This matchup is a mana-denial and board-presence race: their Eldrazi Spawn tokens and Basking Broodscale adapt triggers snowball fast, so Pick Your Poison's -2/-2 mode sweeps their small tokens and Broodscale before it adapts. Thoughtseize comes in as a proactive answer to take key combo pieces or ramp enablers from their hand before they can establish their engine. Surgical Extraction is strong here to strip remaining copies of Ancient Stirrings, Malevolent Rumble, or a key Urza's Saga/Eldrazi Temple once one hits the graveyard and disrupt their engine consistency. Burning Inquiry is too random against a deck that wants us not drawing removal, and the extra Golgari Thug/Otherworldly Gaze copies are cut since we need proactive answers to their ramp targets more than additional graveyard filling.

Izzet Prowess is a fast aggressive mirror of the graveyard/spells plan, so Lightning Axe is excellent removal for Monastery Swiftspear or Dragon's Rage Channeler before they get out of hand, and the discard cost is trivial in a deck full of extra cards to pitch. Boseiju, Who Endures comes in as a land that can later Channel to blow up a problematic artifact like Cori-Steel Cutter or a nonbasic land, replacing lesser lands is not needed so we swap it for two Golgari Thug copies since their low-toughness aggressive plan punishes our slow dredge engine. Vexing Bauble is tempting since free spells like Mutagenic Growth (paid with 2 life) give it real targets and it could be considered, but we prioritize removal instead since racing matters more than countering pump spells. Artist's Talent is cut because we're not looking to grind incremental card filtering in a race we need to win on damage and removal.

Affinity fills the board with cheap artifact creatures like Pinnacle Emissary tokens and Kappa Cannoneer, so Pick Your Poison's -2/-2 mode is a great sweeper against their small Drone tokens and can even help against Kappa Cannoneer early. Lightning Axe cleanly kills Pinnacle Emissary and is easy to pay for given our card-heavy hands. Golgari Thug's small body trades poorly and doesn't advance our plan fast enough against their explosive curve, so it's cut, and Artist's Talent's slow value engine doesn't help us race a deck that can kill by turn 4. Although Vexing Bauble can counter free spells here since Affinity's card advantage (Mishra's Bauble) costs no mana to cast, it stays in the sideboard.