Chromium, The Mutable

[Ruiner]

Chromium, The Mutable

Chromium, the Mutable

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander

1 Chromium, the Mutable

Draw, Recursion, Tutors

1 Ponder

1 Brainstorm

1 Phyrexian Reclamation

1 Mission Briefing

1 Snapcaster Mage

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Read the Bones

1 Syphon Mind

1 Fact or Fiction

Removal

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Path to Exile

1 Unexpectedly Absent

1 Generous Gift

1 Stroke of Midnight

1 Void Rend

1 Anguished Unmaking

1 Damnation

1 Merciless Eviction

1 Farewell

1 Imprisoned in the Moon

Miscellaneous Instants

1 Galadriel's Dismissal

1 Narset's Reversal

1 Twincast

1 Trickbind

1 Teferi's Protection

1 Reins of Power

1 Comeuppance

1 Inkshield

1 March of Swirling Mist

Artifacts

1 Engineered Explosives

1 Soul-Guide Lantern

1 Shadowspear

1 Bloodthirsty Blade

1 Immovable Rod

Enchantments

1 Duelist's Heritage

1 Dauthi Embrace

1 Public Enemy

1 Lightmine Field

1 Dismiss into Dream

Creatures

1 Magus of the Balance

1 Grand Abolisher

1 Alluring Siren

1 Shipwreck Singer

1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails

1 Weeping Angel

1 Peacekeeper

1 Portal Mage

1 Courtly Provocateur

1 Dulcet Sirens

1 Horobi, Death's Wail

1 Silent Arbiter

1 Archaeomancer

1 Renegade Silent

1 Selfless Squire

1 Windshaper Planetar

Planeswalkers

1 Ashiok, Dream Render

1 Will Kenrith

Mana Rocks

1 Sol Ring

1 Arcane Signet

1 Azorius Signet

1 Dimir Signet

1 Orzhov Signet

1 Fellwar Stone

Lands

1 Command Tower

1 Reflecting Pool

1 Tundra

1 Hallowed Fountain

1 Flooded Strand

1 Sea of Clouds

1 Adarkar Wastes

1 Scrubland

1 Godless Shrine

1 Vault of Champions

1 Marsh Flats

1 Caves of Koilos

1 Underground Sea

1 Watery Grave

1 Morphic Pool

1 Polluted Delta

1 Underground River

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

2 Swamp

1 Flagstones of Trokair

2 Plains

3 Island

1 Ancient Tomb

1 High Market

1 Volrath's Stronghold

1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

1 Arcane Lighthouse

1 Detection Tower

1 Scavenger Grounds

1 Strip Mine

1 Maze of Ith

1 Kor Haven

Approximate Total Cost:

About the deck

This is a deck I have played for quite a few years now and it is also the deck I tinker with the most. The general idea is just maximizing interactive elements. It tends to thrive by messing around in the combat phase on other's turns.

Chromium is a solid control deck finisher and will generally be your win condition and can usually do fine without any additional equipment or support (although Duelist's Heritage certainly doesn't hurt). By having your primary win condition in the command zone, this frees up spots in the 99 for more interactive pieces. Generally you wait until you are ready to start swinging, flash it in right before your own turn and then just go after whoever is the most threatening at the time. Chromium is fairly difficult for opponents to remove without using a board wipe unless you have no cards left in hand. There is no need to rush into battle with Chromium, the deck packs a decent amount of interactive elements and recursion to buy you time until you are ready.

I'm constantly messing to some degree with the "Miscellaneous Instants" and "Creatures" sections just to try new oddball things out but most of the rest stays fairly stable. Various fog effects, theft effects, Exsanguinate, and other things have been in the mix at various times.

One thing that probably stands out is that it is a deck with blue that has no counterspells. This is a conscious choice just to free up space for other fun/jank. Clearly this deck could be adapted to run counterspells if one wanted to but I find this more fun (totally not opposed to them at all and have plenty in other decks, it just doesn't fit my vision for this particular deck for me). It probably wouldn't be difficult to find room for 4 or 5 counterspells if you really wanted them.

There are definite synergies with cards like Horobi, Death's Wail and Dismiss into Dream with the various targeting cards like Dauthi Embrace. This has been a constant since the decks inception. Cowardice is a card I keep meaning to put in but have never gotten around to trying, mainly just because finding a space for another higher CMC card is tricky.

Cards like Duelist's Heritage and Dauthi Embrace are great political tools that can help you help others push through their damage. Promising to give an opponent's biggest creature double strike if they swing at someone who isn't you can be a great incentive and the potential to make their creatures basically unblockable is great as well. These two cards immediately become very different once you get Horobi, Death's Wail, Willbreaker, or Dismiss into Dream into play.

[Ruiner]

A few quick updates to the deck.

Added Cards
Rise of the Dread Marn - This card seems perfect for a control deck with a good amount of removal.
Grand Abolisher - Putting this back in after it's been gone for a while. It's always nice.
Willbreaker - Another card that used to be in the deck that I felt needed to make a return.

Removed Cards
Mirror Strike - I really like this card but felt it was time to mix things up. Sometimes it just sits dead in hand, other times it is hard to hold back the mana, but sometimes it is an absolute gamechanger. I am positive this will be back in the deck at some point.
Sen Triplets - This card is great but largely its purpose is the same as Grand Abolisher. If I feel the need to double up on this effect in the future it will return.
Confounding Conundrum - I honestly never gave it a chance but needed to drop something for Rise of the Dread Marn.


I may need to look closer at some of the other fortell cards. Doomskar is definitely on my radar.

[Ruiner]

Made a few more changes due to recently acquiring an Intuition.

Added Cards
1 Reanimate
1 Intuition
1 Comeuppance
1 Archaeomancer
1 Hall of Heliod's Generosity

Removed Cards
1 Wrong Turn
1 Hex Parasite
1 Willbreaker
1 Neurok Stealthsuit
1 Tainted Isle


None of the removed cards are particularly bad (Tainted Isle probably needed to come out no matter what though), but I needed to find room for some stuff.

I know there are a few Intuition combos that result in a fairly quick win with stuff like Thassa's Oracle but I just don't want to go down that road at this time. I think Intuition seems to be great as just a value card on its own, although I've never played it before.

Comeuppance is a card I've had in and out of this deck and it felt like the right time for it to come back. It is such a fun card to surprise people with.

[Cyberium]

I've tried Cataclysm to good effect in Chromium, what do you think about it?

[Ruiner]

I've tried Cataclysm to good effect in Chromium, what do you think about it?

If I were running a decent amount of counterspells I could totally see that. With the way my deck currently runs, I'd be worried about potentially having Chromium removed afterwards (even with the built in protection it has), and being stuck on one land as a control deck. It would combo excellently with Teferi's Protection though.

[Cyberium]

I've tried Cataclysm to good effect in Chromium, what do you think about it?

If I were running a decent amount of counterspells I could totally see that. With the way my deck currently runs, I'd be worried about potentially having Chromium removed afterwards (even with the built in protection it has), and being stuck on one land as a control deck. It would combo excellently with Teferi's Protection though.

There's always the option to go more artifact-ramp, should MLD become the core. When I tested your deck I also added Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to combo with your Horobi and Dismiss into Dream. 8.5 also protects your permanents.

[Ruiner]

There's always the option to go more artifact-ramp, should MLD become the core. When I tested your deck I also added Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to combo with your Horobi and Dismiss into Dream. 8.5 also protects your permanents.

Oh yeah, that's a great call on Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. I will definitely have to play around with that in the future, can't believe I overlooked it in this deck for all of these years.

[Ruiner]

Quick update for a few Strixhaven cards:

Removed Cards
-1 Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer - Gwafa is fun, and even more fun to say, but it's time for him to take a break.
-1 Aven Mindcensor - It's great but something had to be removed to try out new things.

Added Cards
+1 Nils, Discipline Enforcer - Nils might not be a powerhouse but he could make for some fun political moves while simultaneously randomly hosing +1/+1 counter decks against me. The synergy with Horobi, Death's Wail and Dismiss into Dream is also fairly solid, killing creatures on each of my ends steps.
+1 Inkshield - Much like Comeuppance or Reins of Power, this will probably catch people by surprise. Being able to recur it should be fun as well.

Some other cards I'd potentially want to try out from Strixhaven but didn't find room at this time were:
Combat Calligrapher - It's not insanely powerful or anything, but this might have fun political angles to work on while randomly hurting changelings I guess.
Martial Impetus - Permanent goad is nice, and potentially powering up a deck that goes wide when it swings at my foes isn't terrible either.
Blot Out the Sky - It's a reasonable token maker which could give me some blockers if needed for defense or let me go aggro a bit earlier, and can be decent as a sweeper in some cases. I don't know that this deck is the right one for it, art is pretty sweet though.
Cunning Rhetoric - This is just a really cool card and I can potentially force people to attack me if I wanted to force this to trigger.
Sly Instigator - Like the various sirens in the deck currently, this is another one that'll let me force people to attack when they might not want to. I think it's a bit high in mana cost but I snagged one up just in case I'd want to try it.


I still need to add Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to this deck, I swore I had one laying around and that was not the case.

[Ruiner]

Another update to the deck, some newer cards and older cards being added:

Added Cards
+1 Immovable Rod - Seems possibly a little mana intensive but has a strong re-usable effect.
+1 Hellish Rebuke - This complements the damage redirection/combat step shenanigans the deck already gets up to. As long as an opponent isn't swinging for lethal this has some potential.
+1 Fact or Fiction - Classic just great card draw, should have been in the deck previously probably.
+1 Arcane Laboratory - I am valuing Rule of Law type effects a bit more recently in this and other decks, so adding another seems good, especially when I have a decent amount of instant speed cards.
+1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails - Has great synergy with Horobi, Death's Wail and Dismiss into Dream, in addition to it's basic protective qualities. Should be a solid addition.

Removed Cards
-1 Hallowed Moonlight
-1 Darksteel Mutation
-1 Rise of the Dread Marn
-1 Soul Sculptor - Soul Sculptor is a fun jank card, I may add it in later but it is kind of replaced by Immovable Rod.
-1 Nils, Discipline Enforcer - Nils never seemed ideal when I had him in hand, without Horobi, Death's Wail or Dismiss into Dream he's been lackluster, possibly will return later depending on future changes.

Hallowed Moonlight, Darksteel Mutation, and Rise of the Dread Marn are good for the deck but I need to find room to try some new stuff.

[ISBPathfinder]

Hellish Rebuke - I guess my concern with this card is a bit along the reasons I don't run No Mercy. Taking that first hit can be exactly what I don't want to do. I see a lot of boards that once they move to attacking its a matter of who all is dying and not dying from said hit feels kind of important. I get that it can kill more than one thing but taking that hit would be my concern.

It feels like a much less good Comeuppance to me.

[Ruiner]

Hellish Rebuke - I guess my concern with this card is a bit along the reasons I don't run No Mercy. Taking that first hit can be exactly what I don't want to do. I see a lot of boards that once they move to attacking its a matter of who all is dying and not dying from said hit feels kind of important. I get that it can kill more than one thing but taking that hit would be my concern.

It feels like a much less good Comeuppance to me.

You're probably right. And unlike No Mercy, Rebuke doesn't have that deterrent factor that can make someone delay swinging "less than lethal" at you, since they don't know you actually have Rebuke in hand.

I have the suspicion there will be situations where it is a surprise blowout that catches someone off guard and makes a big difference, but a decent amount of times where I'm just going to die to the damage anyway and the card is dead.

Odds are, I end up dropping it and putting Selfless Squire back in my deck in its place, since that's likely better more often, or just some entirely different effect type of card. Maybe it'll surprise me though.

[Ruiner]

Played a game last night where I had to use Hellish Rebuke to stop an 11/11 double-strike commander (the nightmare insect one that gets ability tokens based on his grave when he ETB's) from killing me and that felt super rough since I still took 11 damage. Wished it was just about any other damage preventer, Wing Shards would have been so much better for the same CMC. I imagine this sort of scenario popping up repeatedly as was discussed in previous posts.

I've swapped out Hellish Rebuke for Selfless Squire, which is going to be more useful most of the time.

Next update on the deck I'll probably be trying to fit Dress Down in there, it seems really cool in theory.

[Ruiner]

Added Cards
-1 March of Swirling Mist

Removed Cards
-1 Intuition

Quick update here just from Neo Kamigawa. March of Swirling Mist seems like a pretty decent versatile card. It's either a fog-ish effect to prevent some combat damage, potentially stops creature based combos (temporarily), defends some of my own creatures, or turns deadly with cards like Horobi, Death's Wail and Dismiss into Dream. It certainly feels worth testing here.

I had to decide on something to remove and while it is great, Intuition wasn't getting full potential here and I've been messing with a Kess, Dissident Mage reanimator deck for the past few weeks and the copy I have of it would be way more killer in that deck so I've gone ahead and swapped it out.

I definitely have my eye on a few cards from Streets of New Capena for this deck so I'm probably going to be updating again soon.

[Ruiner]

There are a number of interesting cards from this Streets of New Capena set that I might try out in the future but two really stood out immediately so I made some quick changes.

Added Cards
+1 Void Rend - This is definitely a new staple in any WUB deck as far as I am concerned.
+1 Public Enemy - This card isn't likely "good" but I think it is at least going to do some amusing things and may throw a wrench into people's plans by suddenly goading everything on the board towards one player in particular. This does affect all of your own creatures too, so a degree of caution is needed.

Removed Cards
-1 Reanimate - It's an incredibly strong card in many circumstances obviously but I needed to make some room and this doesn't have any particular synergy with the deck.
-1 Oubliette - It's good but I think swapping it out for Void Rend is going to be more useful more often.

Both removed cards are pretty useful but I like switching things up to try new stuff out and these seemed like pretty safe options to get rid of, without going against the overall spirit of the deck.

[Ruiner]

Quick update due to the release of the Commander Legends Baldur's Gate Cards:

Added Cards
+1 Beckoning Will-o'-Wisp
+1 Windshaper Planetar
+1 Orzhov Advokist

Removed Cards
-1 Drannith Magistrate
-1 Arcane Laboratory
-1 Glaring Spotlight

I removed a few "speedbump" style cards in favor of more cards that force, or at least encourage, attention away from me.

[Ruiner]

I made a few quick tweaks to the deck to try some new and some older cards:


Added Cards
+1 Legions to Ashes
+1 Farewell
+1 Engineered Explosives
+ Trinket Mage


Removed Cards
-1 Vindicate
-1 Beckoning Will-o'-Wisp
-1 Fatespinner
-1 Orzhov Advokist


Swapping Vindicate for Legions to Ashes seems like an upgrade in most cases (I'm sure there will be a game where I miss the ability to hit land).

I've been meaning to try Engineered Explosives for a while now. There are plenty of games where just playing this for 0 mana will be very useful, as creature token swarms and treasures and other artifact tike can be pretty prevalent at times. I noticed I have a number of useful 0 and 1 mana CMC artifacts so Trinket Mage seems worth trying.

Fatespinner and Orzhov Advokist have both been useful but I needed to remove something to try new things.

[ISBPathfinder]

Banishment might be something to consider as well in the spot you are adding the explosives. My only concern with Engineered Explosives is that it lacks versatility sometimes where as the ability to instant speed O Ring can still be very useful even if killing all tokens isn't what you need. I am not super fond of O ring effects but the fact that it can en mass remove tokens is really nice and its still a flash O ring which can disrupt to some degree most strategies.

I also think you should consider some of the Propaganda effects too when it comes to the dissuasion avenue. It helps a lot against swarm decks but even decks that don't swarm the tax cuts into how much they can do in a turn if attacking you is also the plan.

[Ruiner]

Banishment might be something to consider as well in the spot you are adding the explosives. My only concern with Engineered Explosives is that it lacks versatility sometimes where as the ability to instant speed O Ring can still be very useful even if killing all tokens isn't what you need. I am not super fond of O ring effects but the fact that it can en mass remove tokens is really nice and its still a flash O ring which can disrupt to some degree most strategies.

I usually don't even consider O Ring effects for commander but that one isn't bad at all actually. I may have to try that one out soon.

I also think you should consider some of the Propaganda effects too when it comes to the dissuasion avenue. It helps a lot against swarm decks but even decks that don't swarm the tax cuts into how much they can do in a turn if attacking you is also the plan.

I've had Propoganda, Ghostly Prison and similar effects in the deck over the years and have slowly just gravitated more towards instants like Inkshield. Those enchantments definitely do good work though and I'm sure I'll be considering them again at some point. Weighing the reactive versus proactive elements is something I go back and forth on whenever I tinker with this deck.

[ISBPathfinder]

Yea I get you on O Rings. They are a bit fragile but adding flash and the option to mop up a wave of tokens is really good on an O ring because if it has tokens on it then they won't come back. Beyond that its still useful as an emergency stop and given that you are in blue you can threaten counter magic which makes them reasonable as commander answers as if someone leaves their commander exiled on it you could counterspell an answer to get them back so it threatens a bit better in this sort of setup especially with more of a draw go style of focus to the deck.

I have always found with some of these draw go strategies that I prefer a mixed bag of passive defenses and reactive ones but I also tend to play as a big target which often gets me playing 3v1 magic on the regular.

[Ruiner]

It's been a while since I've tinkered with this deck but a few neat cards have been released recently that fit the vibe of this deck so I've made a few adjustments:

Added Cards
+1 Galadriel's Dismissal - It's versatile and I think will do some good things.
+1 Stroke of Midnight - It's the new white staple removal, not much more to say.
+1 Weeping Angel - I'm looking forward to the first time I catch someone off-guard with this.
+1 Renegade Silent - It goads every turn and isn't easy to remove. I have a feeling this will be an annoying card. A free "target" effect every turn is a welcome addition as well.

Removed Cards
-1 Chrome Mox - It's great, but for this deck I don't really need to accelerate like that so much.
-1 Trinket Mage - Needed to cut something and this isn't crucial.
-1 Legions to Ashes - Swapped this for Stroke of Midnight,
-1 Rule of Law - Needed to find room for trying new cards. One of my playgroup is going to combo off next game I play this deck I'm sure.

[ISBPathfinder]

I could also see possibly trying Excise the Imperfect. It depends a lot in what you end up removing with it as to the drawback of its use as well as a question of how much you value the difference between destroy and exile.

I saw Patriar's Seal the other day and thought to myself how it might be cool on a high cmc commander with size that does the voltron thing. It would let you ramp into the commander and then later have psudo vigilance on demand giving somewhat of a flexible attack and defense setup with the commander.

[Ruiner]

I could also see possibly trying Excise the Imperfect. It depends a lot in what you end up removing with it as to the drawback of its use as well as a question of how much you value the difference between destroy and exile.

I saw Patriar's Seal the other day and thought to myself how it might be cool on a high cmc commander with size that does the voltron thing. It would let you ramp into the commander and then later have psudo vigilance on demand giving somewhat of a flexible attack and defense setup with the commander.

I've thought about trying Excise the Imperfect in a few decks, but worried about the potential consequences of giving someone a bigger threat. It may not even be a big deal though. Strangely I haven't seen anyone in my playgroup give this card a shot yet. With the combat step hijinks, this deck may not actually care at all, that's a good call for a future update.

Patriar's Seal does seem like a neat idea, especially for this color combo. Either get to use it for a bit of extra mana or the pseudo vigilance like you said. I've never seen this card before.

I also considered Mists of Lórien but couldn't decide on a card to cut. Sorcery speed might hurt, but it has some potential.