
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Donāt forget we have nauticruiser.Imagine if you use her with Ap spamer.how many nautipod you can get it 
As I said before protectors are mostly useful when running slower monsters, to make sure they get turns. RAW monsters are fast though (they are top tiers for a reason), and they can take out your sweeping power before you can take out their RAW monsters.
The result is that slower strategies simply arenāt worth running anymore, and while itās still better than the AP Spam era, weāre also back at a point where faster front lines will win 90% of the time. Not the heathiest meta.
Late game protectors are already a bit more viable. Not because you see less RAW monsters going around, but because you can prioritize them in your sweeping. Thatās true for literally everything ever though (besides Lemon), and doesnāt really say much.