Portable Hole exiles Ocelot Pride, Guide of Souls, or Ajani, Nacatl Pariah before he flips, stopping their token engine at the source. Abrade can three-damage an early Cat token swarm piece or destroy a problematic artifact, while Twinshot Sniper's 2 damage on entry kills Guide of Souls or an Ocelot Pride token outright and the Channel mode gives flexibility later. Pithing Needle shuts down Wasteland or Karakas recursion. We cut the slower value artifacts since this matchup is a race against their wide board and we need cheap, efficient answers instead.

PLACEHOLDER

Sultai Aluren wants to resolve Show and Tell into Atraxa, Grand Unifier or set up the Aluren engine, so Spell Pierce punishes their tempo-sensitive starts by countering a key noncreature spell unless they pay 2. Consign to Memory can counter a colorless spell like Lotus Petal, or a triggered ability from their threats, such as Atraxa's enter-the-battlefield trigger or Acererak's attack trigger. These are cheap answers to their explosive plan, so we trim slow value artifacts that don't affect the race to resolve a game-ending threat.