Duress proactively strips their key payoffs (Flow State, Prismari Charm, Traumatic Critique) or protective counterspells before they can build their spell chain, which is crucial since this deck wants to go over the top with growing threats. Flashfreeze counters key red spells in their red-blue shell, hitting Hearth Elemental, Burst Lightning, or Prismari Charm at instant speed. Requiting Hex is cut as it has no legal targets against their high-mana-value threats, making room alongside Nowhere to Run, which undersells larger threats like Hearth Elemental. Shoot the Sheriff and Bitter Triumph stay in as they cleanly answer their creature threats and Eddymurk Crab respectively.

This mono-green landfall deck is almost entirely creatures and lands, so Day of Black Sun is a full creature sweep that strips abilities before destroying, shutting down creature landfall payoffs like Mightform Harmonizer. Flashfreeze counters almost every spell they cast, making it excellent proactive interaction against Icetill Explorer, Earthbender Ascension, or Mightform Harmonizer. Nowhere to Run's -3/-3 is too small against their bigger threats and We Say Thee Nay! is too slow against a deck that just wants to jam threats and grow them, so both come out. Ghost Vacuum also helps interact with any graveyard-based value from Icetill Explorer's land recursion enablers.

Duress strips their Jeskai Revelation, Stock Up, or removal before it can be deployed, which is critical against a deck that wins on card advantage rather than board presence. Requiting Hex and Shoot the Sheriff are largely dead since Jeskai has very few early creatures worth killing with cheap removal, so they come out for proactive disruption. Disdainful Stroke snipes their expensive payoffs like Jeskai Revelation and Thor, God of Thunder, while Strategic Betrayal forces them to exile a creature they control along with their graveyard to blank their Lesson synergies and graveyard value. Keep We Say Thee Nay! and Spell Pierce in to fight through their countermagic and protect your own threats.