We've arrived at three colors. Three-color decks in Commander. They tend to have access to enough stuff that they no longer lack in any particular area, as mono colored decks do. They can ramp, kill things, make big threats, search for stuff, draw cards... all the bases are covered. Getting all your colors is rarely a problem in this format, with the abundance of fixing available (even to those on a budget!), so really the only problem is the volume of commanders to pick from. At three colors, the options really start to thin.

We want something different. How about a seven-mana 1/1 commander? Not your normal stats.

Effectively what we have here is a very difficult to kill, unblockable, seven-mana 1/1 that forces us to discard cards. Sure, sometimes we might get lucky with someone who doesn't have any fliers and no one at the table is packing a Tragic Slip or anything, but most of the time we're going to have to ditch a card to get him through. This means, if we want to actually kill someone with him, we're going to have to a) hit that player 21 times (63 turns for a four-person game asks a lot) or b) figure out a way to pump up our little dude. The thing is, if we're casting him for cost, we're already paying 7 mana. That's a lot, and it puts us into big mana territory, so we can probably figure out a way to give him some huge bonuses.

Traditionally, we use My Deck Tickled A Sliver to go through our decks. Mana, Draw, Threats, Answers, and Synergy is a great way to make sure that a given deck covers the basic needs of a multiplayer Commander deck. However, a different technique was used this time, so let's walk through the deck in a different way.

The first thing I did was list the categories of cards I knew I wanted the deck to have. The categories came from thinking about how I wanted the deck to work: I want to kill an opponent with Chromium when he's a 1/1, preferably in a single hit. In order to do that, I need to cast him, buff him up, and keep him alive, all while keeping myself from dying to faster decks. The categories I came up with are:

• Card Draw
• Recursion
• Ramp
• Board Wipes
• Removal
• Counterspells
• Voltron Pieces
• Random Good Effects
• Land

I then assigned a number to each effect, reflecting how many cards should be in each category. For removal and card draw, I prioritized Instant speed, because using our mana at the last minute will help keep us alive. I got to these numbers using two things: experience, and seven of a card in a 100 card deck equals about four of a card in a 60 card deck. Once that was done, the list looked like this:

• Card Draw - 12
• Recursion - 7
• Ramp - 7
• Board Wipes - 6
• Removal - 8
• Counterspells - 8
• Voltron Pieces - 8
• Random Good Effects - 3
• Land - 40

Note: cards with options are excellent in this kind of build. Take Archmage's Charm: it does three things, and two of them fit our categories. That's excellent! For this exercise, however, every single card gets slotted into a single category, and extra abilities are just that. So the Charm can be a counterspell, or a draw spell, but not both. So prioritize multiple uses, but don't let them make deck-building too difficult. That is where play experience with decks is useful for tuning.

The idea here is to build Chromium into a massive attacker. As it's difficult to do that quickly, it made more sense to slow the game, keep attackers off our back, and simply stay alive until we can start knocking our opponents out of the Game 1 by one. We want to keep cards flowing into our hand so we can draw into our Voltron pieces and have stuff to discard to keep Chromium alive when someone decides to try to kill him. We also have to worry about Wrath of God and its ilk, because all the Hexproof in the world doesn't save Chromium from that. Our suite of Counterspells is purely to stop Wrath effects. I suppose we can use them to stop infinite combos as well, but that's probably the only exception.

Cost is also a curious thing. Often, control decks like this want to keep mana costs as low as possible; it's why Counterspell is widely played and Force of Will is coveted in formats in which it's legal. However, in this case, we have very little to do until we reach seven mana. We might play a mana rock or a piece of equipment, and we might need to send a Murderous Rider on an Adventure to keep us alive, or even wipe the board ourselves if some Elf mage gets going too hard, but we don't have to keep everything as cheap as possible. That means we can try to get some extra utility out of our effects. Once we've cast Chromium, the idea is he will simply never die, so we'll have 7 mana available to cast our spells. We can play Rhystic Study and still have at least 4 mana up to keep him alive.

Card Draw

Except for Rhystic Study, all our draw spells are instants. Wait until the very last minute to cast them, and don't be afraid to use a lot of mana into a Sphinx's Revelation and have to discard down to hand size. Better to have the best seven of 12 than a random seven.

Recursion

These cards are very deck specific. Because this particular deck is mostly instants and sorceries, most of our recursion is for those spells. We can discard a counterspell, knowing we can get it back later. We have a couple of cards that get other things, mainly because if someone kills our Blackblade Reforged or whatever, it might be easier to buy it back than wait to get a Colossus Hammer. Snapcaster Mage is great here, but if you don't have one, Pull from the Deep is fine too.

Ramp

Did this one first. Again, cost is less of an issue: we're not trying to ramp hard early, we're trying to ease the burden of a seven-mana Commander. Three mana is fine to pay for a mana rock. Sol Ring can make for a very explosive start, of course, and Hedron Archive can be cashed in for cards, as can any of the Lockets, which makes them better than the two-mana ones that don't get us more cards.

Board Wipes

This is an interesting category, because it's probably not something we want to do once our Commander is out. Occasionally, though, things get completely out of hand and the board needs to be reset, so better to do it on our terms. Divine Reckoning and Time Wipe both let us protect Chromium. Aetherize and Settle the Wreckage only hit one player, but they do a good job of stopping an assault of Goblins or a flight of Angels.

Removal

We want fast, deadly options. Exile is great. Exiling permanents is best. We're running much of the best removal in the format, and each piece is worth its weight.

Counterspells

We want value rather than cheap for the counter suite. Unwind and Rewind give us our mana back, and Unwind is fine because we're only countering Wrath effects, right? Mystic Confluence, Cryptic Command, and Confirm Suspicions all give us more cards, Render Silent shuts down an opponent for a turn, Dovin's Veto stops a counter war, and Disallow will stop an Avatar of Woe activation. Keep mana open.

Voltron pieces

A 1/1 Commander needs a lot of help to kill in a single hit. Fortunately, we've got access to Double Strike, so rather than giving Chromium +20/+20, we can just give him +10/+10 and Double Strike, which does 22 commander damage and ends a player. Eldrazi Conscription and Colossus Hammer both give that power boost. Bonehoard and Nighthowler will care about all the creatures in graveyards, which won't be many from us but can often be substantial, especially if a Wrath or two went off before Chromium landed. Blackblade Reforged is normally at least six, most of the time eight, and easily can be 10. Righteous Authority is our smallest one, but it draws us extra cards and sometimes we can use a draw spell to get up to 10 in hand. Battle Mastery and Fireshrieker both give Double Strike.

Random effects

It's worth it to have at least a few slots for fun cards. There wasn't a ton of room left, but each of these added value. Teferi's Protection isn't a counterspell, but it allows us to let a Wrath effect occur and keep, well, all our stuff. Sometimes that's just what is needed. Bag of Holding is a massive buyback of our discarded cards, plus it loots if we need to dig for a specific answer. Finally, Metallurgic Summonings is silly fun in a deck with a ton of Instants and Sorceries. Plus there are random situations where its second ability could happen.

Lands

The only colorless lands are Buried Ruin and Reliquary Tower. Everything else makes a color or finds a color. We need more Blue than anything else, which is nice because most of the dual lands for Esper have Blue in them anyway.

Chromium, the Mutable | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Chromium, the Mutable

• Creatures (8)
• 1 Archaeomancer
• 1 Ironclad Slayer
• 1 Mnemonic Wall
• 1 Murderous Rider
• 1 Nighthowler
• 1 Possessed Skaab
• 1 Scholar of the Ages
• 1 Snapcaster Mage

• Instants (29)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 1 Archmage's Charm
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Chemister's Insight
• 1 Comparative Analysis
• 1 Confirm Suspicions
• 1 Cryptic Command
• 1 Despark
• 1 Disallow
• 1 Dovin's Veto
• 1 Esper Charm
• 1 Glimmer of Genius
• 1 Hero's Downfall
• 1 Mortify
• 1 Mystic Confluence
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Pull from Tomorrow
• 1 Render Silent
• 1 Rewind
• 1 Settle the Wreckage
• 1 Sphinx's Revelation
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Teferi's Protection
• 1 Tragic Lesson
• 1 Unwind
• 1 Utter End
• 1 Visions of Beyond

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Divine Reckoning
• 1 Grim Discovery
• 1 Merciless Eviction
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Time Wipe

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Battle Mastery
• 1 Eldrazi Conscription
• 1 Metallurgic Summonings
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Righteous Authority

• Artifacts (12)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Azorius Locket
• 1 Bag of Holding
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Bonehoard
• 1 Colossus Hammer
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Dimir Locket
• 1 Fireshrieker
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Orzhov Locket
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (40)
• 2 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 8 Island
• 1 Arcane Sanctum
• 1 Bad River
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Choked Estuary
• 1 Concealed Courtyard
• 1 Darkslick Shores
• 1 Dismal Backwater
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Esper Panorama
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Flood Plain
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Jwar Isle Refuge
• 1 Port Town
• 1 Prairie Stream
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Scoured Barrens
• 1 Seachrome Coast
• 1 Secluded Glen
• 1 Sejiri Refuge
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Cove
• 1 Wanderwine Hub

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So we ended up with a pretty serious control deck. The thing about control in Commander is we have to take the notion from heads-up Magic that a control deck "controls the game" and throw it completely out. What we have to do is assert just enough control to stay alive until we can win. That means picking our targets carefully, politicking well, and making sure we draw enough cards to keep the answers flowing while we dig for our game-winning cards.

Don't be afraid to attack with Chromium for 11. It'll scare the person you hit, and what are they going to do? Kill Chromium? Doubt it. Just be ready to defend yourself, because you're likely to start taking heat immediately.

It's possible this deck wants more static card draw than the Instant speed stuff. Rhystic Study is the only example in the deck, but Phyrexian Arena or even Mind Unbound might be worth it. The deck is also slow; more board wipes might be necessary, especially if you play with a bunch of token players or fast decks. Cyclonic Rift would be worth considering in place of another wipe. More removal or counterspells also might be necessary. Runechanter's Pike might be better than Nighthowler or Bonehoard, because we'll have so many Instants and Sorceries in the 'yard. Academy Ruins would probably be better than Buried Ruin, but a lot more expensive. The final concern might sound a bit wacky, but it's possible the deck wants even a little more mana. It's not unusual for control decks to run nearly 50% mana, so if you're not hitting your mana on time, consider upping the amount just a bit. Maybe Elixer of Immortality could find its way into the deck.

Other than Chromium, I considered Yennett for 0.2 seconds. How would you build Chromium? When you build a deck, do you use categories, and how do you balance them? What did I miss in this deck? Let us all know!

Thanks for reading.