The rebalanced Boros Energy deck is still one of the strongest and most-played decks in the format, but instead of dominating, it's now a peer among several other powerful decks, like Mono-Green Elves, Izzet Wizards, and a few different takes on Mono-White
If you opened up a pack with Aboshan and Cephalid Looter, you'd likely draft Aboshan
Said store also didnt really have an active EDH scene yet, mainly the same five or six people playing what in my eyes seemed to be two-to-three-hour games which from a distance looked tiring and confusing
Keeping aggressive artifact creatures safe from combat damage enables incredibly powerful attacks and forces your opponents to make hard decisions since they can never trade on defense
Remember that practice makes perfect in this aspect as well
Therefore, you cannot use the mutate abilities of creatures you already have in play