Sideboard Analysis

Which red defense you want comes down to how much mana you can spare and what kind of damage you expect to face:

• Sphere of Law (Recommended): The best four-mana option against both Goblins and Sligh, and the most-played of the three at 20% post-ban. Shaving two damage off every source builds a wall you don't have to keep paying for. The downside: red decks will bring in Anarchy against it, so have countermagic ready.
• Warmth: Great against spell-heavy Sligh, where two life per red spell erases their burn. Against Goblins, it falls apart—their creatures are a recurrent way of dealing damage faster than the lifegain can keep up, so it does very little.
• Circle of Protection: Red: Protects you against anything, but it's too mana-hungry. We're a proactive combo-control deck, and our mana is already stretched thin cycling Attunement and executing our gameplan—we can't sit back untapped like a draw-go deck. Paying to prevent damage every turn gets in the way of setting up the combo, so CoP is the weakest of the three here.

Chill is fantastic against classic Sligh, as increasing the cost of their red spells slows them down. However, it is not as efficient against Goblins. If they manage to resolve an early (or even a turn-three) Goblin Lackey, they can bypass this tax completely.

Once Lackey connects, they're putting creatures straight onto the battlefield without casting anything, and your two-mana tax does nothing. Since it's an enchantment, discarded copies come back with Replenish, but don't lean on it as your only Goblins plan—back it up with one-mana removal.

Back in the Parallax Tide era, Orim's Chant was a top protection card. When you were racing to resolve a turn-three or turn-four Tide and blow up five of their lands in a 5-for-1, spending one mana to clear the way—even down a card—was well worth it against blue decks.

Why Abeyance took over post-ban: once Parallax Tide was banned, that changed. Now the deck isn't racing a turn-four deadline against blue decks that put you on no clock, so saving one mana doesn't matter much anymore. And Abeyance does more: it replaces itself with a card; it can shut off an activated ability (freezing a Tormod's Crypt or Withered Wretch right before you combo and forcing the opponent to activate in response) so you can activate Attunement after and dump some enchantments into the graveyard safely. These days, Chant is only worth it when you specifically need the cheapest possible option against a fast combo where card advantage doesn't matter.

A flexible one-mana counter that deals with problem permanents on the stack. While you have Seal of Cleansing to handle artifacts and enchantments once they hit the board, many cards generate immediate value or lock you the second they resolve. This makes Annul a critical 1-for-1 answer against a long list of format staples that you must stop on the stack, including: Gloom, Sphere of Resistance, opposing Seal of Cleansing, Aura of Silence, Parallax Wave (crucial in mirror battles), Standstill, Decree of Silence, Aluren, Dream Halls, Mox Diamond, Cursed Totem, Phyrexian Furnace, Tormod's Crypt, Sterling Grove, Zombie Infestation, Phyrexian Devourer, Altar of Dementia, and Survival of the Fittest.

Narrow tech aimed squarely at Gloom out of black disruption decks. Change the word "White" to "Black" on their resolved Gloom, and the tax now falls on their own spells instead of yours. It has Flashback, so it still works even if it gets discarded, and you can tutor for it with Intuition. You can also use it to strip a creature's protection from white, or to change the color on your own Circle of Protection: Red if you're running it. Or change the color of an Anarchy. A narrower but fun use is to change the color word on a Pyroblast or Red Elemental Blast.

The zero-mana standard for graveyard hate. Big against fast Reanimator and the mirror. In the mirror, it's all about timing: leave your Crypt on the table and only sacrifice it in response to their Replenish resolving or an Attunement activation, so you wipe their setup. It also comes in against Terrageddon now and then to shrink their Terravore, though that's usually not worth a slot.

The best catch-all reset against permanent-based locks, wide midrange boards, and resolved anti-combo artifacts. In long grindy games, popping an active Disk wipes their creatures and hate pieces. The Disk also handles some problematic hate pieces that are hard to fight otherwise, such as the previously mentioned Gloom and Presence of the Master.

The catch: Disk enters tapped, so it needs a full turn before you can use it. That's a window for them to kill it at instant speed, and against a deck with artifact hate you can end up paying four mana for nothing and falling way behind.

A near-total lock against black creature decks. Against Moneyball Black, Psychatog, or aggressive Rock builds, a resolved Light of Day means their black creatures can't attack or block, full stop. And since it's a four-mana enchantment, it comes back with Replenish if they strip it with early discard.

A defensive enchantment that punishes black discard decks by drawing you two cards every time they make you pitch a card with Gerrard's Verdict or Duress. Some longtime pilots like it for out-grinding attrition decks, but it's slow and passive, and it tends to be too little too late against fast, tempo-driven starts.

A clean anti-artifact lock that shuts off enemy mana rocks and, more importantly, activated graveyard-hate artifacts like Tormod's Crypt, Phyrexian Furnace, and Nevinyrral's Disk, and it shuts off the Phyrexian Devourer combo entirely.

A flexible artifact sweeper that clears out low-curve creature and token boards—and it does it without asking for double-colored mana. It also deals with artifacts, but keep in mind that it does not deal with enchantments and requires some setup. It's narrow, and we have better tools to deal with the threats.

Your best anti-land-destruction card against Ponza and Terrageddon, turning their Wastelands, Stone Rains, and Armageddons into blanks—and since it's an enchantment, it fits right into your recursion loops. Use it if you expect a lot of land destruction in your metagame.

A one-sided tax and a repeatable answer to artifacts and enchantments. Because it sacrifices itself for removal and comes back with Replenish, it acts as a devastating engine in the mirror, against Enchantress, and against artifact decks like Stiflenought. The three-mana cost makes it a touch slower than Seal of Cleansing—which is why it sees less play overall—but plenty of pilots run 1–2 in the board for those specific matchups.

Protects a hand you've worked to set up against targeted discard, since you can send discarded cards to the top of your library instead of the graveyard. Its one mana cost make it fast enough to play before they cast discard spells.

On top of being a hard answer to discard, it has nice synergy with Attunement: you can stack the cards you discard right on top of your library for the next few turns. It's an interesting option that's worth testing.

A brutal end-step tap-down against counterspell decks: strip all their blue mana on their turn, then untap and combo off on your main phase with no countermagic left to stop you.

It's strong, but it's slower and costs more mana than Abeyance, which is why Abeyance is the go-to protection spell in most modern lists.

A hard lock against decks looking to chain multiple spells in a single turn. By restricting players to one spell per turn, it completely shuts down Storm combos and protects you from Stiflenought lines. Since it's an enchantment, it naturally fits into your recursion loops and comes right back with Replenish if they manage to destroy it.