This matchup is a damage race where life gain matters enormously: Weather the Storm's storm copies, triggered by the spells we cast before it in a turn, can gain a big chunk of life at once. That buys time against Fiery Temper and the Guttersnipe/Kessig Flamebreather damage engine. Lembas stays in because it gains life and replaces itself. The cuts are Tithing Blade, Accursed Marauder and Avenging Hunter. Tithing Blade and Accursed Marauder both make the opponent sacrifice a creature of their choice, so against a deck full of small creatures they just give up their worst one. Marauder also makes us sacrifice, and Avenging Hunter is a clunky five-drop here. Keep Defile and Crypt Rats in. Defile's -X/-X scales with our Swamps and comfortably kills Epicure, Snacker, and Guttersnipe, while Crypt Rats can sweep the board of their small creatures, though it deals damage to us as well, so watch our life total. Graveyard hate like Nihil Spellbomb and Bojuka Bog is well placed here: Sneaky Snacker only returns from the graveyard, so exiling the graveyard shuts it off, and these cards are worth keeping in.

Duress strips Counterspell, Snuff Out, or a key removal spell before we commit our threats, which is excellent proactive disruption against a grindy control deck with a low overall threat density. Ichor Wellspring and Campfire are low-impact value cards that don't advance our plan fast enough against a deck full of efficient answers, so a couple of copies come out to make room. Keep Nihil Spellbomb in to strip their graveyard value, such as Plunder the Trollshaws flashback, and keep our removal suite intact since Baleful Strix and Thorn of the Black Rose are important bodies to answer.

Faerie Macabre is a free, one-shot answer: discard it from hand to exile up to two cards from graveyards, such as Dread Return or the creature cards a Balustrade Spy trigger puts there (Lotleth Giant, Troll of Khazad-dum). It upgrades over Nihil Spellbomb, which has to be cast for mana before it can exile a graveyard. Duress comes in to take a noncreature, nonland card such as Dread Return, Lead the Stampede, Winding Way or Land Grant before their combo or card flow gets going. It can't hit their creatures, so it is not a catch-all. Lembas is replaceable since this matchup is about disruption speed rather than incremental card draw. Keep our removal suite (Cast Down, Defile, Unmake) since their creatures, while numerous, are mostly small and easily answered.