One of the most exciting things about each new MTG set is seeing what spicy combos its new cards enable. While some of these are discovered during previews, more often they lie dormant for a while until someone in the community cracks them. For TMNT, we’ve seen exactly that happen with Chrome Dome. While this rare’s Commander combo potential was discovered quickly, it also enables some powerful combo lines in MTG Standard.
Chrome Dome Combo In MTG Standard
Chrome Dome’s true potential was revealed by MTG Creative Combos on X, who shared the interactions in a post a few days ago. Essentially, the card enables two separate infinite combo lines in Standard, one of which can be pulled off as early as turn three.
This speedier line requires Chrome Dome, Redshift, Rocketeer Chief, and Guac & Marshmallow Pizza. With both creatures in play, you can tap Redshift for two, then cast Pizza to buff and untap it, tapping for a further four. This gives you six mana in total, which you can then spend to activate Chrome Dome’s ability and make a new Pizza, untapping Redshift again.
You can repeat this process as many times as you’d like for infinite mana. While you can only spend this on abilities, you can sink it into all the Pizzas you’ve created for infinite life. This combo will also give you an infinitely large Redshift, which can end the game itself if you have an opening. For added redundancy, Mona Lisa, Science Geek can sub in for Redshift, but that will delay things by a turn.
The other Chrome Dome combo in MTG Standard involves Agatha of the Vile Cauldron and Boommobile. If you can get Agatha’s power to two or more, it’ll let you activate Chrome Dome’s ability for just three mana. Since Boommobile makes four mana on entry, this lets you create infinite copies of it with Chrome Dome, resulting in infinite mana.
Once you’ve built up your mana, you can then end the game on the spot by sinking it all into Boommobile’s damage ability. Though this combo is slower than the one above, the fact that it brings its own win condition makes it arguably more effective overall.
A Real Contender?
In most cases, the Chrome Dome combo lines above, while interesting, wouldn’t generally be taken seriously by MTG Standard players. Such strategies are often fragile and gimmicky, after all, and not conducive to consistent wins. In a surprising twist, however, these combos are actually getting attention from some big-time players. We’ve also seen a number of players on MTG Arena trialing the combos, and to reasonably good results, too.
So far, the shells players have built to contain these combos have been fairly similar. There are a lot of combo pieces in the mix here, after all, which doesn’t leave a ton of room for variance. In addition to playsets of the pieces themselves, many builds tend to run Llanowar Elves for ramp, and a solid package of green tutors. Formidable Speaker and Nature’s Rhythm can help find any of your key creatures, while Courier of Comestibles can grab Guac & Marshmallow Pizza.
On top of this, Chrome Dome combo decks tend to include Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, which serves multiple roles. It’s an easy way to buff Agatha herself to enable the Boommobile combo, for one thing, which the deck otherwise needs Pizza to do. It also adds a ton of resilience to each combo, since it lets you access activated abilities on combo pieces your opponents remove.
While these versions of the deck run both combos, we’ve also seen lists that focus purely on the Redshift lines. These builds are structured more like Standard Affinity lists, using the likes of Pinnacle Emissary for tempo and Technodrome as a draw engine.
A Ways To Go
While it’s great to see Chrome Dome combo decks getting serious consideration, they still have a lot to overcome to earn a real spot in MTG Standard. The current metagame is full of refined, aggressive decks, which typically make life very difficult for combo lists.
Both Izzet Lessons and Izzet Prowess can easily outspeed Chrome Dome combo, for example, since the deck doesn’t put up a ton of board presence. While Formidable Speaker and Redshift can make decent blockers, throwing them away is risky even with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron backup. Izzet has access to Sear and Combustion Technique, too, both of which can snipe your key creatures on your combo turn.
It’s a similar story with Mono-Green Landfall speed-wise, though a lack of instant-speed interaction does make this matchup more manageable. On the other side of the coin, both Dimir Excruciator and Dimir Midrange are fairly mixed matchups as well. While these decks aren’t likely to run Chrome Dome over early, they do pack enough removal to make popping off difficult.
Ultimately, only time will tell whether Chrome Dome combo becomes a real force in the Standard metagame. The ability to win early and on the spot is big, but the deck does lack a compelling plan outside of the combos. Simic Cub offers a similarly linear game plan that can win the game quickly and is more refined to beat common interactions. As things stand, the deck is likely too inconsistent for our current, cutthroat Standard.
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