The Commander
Flying
Rampage 2 (Whenever this creature becomes blocked, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn for each creature blocking it beyond the first.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Chromium unless you pay 
.
Guide
Gameplan
Cast the original Chromium as an 8-mana 7/7 flyer and beat down while paying its upkeep tax each turn. As an Esper good-stuff/control commander, you stabilize with removal and counters, then close with the big evasive body or alternate finishers since the commander itself is mostly a value beater.
Strengths
- Esper gives access to the best removal, counterspells, and card advantage in the format
- 7/7 flying with rampage 2 is a respectable evasive threat that punishes multi-blocks
- Color identity supports nearly any control, reanimator, or value strategy
Weaknesses
- Crippling upkeep tax: you must pay every turn or lose it, draining your mana
- 8 mana for a vanilla-ish beater is slow and overcosted by modern standards
- No built-in card advantage or protection from the commander itself
- Removal-magnet that doesn't replace itself when it dies, leaving you tempo-down
Key Cards
- Esper Sentinel — Taxes opponents and draws cards, helping you afford Chromium's upkeep while building advantage.
- Smothering Tithe — Generates Treasure tokens that easily cover the upkeep and ramp your control plan.
- Cyclonic Rift — The premier Esper blowout to clear blockers and protect your board before swinging.
- Swords to Plowshares — Cheap, efficient interaction that keeps you alive long enough to leverage the dragon.
- Teferi's Protection — Saves your board and Chromium from sweepers while phasing out during dangerous turns.
Upgrade Path
Prioritize mana rocks and Treasure makers (Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Smothering Tithe, Dockside) so the upkeep tax never slows you down, and add fast ramp to deploy Chromium ahead of curve. Lean into a clear secondary wincon—either Voltron equipment to make commander damage matter or a control package with a deterministic finisher—since the dragon alone wins slowly. Top-end interaction like Cyclonic Rift, Teferi's Protection, and a strong counterspell shell raises the power ceiling considerably.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Repeated 7+ power flying connections for commander damage
- ▸Big mana payoffs like Torment of Hailfire or a finisher X-spell
- ▸Voltron with equipment/auras for a fast 21 commander damage
- ▸Grinding the table out with control and finishing with any closer
Archetypes
- Control — Esper's deep counter and removal suite lets you grind the table down before deploying Chromium as a clock.
- Reanimator — WUB can cheat Chromium and other fatties into play to dodge the steep mana investment.
- Voltron — Equipment and evasion-boosting auras turn the flying dragon into a fast commander-damage threat.
- Aristocrats — Black sacrifice value and tokens can fuel an alternate engine when the dragon is too costly to maintain.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BUW), by popularity.
