A second Daze adds more free protection for our own Show and Tell or reanimation spells against their counterspell-dense build. Sickening Dreams is weak here since it also damages us and their gameplan doesn't flood the board with small creatures. We keep our full reanimation package intact since racing them by resolving a huge threat before they combo off is our primary plan.

Sligh's clock is all small creatures (Jackal Pup, Goblin Vandal, Mogg Fanatic, Grim Lavamancer) that Vendetta and Smother answer cheaply, buying time for our reanimation plan. Daze is weak on defense since giving up tempo by bouncing a land is dangerous against an aggressive clock. Show and Tell is risky since it lets them put a creature into play too, and we'd rather commit mana to cheap removal that keeps us alive. Akroma and Phantom Nishoba are excellent stabilizers here since Phantom Nishoba gains life and Akroma has protection from red, and both block well, so we keep the core reanimation shell intact.

This is a grindy combo-control matchup where we're the beatdown, so proactive disruption is better than reactive counterspells that don't stop enchantment-based engines. Duress strips Solitary Confinement, Opalescence, or a combo piece before it lands, disrupting their engine at its source. Phyrexian Furnace and Tormod's Crypt slow down Sterling Grove tutoring loops less directly but mainly serve to exile graveyard resources if they try to leverage Replenish-style recursion; keep them in mainly as flexible artifacts that can be sacrificed for value. We trim Animate Dead since it's a worse Reanimate/Exhume against a deck without much removal to punish the -1/-0 and summoning sickness downside, and Daze is weak since they're not racing us on board.