Pointed Discussion

I think this card is greatly underrated. Cromat is a game-breaker.

Incredibly fun, although I wish I knew what exactly it was.

Ah, my first legendary, the rainbow Morphling (hmm, that didn't at all sound flattering). One of my favorite creatures of all time. Had him when I was but a rookie and all I wanted to do was build a five-color deck. He's good at self-sustenance until you aquire Coalition Victory, despite being quite a glutton for mana. I suppose there are easier ways to Coalesce a Victory (Prismatic Lace, some dual lands, you're all set) but I'm a sucker for nostalgia.

Fun card if you have a deck that can use it.

The boyscout of my Sunburst deck. He's always prepared for anything with all those abilities.

If you have the mana to cast it, then Cromat is nearly impossible to get rid of, and becomes very powerful.

Wow that's a cool card, even the first ability alone is awesome. None of the abilities cause tap either so you can reuse them as much as you have mana for.

EDH anyone? hed never die considering you can just bounce him to your next draw. and then he wouldnt cost as much as if i died

Like all five-color creatures, Cromat combos well with all those two-color auras from Shadowmoor-Eventide. Just be sure to play Clout of the Dominus last. Transguild Courrier is certainly easier to play, but it doesn't have all those cool abilities.

Love this card. Play it with Spirit of Resistance and after the Bringer of the Black Dawn grabbed it just play Coalition Victory.

I love how each of his abilities matches one of the Ravnica guilds.

5 colors.
5 power and toughness
5 abilities.
legendary illusion


aaaaaaaaaawesome.

5 stars

Has the perfect flavor for Archenemy, because he simultaneously represents all the enemy color combinations. blessing of the nephilim gives him a nice boost.

I like eating polar bear, too! Cromat and I have so much in common :D

wat

I once saw one of these in the dollar box of a shop. how i regret not buying it now. :(

This guy's just fun. The art is amazing too. Nigh-ineradicable and with bad-ass art, this is a very Cromulent card.

Why isn't this thing a wurm illusion? It looks like a big wurm to me. WOTC, please give me a 4 color(BGRW) wurm legend for my commander deck. While you are at it, please print a 5 color golem, a BGW elf legend, and a legendary Noggle...or all but that last one would be fine!

I know! I'll cheat him out with fist of suns!
They'll never see it coming...

He's already got some resistance to popular spot removal (Terror-like cards and such), but pair him with the new Lord of the Unreal and go to town.

I've always liked Cromat for his novelty and mix of abilities so I have an EDH deck built around him. He combos well with many cards, most of which have already been mentioned, but Pledge of loyalty is one of my favourites as it gives him protection almost as good as Progenitus making him very hard to kill and almost unblockable (great for a strong EDH commander) with the advantage that you can still attach equipment to him making it better than the usual Whispersilk Cloak in my opinion.
For those of you who don't know he was created when the Phyrexians merged their artificial plane of Rath into Dominaria during their invasion; Cromat was created from the raw mana mixing on the boundary as two planes merged.

I run this in a pretty crazy 5-color deck of mine. It's pretty great fun with Experiment Kraj for sure. :3

Best general in EDH ever.

The only legendary Illusion. Wish there were more.

This dude makes a very fun EDH commander. The obvious things about him (her? it? Opinions?) are obviously awesome- he can fly, you don't want to block him and he's a mean defender, he can pump a little, he can not die, and what's that, a pacifism? Nah, I'll just redraw and replay him for 5 mana next turn, thank you very much...

What may be slightly less obvious is how rainbow Cromat gives you access to cards of all colors. This is a big deal in EDH- there's no card in MTG that you aren't allowed to play with Cromat as your commander. So you can wipe the board with white, clone things with blue (great against legendary generals) and play Ixidron, tutor and kill stuff with black, haste your general with red, pump your general with green... You also have access to charms and multi-part cards, helping you to do everything all the time. And you can use cool rainbow stuff like the Bringers. Also the stuff that makes a creature better the more colors it is become pretty great... hello Blessing of the Nephilim, Might of the Nephilim, and Knight of New Alara! Cards like that and double strike and extra attack phase stuff can allow you to deal that 21 commander damage in a turn, and do so without giving yourself away beforehand.

Cromat is fun! He can do everything and he allows you to build a deck that can also do everything. Also he's goofy, which in my book is a huge plus. So that's the good. Now the bad. First, lands. Figuring out what lands you need for rainbow EDH is a headache. And if you choose to buy lands for the deck, that can quickly become expensive as nonbasic lands can be pricey. Personally, I like the Alara cycle and painlands. Those will still be sort of costly, but nothing like stuffing your deck with, say, shock lands. But if you're on a budget tap lands like Kazandu Refuge should be ok.

Second, figuring out how you use the mana in the deck can also be a pain. Cromat has five abilities and each one requires different combinations of mana. You're also playing cards of every color. Figuring out what lands you need to use and how to use them, as well as what lands you need to leave open at any given time, can be a headache at first- it takes a little practice.

Third, land kill can be a BIG problem for rainbow decks...

I'm not sure Cromat would be a great EDH general for someone new to MTG or even to the EDH format. But if you've got some experience under your belt, he's a blast to play! And did I mention that he's a giant wurm-thingie with gossamer wings who eats polar bears? The art is awesome, an enlarged pic is worth checking out.

http://www.donatoart.com/magic/cromat.html

At first, I thought Progenitus was the obvious choice for From the Vault: Legends...but this guy is so much older, and feels much more 'Vaulty' than Prog. Why didn't they??!??!

The ONLY 5-color Legend that can compete with Prog, and isn't a Sliver. Way to screw up, Wizards :p

@Darthparallax

Wait you're serious aren't you....

Because money

Wizards cares very little about you fanboy vorthos types, and you asking why janky pieces of jankity jank jank don't get shoved into FTV packs makes my head hurt.

The re-prints for FTV are for reprinting broken cards and things that are rare finds, not for your dumb pieces of garbage like this POS commander.

You wanna run garbage like Cromat or Phelddagrif be my guest, enjoy losing and stop asking dumb questions.

Real players will continue to run Zur and other tier commanders.

@D34D2R1T35

Bro chillax. Prog is a boss, but so is Cromat. They both do different things.
Cromat doesn't die, Progenitus does and then goes to the library. Cromat just bounces up outta there like it's nobodies business. I obviously am biased towards Cromat but you can't blatantly call Cromat garbage just because you like big numbers and Cromat doesn't have those at first glance...

@D34D2R1T35

You're joking right? I mean, you'd have to be; that statement can't be what you actually believe right? Wow, just, wow. The latest Vault was a let down, Legends was also pretty bad, and realistically Cromat is better than any creature from FTV: Legends. Not to mention even as he is, his art is still better than the botch jobs they had commissioned for the Legends. You may feel obligated to eat what Wizards forces down your tasteless pallet but some of us have taste. There is so much face to be torn with Cromat, and he's also in-expensive, both mana and money wise. You wanna run REAL tier commanders try: Nivy, Scion, Cromat, Ghave, or Thrax.

@guy before me without a real name cuz it's all numbers and jank jankety jank jank:
From the Vault is not JUST about broken cards. It's about powerful Nostalgia for the game of Magic. Shivan Dragon is one of the greatest hits in the history of the game- it's Alpha version is worth over 4 1st Edition Charizards because MAGIC is (minimum) a 4x Better Game than Pokemon. While it's true that From the Vault should not read like a "Savor the Flavor" laundry list (Ironically, From the Vault Legends- looking at you) of a bunch of Vorthos-tastic cards that have no real value, Progenitus, unlike Cromat, is a much more recent card, much more powerful, and priveledged to be a good candidate for a Duel Decks or Modern Masters release. Cromat will have no such opportunities. Even if "Scars of Dominaria" or "Return to Terisiare" were to happen, Cromat will be forgotten. From the Vault is also a home for cards that can be printed no-where else for whatever reason. There will be no more Cromats now. A moment of silence for Cromat...

Cromat is from the bygone days of Magic, when things like Kird Ape were considered so fantastic they'd get Banned. There was only likely going to be one 5-color Legend in the Vault, and the choices were:
Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Sliver something
Progenitus
Child of Alara
Cromat
I do believe that's every 5-colored Legendary Creature in Magic. Slivers already had their Premium Deck, and Sliver Queen I think is Reserved. Child of Alara while exactly the kind of card that could be considered if you only think about "Tier 1 Zur, Azami and Friends", because it's Wrath-Power is good for play value, it really isn't anywhere as Exciting as Progenitus from the previous set. Progenitus is THE card for both power AND Vorthos from Alara, and indeed compares well to Emrakul and other WHOAH cards for Power./

As a History Major, I like studying the past, and that includes Magic's Past, I think I know just what the Vault is supposed to be: A combination of what appeals to the kind of person that absolutely CRIES for the 90's Cartoons, for 10cent comic books, for Classical Music like Beethoven, for when War was Glorious like at Troy, and for all the Cool Things that are Gone Now, or that Whippersnappers Don't Appreciate, AND some seriously overpowered Jank that will make an awesome Commander Deck, ONCE, until your friends threaten to take you out behind the barn and shoot and stab and choke you, repeatedly, if you don't take it apart and scatter the pieces into various less-degenerate decks, never to be united again./Kird Ape and Shivan Dragon are JUST what 'filler' should look like in the Vault: Something that at least some people know the Epic Stories about, even if those stories are 'outdated'. You think that Cromat is completely stupid. Would you say the same thing to Sliver Queen? She is a 5-color Legend that doesn't appear to have any redeeming qualities besides being 5-colors, and being very old, because honestly Allies decks can do very much what Slivers decks can, and those decks are really only a threat to decks that have no Wrath of Gods nor anything like Circle of Fire. In other words, Slivers are TERRIBLE AWFUL MONSTERS when you don't come prepared, and when you do prepare....well, they aren't winning any Legacy Tournaments for a reason. But Sliver Queen and Cromat actually have reasonably good play in Commander, AND appeal to exactly the players that Shivan Dragon and Kird Ape do (no, not RDW), and frankly, From the Vault Legends is highly critized for having too many recent cards and kind of reinforcing the reminder that Power Creep will make practically EVERY not-banned-in Legacy card become outdated and lackluster given enough time. Yes, even Emrakul. Blightsteel Colossus is simply more mana efficient and swing-efficient. In 3 quick, successive, blows, Progenitus, Emrakul, and Blightsteel destroyed all the mystique of Timmy, since it's quite obvious now that there will always be a Super Godzilla Creature, there will always be a way to cost another creature more aggressively to beat Super Godzilla to the draw, and Combo decks with Super Godzilla will be able to pick from a dozen odd creatures and exactly which one they choose matters rather little. In otherwords, Super Godzillas Aren't Special because there's too many of them now. /Back in the Elder Days of MTG though, Cromat looked better than Nicol Bolas for all kinds of reasons- like being Rainbow-y, having defense against creatures and spells, and having more words in his rules box. And being just awesome flavor from a Color Pie stance, using all Enemy Pair Abilities!

I think my favorite part about him, aside from being an amazing EDH General, is how flavorful his abilities are.

: Very flavorful to both colors regarding destruction, leaning more towards the white though due to no color/type distinction necessary, and the block requirement that most white removal/tricks are known for.

: Blue is the color most-known for flying, with red being a very close second due to the large appeal in the casual player-base for dragons.

: Now while green just screams regeneration on this, despite black not being too well known on the matter, it's a sort of instant speed reanimation when it would be destroyed.

: White is known for having : ~ gets +0/+1. Red is known for Firebreathing. Not too much rocket science there!

: Green and Blue LOVE to toss stuff back on top of libraries. Some of my favorite cards for this are Primal Command, Temporal Spring, and Memory Lapse.


Great in EDH, cool artwork, hits all the color flavors beautifully.
This is one of the rarer examples of a, what would seem to be, perfectly designed card.

5/5.

This might be the best 5-color EDH general that isn't a Sliver.

The best part about his first ability is that it destroys the creature before combat damage is done.

This really should have been errated to be a dragon or beast or something, because in the art its clearly eating something, and I don't know what need an illusory creature would have for eating.

And D34D2R1T35? I don't know how much harder I can tell you to screw off.

The commander for the silliest EDH deck ever: Run 40 charms, 40 lands (none basic), approx. 10 cards to recover charms with, and the rest win conditions (including this guy), preferably that win via lots of casting of instants.

@D34D2R1T35 - I know I shouldn't take the bait, but...

...look. It should be evident from my above text: Commander is a melee multiplayer fun-fest format. The guy who runs a super-refined Zur deck? Gets taken down in a 3v1 right off the bat. If everyone BUT the Cromat guy runs "tier" commanders? Either one of the "tier" people chooses to lose by taking the Cromat deck down and being on a lesser footing with the other two "tier" people, the three "tier" people agree to team up and take down the Cromat guy (and one of them invariably backstabs the others at the first opportunity in order to win because they're all super hardcore), or the three non-Cromat decks all beat the shit out of each other, giving Cromat a real chance even if technically inferior because all he (she? it?) has to do is pick up the pieces.

If you're really focused on winning, there is a careful balance between a powerful deck and a deck that never SEEMS powerful. Cromat is good at hitting that balance: Pretty strong, but can be handled okay as a commander. The rest of the deck can be constructed to match. Commanders like Zur or Scion of the Ur-Dragon? OH GOD KILL IT BEFORE IT DOES SOMETHING STUPID AND KILLS EVERYONE IN ONE TURN. Mechanically superior? Sure. That's not all that matters in multiplayer. That's the beauty of Commander: Everyone is viable to a degree because being unviable mechanically automatically adds viability. I mean, unless you play 1v1 commander in which case go get some more friends. :y

Outside of Sliver-built EDH decks, this guy is the best 5-colour general. So many ways to give him infinite strength, allows for many other combos in your deck, and when he gets out, he STAYS out.

5/5

Am I the only one who thinks of Cromat as the five color version of Morphling? I love cards that just have pay mana activated abilities, and he is the master of that.

I'd love to learn the story behind Cromat. What the hell IS it?

this card is a sick card to use in commander format

He actually costs unless you want to lose him to removal.

Anyone who wants to grow up to be a troll someday should review D34D2R1T35's comment.
Bitter Person With No Friends isn't who you want to be taking EDH advice from.

I concur with everyone thus far about Mr number garbage username. People play MTG for fun bro, with that attitude you may as well play Solitaire decks (or plain just solitaire). Anyhow, now to discuss and join the many other non-trolls in this forum. I use Cromat as an EDH General because it's versatile and fun. Cromat strikes me more as a combo based general. Here are some of my favorites I like using in my EDH deck

Where Ancients Tread - to face an opponent
Civic Saber - for lolz
Drumhunter - card advantage
Spellbreaker Behemoth - so no one counteres cromat
Spearbreaker Behemoth - so no one kills cromat
Psychotic Fury - so cromat can face someone
Knight of new Alara - all dudes get bonus for colours
Wall of reverence - life insurance (no pun intended)
Soul's Majesty - card advantage
Maelstrom Nexus - woooooooooooo 8D

For most bounce and recast cromat for lolz. Pretty much anything else that gives you a bonus for being multicoloured or having power 5 or greater.

I wish to take this opportunity to discuss EDH philosophy. If you are going through your deck, and you find a card you like (or thought you might), but you don't love, swap it out and put something you do. Cromat is a vile little bugger that puts your whole collection at your disposal. Want to use all the best removal? Granted. Best burn spells? Granted. Bounce? Counters? Double granted. Creatures? All the ones that aren't banned. Most of the other five-colour legends suggest a particular type of deck construction. Cromat lets you do whatever you like, as long as he gets a little taste of your enemies' blood. You might ask, 'What doesn't this guy give me?' An easy victory, for one. You'll have a blast, though. People will ignore you at first since you have a wacky general, but once your mana base is established, you get Cromat, he is joined by some nasty friends, and you proceed to shred some rival planeswalkers. Five amazing and useful abilities (evasion, self-bounce, pump, creature destruction, and regeneration!), five p/t, and only five cmc? Don't rate him lower because five colour decks are unwieldy. He shines. 5/5

I'll definitely take Cromat as a Commander, since he's the only non-themed five color Legendary Creature. He's going to be perfect Commander for my Weatherlight's Crew EDH deck. Since he's an Illusion I think I'll add Lord of the Unreal and a Conspiracy for the giggles.

The first sign that he kicks ass is that be eats polar bears for breakfast.

Just saying is all.