(I played Shrine)
Before the match we were pretty sure that one of the scariest red decks of all time would wreck any 5-color deck with lands that enter tapped, and it wouldn’t be close. But this Bloodbraid deck had some surprises in store for us!
G1
Both decks mulligan to 6. Turn 2 Shrine. T3 Kargan Dragonlord, followed by Kitchen Finks. Kitchen Finks attacks, A Putrid Leech arrives. I level up the Dragonlord and attack in the air. He attacks me down to 10. He’s decided to race. I attack him down to 8, then try to play Lightning Bolt, but he counters the Lightning Bolt and bounces my Dragonlord. He attacks me down to 5. I sacrifice the Shrine (for 7 damage) to get him to 1, and finish him off with a burn spell. Shrine 1-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
G2
He gets Putrid Leech on turn 2, I get the Dragonlord. He plays Sygg and attacks, drawing a card. On my turn I Searing Blaze Sygg. He keeps attacking with the leech. I play a 2nd Dragonlord. Many fetch lands are cracked. He has a nice turn where he pumps up the Leech, then uses Volcanic Fallout to kill both my Dragonlords, and attacks with the pumped leech, leaving me at 5 and him at 7. On my turn I bolt the leech, he pumps it, then I play forked bolt to finish it off and leave him at 4 life. I cast Shrine and another Dragonlord. He bounces the Shrine and draws a card. He plays Kitchen Finks which puts him just out of range of a leveled up Dragonlord. He also plays Anathemancer, the worst card in his deck (for this matchup) but the card that wins it for him. Silly. I don’t draw any burn. I level up but have to sit back. He attacks with 2 creatures, I kill the anathemancer. I still draw nothing, and he unearths the anathemancer to finish me off with 2 attackers. 5-color Bloodbraid 1-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
G3 (sideboarded)
Finally, a turn 1 Goblin Guide! (Although it really helps him smooth out his mana.) T2 Dragonlord. T3 Chandra’s Phoenix, I attack him… he doom blades my dragonlord and I get him to 12. Blightning makes me discard the rest of my hand, and leaves me at 15 life (I played some fetch lands). I topdeck Shrine and attack him to 8, he plays Kitchen Finks and goes back to 10. I try to attack with Chandra’s Phoenix, but Path to Exile ends that. I cast Vulshok Refugee (a pro-red guy from the sideboard.) He plays Chameleon Colossus, ugh. I play Vulshok #2. Shrine is at 4 counters and he’s at 10. He attacks. He pumps up Colossus. I could kill the Colossus in response… but I sit and think for a bit, and I decide to just take 8 damage, and see what I draw. Now I’m at 8. Next turn he plays Cryptic Command during my upkeep to tapdown my creatures and bounce the Shrine. This time, I sac the shrine to kill the Colossus. Then I attack him with three creatures, he blocks one with Finks, gains some life and is now at 7. But then he casts Cruel Ultimatum and attacks with a 2\/1 Finks. He goes back to 12 life, and brings me to 1. Next turn a Lightning Bolt finishes me off. Bloodbraid 2-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
G4
I get turn 2 Shrine, he casts thoughtseize and after a lot of thought, chooses Chandra’s Phoenix, which is a surprise since it can come back from the graveyard. I play a Vulshok but doom blade gets that and Blightning rips apart my hand. I get a new Chandra’s Phoenix but he has a lightning bolt for that. All I need is a spell to get 2 phoenix’s back… (spoiler: I don’t draw any instants or sorceries this game.) He plays Colossus. Again, I consider killing the colossus, but that Shrine is really ticking up. I decide that the only way I win is by hitting him directly with the shrine, so I let him keep the colossus. I cast a grim lavamancer. Shrine has 9 counters (but he’s at 18 life). Colossus brings me to 4 life. I attack with Goblin Guide to get him to 16. He attacks with Colossus and I block with Grim Lavamancer, and ping him before it dies. On my next upkeep, he plays Cryptic Command to bounce the Shrine, so I sacrifice it… to his face, for 11 damage, bringing him to 3 life, and hope I draw a damage spell. Nope. I lose.
Could’ve been a very different game if I had killed the Chameleon right away, but I felt that the red deck wasn’t going to win a long game against a deck like 5 color Bloodbraid, so I needed to play to a lucky out instead. Decisions were made. Shrine loses! 5-color Bloodbraid advances, 3-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(I played Shrine)Before the match we were pretty sure that one of the scariest red decks of all time would wreck any 5-color deck with lands that enter tapped, and it wouldn’t be close. But this Bloodbraid deck had some surprises in store for us!G1Both decks mulligan to 6. Turn 2 Shrine. T3 Kargan Dragonlord, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brandonpatton.com\/magic\/ultimatestandard\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}