[Free Article] Resource Advantage in Magic Part 1: One-Shot Resources

I think there are two critical points.
The first is that you should be mindful in building your own deck and in addressing the opponent's deck of both the obvious (visible) resources that they will use, as well as the non-obvious, invisible resources. Perhaps a particular deck you wish to sideboard against is subtly reliant on resolving a large number of spells to win the game, or on attacking repeatedly with creatures. I believe that virtually every resource or zone can be punished in some way. I also believe that identifying your own resource requirements will help build your own sideboard, to mitigate the opponent's ability to punish the particular resources you have chosen to prioritize. This is very obvious for something like Dredge (you really, really care about cards in the graveyard) but less obvious for something like TurboTezz, which is quite reliant on generating large amounts of artifact-based mana and resolving one of a few key spells.

Secondly, I think the biggest cause of "traps" in deckbuilding, sideboarding, and play is failure to consider the pattern of resource generation and expenditure in the opponent's deck. I gave a few examples of traps - trying to counter the last spell or two against Burn, or using a simple "tax" effect or two against Belcher. In both cases, these plays are helpful (they interact along the most important axes of the matchup) but don't trump the opposing strategy in a meaningful way, and will very rarely be sufficient alone.

I think the speed issue is something of a distraction from the main point. The high speed of Belcher requires certain sorts of answers, but those answers will typically serve a similar function as any other answer to a resource-depleting deck. This is another area where traps might exist. "Mulligan for Mindbreak Trap" in an aggro deck is reasonably likely to be enough to defeat Belcher. Thinking "Mindbreak Trap trumps all combo decks" is actually a huge trap (heh) in deckbuilding and sideboarding. Many combo decks will be able to play through or around it, and many will be very nearly immune to it, such as Dredge or Dark Depths+Thespian's Stage. Often, a combo deck will have methods to replenish resources or simply build them up as the game goes on. A single Mindbreak Trap against Combo Elves! or High Tide is pretty pitiful - nabbing a single Elf or getting Forced (or simply combo'ing right through it) are the most likely scenarios.

As to what I mean by speed - Belcher often needs spell resolutions only during the first two-three turns. Quite often, the Belcher player only needs to resolve spells on the very first turn. After that there are three main possibilities: 1) The game is over, and Belcher has won. 2) Belcher has resolved a victory condition and is attempting to finish the game (either attacking with Goblin tokens or waiting to draw sufficient mana to activate a Charbelcher) 3) The non-Belcher player has come up with an answer and the game is still going.

In none of these scenarios is the Belcher player still performing the main combo(s). The game has advanced beyond or around that point in some way.

On the other hand, around Turn 3, 4, and even 5, the Burn deck will still be reliant on resolving additional spells. The games on average will go longer, and the period in which a player can meaningfully interact is also longer. Batterskull is a serious threat against most Burn hands, despite the fact that it is unlikely to gain life before Turn 4. On the other hand, the gold standard for a Turn 3 play against Belcher would likely be Rule of Law / Arcane Lab, and this is clearly unplayable (by itself) against most Belcher hands.

All this really means is that the pool of potential Belcher answers is more restricted in mana cost than the pool of potential Burn answers - even though the answers serve to disable the decks in similar ways. The two most similar (I would argue) are Force of Will / Mindbreak Trap against Belcher and SDT+Counterbalance / COP:Red versus Burn. In both cases, the effect is to blank all of the previous resource generation (it simply becomes irrelevant) as well as future resource generation (either because Belcher's hand is depleted or because Burn's future spells will not deal damage). Here, the quirks of the individual cards start coming to the fore as key deciders between the various possible answers. Empty the Warrens and the Storm mechanic generally tend to generate a large number of spell resolutions and punish Force of Will (which is otherwise the perfect answer). In Burn, Fireblast's high converted mana cost and the uncounterable nature of some burn spells (ex: Hellspark Elemental) also help to generate spell resolutions and punish Counterbalance (which is otherwise the perfect answer). In both cases there is a "better" answer that addresses these weaknesses (Trap/COP) but with its own drawbacks and at the cost of being much more matchup-specific.