Chroma Has One Advantage Over Devotion
General forum
Posted on Oct. 28, 2023, 11:33 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
Mark Rosewater has said that devotion is much more popular than is chroma, so chroma is unlikely to return, but chroma has one advantage over devotion, because devotion counts mana symbols only in the mana costs of permanents, and only while those permanents are on the battlefield, but chroma can count mana symbols anywhere on a card, and in any zone; imagine being able to count the mana symbols in the text box of Vorpal Sword; how awesome would that be?
I understand that chroma is unlikely to return, but I hope that WotC is at least aware of its advantage over devotion.
What does everyone else say about this? Are you aware of chroma's advantage over devotion, and would you like to see chroma return, at some point?
DemonDragonJ says... #3
Caerwyn, I am very sorry that I did not notice that chroma counts mana symbols only in mana costs, so I thank you for making me away of that, and I now feel very foolish for not having taken the time to notice that before I made this post.
October 28, 2023 11:56 a.m.
Last_Laugh says... #4
I always liked Primalcrux. I had a homebrew Standard deck back then that used Spitting Image to copy him over and over. I actually came in 2nd place with it during fnm and things were going really smooth but I lost to seismic swans in the final round... a standard deck that ran like 45 lands.
November 2, 2023 11:09 a.m.
Last_Laugh says... #5
It was a fun mono green deck that also ran Devoted Druid and Quillspike for an infinitely big vanilla creature with no evasion. Cream of the Crop was my card selection. I honestly can't remember what all was in the deck but it was a lot of fun.
Caerwyn says... #2
You are wrong about how Chroma works - Chroma only counts mana symbols in the mana costs of cards - see Light from Within. It does not count mana symbols found anywhere else on the card.
And, while you are correct it can look at different places than just what you control, it is always limited to just one thing. Fiery Bombardment only looks at the sacrifices creature. Light from Within only looks at the symbols on the individual creature. Phosphorescent Feast only looks at the revealed cards.
While this gives it some flexibility, it makes it a terribly designed ability word. Ability words are supposed to make the game easier by telling you exactly what events must transpire for the ability to be implicated at a glance. Chroma does not do that - because it can be used for so many different things, you still have to read the card to know what set of mana symbols you need to look at.
Compare to Devotion - you see the word devotion and you automatically know where to look.
Chroma’s abilities are fine - and there certainly is design space for things like Light from Within. But it should just be a regular old ability, not something with an ability word attached.
October 28, 2023 11:45 a.m.