Originally Posted by
Rock Lee
Thank you for the precise and comprehensive question.
The "stock" list of U/G is 3 basics, 2-3 needles, with a flex slot of 2-3 sweepers. Moment's peace is the meta call "sweeper" of choice atm. Additionally 3 basics are enormous at the moment both against wasteland and blood moon. More generally, the standard list fare better against mana and hand denial, so with BuG running rampant, it is the stablest of builds. The Punishing Fire build is stronger against Bug as a whole, but weaker against blood moons or elves.
In the past I have splashed red for the cards mentioned and a few others simply because red offers removal and kill colors. Great responses to Blood Moon, all in the control, removal, and combo variants. Punishing fire was very strong against BUG, but ultimately awkwardly suffered as an archetype against Blood Moon. Sneak Attack suffered from the same discard strategies you were trying to fight. Bonfire required setup and was amazing when it worked, but was more of a meta-recoil against Young Pyromancer.
The GSZ and green creature movement was an initial attempt to fight BUG by out-advantaging them, but ultimately played directly into their grindy plan.
The Ensnaring Bridge plan in a UG shell fits magnificently in a slot that beats BUG. When their discard is online Bridge works better. When they don't have discard it has to be countered/removed anyway.
With M15 less than 2 months away and the highly projected Waste Not stirring swamply leviathans, having a strong plan against discard is a must and I consider this meta experiment highly pertinent.
For Playstyle advice. I think the best advice possible is "never goldfish." If you're going to solo test, do it two-fisted tested against other decks. Or something I do all the time is to set a specific encounter parameter. A Few that I regularly use are as follows:
"Opponent plays DRS T1, Hymn + waste Turn 2. Liliana Turn 3, Goyf Turn 4 as a 4/5. Do I beat this?"
"Opponent plays 1 lightning bolt a turn, stopping at 3 land drops. Do I beat this?"
"Opponent plays Duress turn 1, Empty the warrens for 14 goblins turn 2. Do I beat this?"
"Opponent plays Natural Order for lethal on turn 3, DRS turn 4, can activate it 4 times every turn thereafter. Do I beat this?"
"Opponent plays Delver T1, self flips, plays 3 wastelands the next 3 turns. Do I beat this?"
"Opponent gets Counterbalance/Top lock on turn 2. They have 2 force of wills. They entreat for 3 on turn 6. Do I beat this?"
For Hand-Keeping advice, I suggest "never keep on a plan unless they run zero disruption." I snap keep on multiple cmc 1 fixing spells and 2+ lands. I throw back hands that are Cloudpost, Titan, Show & tell, x4 cmc 3+ cards. Your testing with my encounters will show you why.