BFF
<3
Turn 4 Koth the Hammer, hit you with a Mountain (or just untap and leave Lightning Bolt mana up), Koth at 4 counters.
Turn 5 Proliferate effect (Tezz Gambit, Volt Charge) -> Koth at 5 counters -> Koth Ultimate (+ tap some mountains potentially)
Game one, you Ascension them out, since all their creature removal is dead, and they have no removal (in general) for PA main-deck, giving opponents between 8 and 12 100% dead cards, between mono-artifact removal (Divine Offering, Viridian Corruptor, Crush), creature removal (Oust, Condemn, Doom Blade), -1/-1 counters (Contagion Clasp), tap-effects (Tumble Magnet), and discard (Despise has 0 targets pre-board?)
Post-board, they bring in whatever removal they have, take out their pure creature removal, and we bring in Koth, the self-referencing acronym. Creature removal isn't exactly awesome against Koth to begin with, so if they leave it in, fine. We can always make more Kill-Mountains. The only spells that really work against both PA and Koth are Beast Within, and Celestial Purge. (Negate and Into the Roil work against both, coincidentally? Spellskite works against BW but not CP)
Additionally, Koth works pretty well with all the Red creature-hate that we have. When you drop Koth on T4, if you don't have an empty board, it's your own fault. This is doubly good, because your Mountain gets in, and your counter-acquiring plans can't be easily disrupted by your opponent.
Thinking about this, it seems like Koth is a pretty awesome swap-out for PA, if you are playing against an opponent with heavier PA-hate. (And I'm sure some decks Koth will work better than PA, something to be learned with experience)
Mana:
The original deck couldn't support 2RR (Koth) and UU (Deprive) in the same deck very well. Often with the old mana base, I'd have 3 mountains and 9 blue sources at 12 mana. (Mindbreak Trap, Deprive, casting multiple blue spells charging up PA) Trying to cast double-counter T4 against Valakut with Deprive and Flashfreeze, was not that easy. With Deprive going away, and moving to a heavier Mountain base, these concerns are not as strong, to be sure.
==It is a non-cast spell to hit you with the 4/4 mountain. (they don't gain a life after it resolves)
==It takes a while for them to kill Koth with KFW, and while they are killing it, they aren't blocking the Mountain. This feels pretty Jace-like, in that it controls what your opponent "has" to do, while you get advantage (in this case, damage).
==They can hold back their KFW to block the Mountain, but then you ultimate.
==The ultimate is non-Red damage, so it can kill KFW. (Similar to Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle)
==Koth + Into the Roil is pretty good, in the same way that Condemn protects Jace.
It's not amazing, but it is better than anything else "Red".
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One-turn ultimate possibilities with Koth:
At 10 (frown) mana, you can ultimate Koth in a single turn. That is something, but not exactly something very likely. You could do it at 7 while Ascended, but having PA and Koth in at the same time doesn't seem advisable. If you had a Koth at 2 counters, and another Koth in hand, along with two proliferate effects, you could one-turn ultimate (-2'ing the original Koth, casting and -5ing the second) at 5 mountains, or 4 mountains + 2 non-mountains, or 3 mountains + 4 non-mountains. Obviously, a Koth at 3 (from a Hawk attack, or something), and 6 mana for two proliferate effects ultimates at 6 mana.
Steady Progress still doesn't feel like it makes the grade, over other rebound effects like Staggershock, or Surreal Memoir for the main deck plan. It's too bad that the blue rebound effects don't really fit in the deck, because they are creature-buffs (for blue =P ), or 6-7 mana. (I do like me some Recurring Insight, but it is just too expensive)
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