Echo and Lion's Eye Diamond is a different deck at that point.
Experimenting with the following:
4
High Tide4
Candelabra of Tawnos4
Time Spiral1
Turnabout4
Force of Will3
Counterspell3
Flusterstorm4
Merchant Scroll3
Cunning Wish6
Fetchland12
Island4
Brainstorm4
Ponder4
Preordain-
sb-1
Blue Sun's Zenith1
Brain Freeze1
Intuition1
Meditate1
Turnabout1
Snap1
Echoing Truth1
Rebuild1
Flusterstorm1
Counterspell1
Pact of Negation1
Surgical Extraction3
Vendilion Clique
-I like Defense Grid but it's risky to play it and pass the turn.
-The maindeck counterspells could also potentially be Remand or Repeal, anything to slow the game down, but I just have a bias towards actually countering as some permanent based hate flusterstorm can't target.
-This deck should at worst be 50/50 against the average combo deck. If a combo deck wins, it's likely cause it's faster & had a better hand, but as each turn passes, the likelihood of winning increases dramatically, especially with this many counterspells.
-Even though Sensei's Divining Top is gone, I am ok with this. I'd rather lose top in the deck if it means not having to fight counterbalance/top combo ever again, that was one of the biggest hurdles to overcome once it got going.
-I'm not going for the Spellseeker/Sapphire Medallion setup, as Spellseeker is a creature & I am purposely avoiding turning on potential opposing cards from the opponent. I want creature removal/graveyard hate/artifact hate/etc to be as dead as possible. If they want to waste a turn making candels useless, that is fine with me.
-As far as Predict goes, I would have to either cut candels or preordain. I like preordain as much as brainstorm/ponder since they can be cast from turn 1 when you might need to fish for more lands from the get-go. As far as cutting candels goes, I think the benefits of running them means they're worth it. I understand most people just can't afford them, so that makes sense as well. (If you don't have Candels, just run more Turnabouts and add a single Snap to the maindeck, it randomly bounces hatebears & of course, untaps.)
Other card options:
-1 maindeck Meditate, 1 maindeck Snap are still a possibility.
-1 sideboard Capsize, but with top gone can't infinitely draw anymore, so getting echoing truth and replaying candels is likely fine if you need mana that bad.