This is only relevant with 《Palace Jailer》 post sideboard, as we play so many 2 CMCs. You can also put your Vial trigger on the stack with two counters, tap it, and then add a counter.

Put a creature that can sink damage to save your 《Nomads en-Kor》 from a 《Lightning Bolt》. Put your 《Stoneforge Mystic》 into the battlefield on your upkeep so you get to shuffle your library before your draw step. The way 《Aether Vial》 works is that you choose in resolution, so don’t be rushed to put your creature card into the battlefield. Tap the Vial, and then decide if you want to put something on the battlefield or not. The second use is to discard 《Dread Return》 or even 《Thassa’s Oracle》 if you happen to draw them, even though you can simply cast the Oracle for two mana if you are not under pressure. First, if your opponent didn’t have a chance to counter your combo pieces because you had 《Aether Vial》 or 《Cavern of Souls》, 《Cabal Therapy》 will discard their countermagic. Therapy has two duties as a combo piece once your library has been milled. When in doubt, I think it’s better to go for their answers and ignore their threats, since the combo will likely win the game from any board state while they will surely eventually find a threat to end the game if we don’t kill them.

The key to play 《Cabal Therapy》 in this deck is to decide if we want to 《Cabal Therapy》 trying to defend from a threat, naming something like Oko, or hold it trying to hit their interaction, naming something like a 《Lightning Bolt》.

《Cabal Therapy》 is a card we don’t really want to see in our hand, since it’s part of the graveyard combo, but it is a reasonable spell on its own, since we already play some expendable bodies in the deck.

Creatures of aether decks