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So…yeah. In case you couldn’t tell, this is the Story Circle list from Episode 243. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you probably should. We got Tom, formerly of the MTG Radio podcast, to join us for this one. He’s on Twitter, oddly enough, as @MTGRadio. MTG Radio is also the reason Chewie started playing EDH in the first place, so much love to those guys.
Our randomly-chosen general today, as you can probably tell from the big-ass picture directly to the right, is Cromat. First off, there’s a problem with Cromat. The problem with Cromat is that he’s five colors and does nothing terribly specific. He’s just wide open. Sure he has five abilities, but none of those abilities really DO anything that you’d want to build around. When it comes to doing a Story Circle with nothing but a general to go off of, that’s a very big problem.
Luckily, we had Tom around to point out that Cromat does have one thing going for him. He’s got FIVE ABILITIES! Whatever are we going to do with all those ABILITIES? Gee, I don’t know, how about some stuff that deals with ABILITIES! Oh, just go ahead and check out the list. Warning: This deck ended up all over the place. The order we started with lasts until the final group, where Mike and Brian had to switch it up because Brian’s brain sorta hung up for a minute.
Rings of Brighthearth – Tom
Experiment Kraj – Brian
Skill Borrower – Mike
Dark Impostor – Chewie
Prey Upon – Dirk
Beguiler of Wills – T
Greenseeker – B
Quicksilver Elemental – M
Heartstone – C
Dominate – D
Exploding Borders – T
Jodah’s Avenger – B
Concerted Effort – M
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker – C
Weathered Wayfarer – D
Stone-Seeder Hierophant – T
Cytoshape – B
Surivor of the Unseen – M
Mirror Entity – C
Renegade Doppelganger – D
Citanul Flute – T
Sakashima the Imposter – B
Guided Passage – M
Thousand-Year Elixir – C
Scion of Darkness – D
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter – T
Coffin Queen – M
Cold-Eyed Selkie – B
Necrotic Ooze – C
Courtly Provocateur – D
8 Comments
Yeah… I might just have to proxy this up and play it tomorrow night. Adding in ramp, any other suggestions from fellow listeners?
Mariki de Bruit, guys.
Rules question here…am I correct in speculating that only the first and fourth of Cromat’s abilities could be copied (to any degree of usefulness, at least) using Rings of Brighthearth?
The reason I ask is that the text for the Rings says, “copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.” The second, third, fourth, and fifth abilities act on Cromat himself. Is Cromat actually considered to be the ‘target’ of such ability, or must the text specifically say the word ‘target’ for this to work?
I can understand copying the first ability; whack his second blocker if need be. And the fourth ability will throw a second +1/+1 counter.
Loong story short: could you use the Rings to copy Cromat’s second ability to give Scion of Darkness (for instance) flying? Or is that not allowed?
A spell or ability only has targets if it specifically uses the word “target”, so yeah, some of Cromat’s abilities would be kind of pointless to copy with Rings of Brighthearth. But, for the ones that aren’t pointless, it’s actually a pretty useful way to get around the rough color requirements for multiple activations.
I think the main reason the Rings were brought up in the Story Circle was because he has so many activated abilities, and Tom’s brain went straight from “ABILITIES!!!” to Rings (which of course makes sense). After that, the rest of the deck went on to follow the “ABILITIES!!!” theme.
Which turned out pretty awesome, in fact! Thanks, Mike!
I loved this Cromat deck. A while back I did a different take on him which you can check out here
You guys have a lot of ways to take advantage of Cromat once he’s in play, but the challenge is getting him in to play (5 diff colors and all). Definitely Chromatic Lantern coming in Return to Ravnica should be in there. Living Wish and Dragon Arch can help make it easier to get Cromat into play until the lantern becomes legal – or as a secondary method.
Yeah, we usually leave all the support cards un-mentioned when doing a Story Circle, because then it just turns into more work for less interesting discussion. I’m not sure what you mean when you say Living Wish and Dragon Arch would help get Cromat into play, though, since the Command zone isn’t outside the game and it’s not in your hand either.
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[...] Then we decided to bring back the old Story Circle. Aw yeah, you know you love it! Our random general this time around was…Cromat. Yeah, but we made the best out of it. If you want to follow along or at least see what these cards are as we rattle them off, you can check out the post here: http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle243edh [...]
[...] along or at least see what these cards are as we rattle them off, you can check out the post here: http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle243edh Tom is @MTGRadio on Twitter by the way – you know what to do. Intro & Outro [...]