Chromium the Mutable--is discard necessary?
Asked by 9-lives 4 years ago
I'm curious if I use 'Chromium, the Mutable' will I have to use his discard ability which makes him a weakling human? If so, how do I use his full power of 7/7?
Rhadamanthus says... #2
Use double square brackets around a card's name to create a pop-up: Chromium, the Mutable
You're not required to use the ability if you don't want to. An ability that's written like "[cost] : [effect]" is called an "activated ability". You activate it by paying the cost, and then you get the effect. In most cases you can activate an ability like this any time you'd normally be able to play an Instant spell.
The value of Chromium the Mutable's ability is that you can use it to protect Chromium from certain kinds of spells and abilities. The "hexproof" ability given by the effect means Chromium can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control. You can activate Chromium's ability in response to an opponent's spell or ability that targets it, and Chromium will be safe.
September 6, 2019 6:32 p.m.
I fail to see besides the hexproof why anyone would want to activate that ability. He would die from a 1/1 creature! Pretty ridiculous to me.
September 6, 2019 6:41 p.m.
The hexproof is exactly the reason to activate it. Making him a 1/1 human is both a balancing mechanic and flavor.
It balances by giving a trade-off. You can easily react to him being targeted by making him a 1/1 (which you can still target with other effects), but in trade he becomes smaller.
Flavor-wise, in the story, Chromium is a dragon who would regularly take human form to pass among humans.
September 6, 2019 7:33 p.m.
In the future, please remember to hit the green “mark as answer” button to indicate your question has been resolved. Since since this question has been answered for a couple of days, I have gone ahead and marked an answer on your behalf.
Kogarashi says... Accepted answer #1
Please link cards with double square brackets to make it easier to understand the question.
Chromium, the Mutable
Chromium's last ability is an activated ability. If you want the effect (the part after the colon), you activate it by paying the cost (the part before the colon, which in this case is discarding a card). If you don't want the effect, don't activate it. You don't have to activate the ability to use Chromium.
This means you either have a Flying 7/7 dragon (chose not to activate the ability), or a Hexproof 1/1 human (chose to activate the ability).
It's important to note that if you have no cards in hand, or something else preventing you from discarding cards somehow, you can't pay the cost for Chromium's ability and thus can't activate it.
September 6, 2019 6:28 p.m.