Braid of Fire

Looking for the perfect partner for Braid of Fire? Ever heard of Brand of Ill Omen? Have Fun...

With the new ruling, that there's no more mana burn.
This card is really broken, a free cumulative mana!
All you need is an instant X damage spell (ghitu fire).

This card's lost some power as of Magic 2010. Don't get me wrong, it's still a 5 star card, but since mana doesn't stay in your pool from stage 2 stage nemore, you've now got to figure out how to spend all of the mana this thing produces in your upkeep. So for instants and abilities this card rocks, but you'll never get a creature without flash out with this thing.

Yep, mana burn will no longer be in existence after Magic 2010 comes out. I was going to say combo this with Upwelling, but that doesn't seem necessary anymore. Combined with Paradox Haze and some cards such as Shivan Dragon, I could see this card being the core of a really, really good deck.

If you manage your mana right, this is nice with blaze/fireball etc.

use a deck built around it like aetherflame wall, wall of fire, ghitu firebreathing, furnace whelp, etc. that can use the extra mana. Molten slagheap is a great sponge. Of course, have conflagrates and blazes and beware of demystify.

Use this card to feed your Shivan Dragon a constant supply of red mana!

This card is still sick today.
I took 4

This has got to be the most interesting card I've ever seen. This could easily be abused, especially with blue's card drawing ability and red's nasty x damage spells. Broken? Probably.

broken! its good in any type 2 format

When coldsnap came out I bought 5 packs and got 3 of these and a dark depths... I thought what a rip off! then they killed mana-burn, and now I am very happy about it. If you want all your this mana can only be used in the upkeep problems to be solved just play with Vedalken Orery, nuff said.

In m10, I've heard rumors that mana burn will be removed. Also removing any downside what so ever to running this card. Who knows, this might become the next hot tournament staple.

Use this with helix pinnacle, gemstone array, or any other permanents that can store mana like that.

It was made for paying Cumulative upkeep costs.
There are many great cards in magic with a Cumulative upkeep restriction. This card takes that restriction away from those cards.

Eww....I'm really sry for anyone who loves this card, but im not a fan. I've tried to find a lot of way's for this combo to work out. The only way i see it is Upwelling, Invoke the Firemind, or several Soul Foundrys. But not just that but the mana comes up during your upkeep which just makes it even tougher to pull off any of the nasty tricks that your thinking of. Unless your planning to mana burn yourself and then Reverse the Sands