Fire Emblem Cipher – Chrom Deck Primer

Chrom is one of the main protagonists from Fire Emblem Awakening, and as such, he’s got a very large number of variants and options in Cipher. Blue tends to have weak representation overall though, because it’s one of the only color options restricted to a single game with about 3 other characters from a spin-off. Fear not though, for Chrom’s last promotion released in set 22 is an incredibly strong option in the current meta-game, and has ample support with a few plenty of splashable options.

His set 22 final promotion is a base 70 4-cost/3-promote with two effects. First, by flipping a bond and discarding a card, he can deploy a 2-cost or less blue unit from the retreat at the start of the player’s turn after their draw, but before their deployment phase.

His second ability lets you draw a card when another blue ally Class Changes, but this effect can only trigger once per-tun.

A lot of blue cards from the game’s early days gain strong effects only if they’ve been class changed into. With how quick the game moves now, and how most things tend to only stay on the field for a turn, it can be hard for a blue deck built around these abilities to keep pace. Chrom’s extra draw and retreat deploy help keep your hand from running out too quickly, but it comes at the cost of falling under the base-80 power most other viable MCs rest at. Chrom does have ways around this to bring his strength up, but it’s a fair trade-off for a deck that can easily and simultaneously generate some of the best hand and field advantage in the game.

In a way, Chrom is kind of a weird toolbox option since he can fish any 2-cost or less blue from the retreat. So, as long as you have a retreat, you have options. Just make sure you keep your options limited so you don’t end up with a bunch of over-priced cards in hand that don’t have a 2-cost or less in your retreat.

A good majority of the blue support released in set 22 plays nicely with Chrom’s abilities.

Frederic’s 1-cost gives both him and an allied Chrom +10 on the player’s turn, and his promotion gives +10 through both players turns as well as having a skill that lets him freely move around allied units once per-turn if he’s Class Changed.

2-cost Robin boosts another ally by +20 when she’s played, and her promotion is able to destroy non-Main Character enemies up to the number of Class Changed allies the player controls when she herself is class changed into, this guarantees 2 free pops with Chrom. On top of that, she has the ability to cycle through orbs and boost herself up to 100 until the end of the turn.

1-cost Lucina isn’t too impressive, she’s mostly just a cute lore shoutout like her very first card was, but her promoted form is very good combo starter. When she’s Class Changed into she can grab any 4-cost or less Blue unit from the retreat and deploy it for the cost of one bond. A very large amount of blue’s strongest options tend to rest at 4-cost deployment, and a lot of players often use dragon units like Tiki, Nowi, or Nah for their ability to quickly reach high attack power, and also because they can help manipulate used up bonds.

I normally put decklists at the end of these articles, but I want to show off just how consistent a good Chrom deck can look. You’re not trying to toolbox around or find weird outs for situations. The deck is just a solid bunch of 4-ofs that can carry you with relative ease. You still need to make sure you grab the right character for the proper scenario, but it’s rare to be unable to work with what you’re given.

… However, there are variants and options.

Set 22 Chrom is a guaranteed 4-of in pretty much every deck he’s featured in, but some decks do play around with what other versions of him they run. Despite being in every single set Blue was released in, Chrom’s promotion options are middling at best, but most people I’ve seen play him tend to default to his promo variant since it’s a 2-cost, if they even bother to use a bridge at all. Chrom has access to a lot of 1-cost dragons to help with his early game and accelerate him up to a more expensive form quickly. Blue’s main weakness for the longest time was lacking a consistent gimmick. Early on they had Class Change Skills, then Awakening skills (which are basically Class Change skills in everything but name), and then all of that got thrown out in the last few sets to just give them generically good cards, but the main problem is that they are stuck in blue’s limited pool of options. The best cards in blue can be absolutely nuts, but they lack access to benefits you’d get out of things like Yellow’s Bond Skills or Purple’s ability to draw and manipulate top-decks.

A popular Chrom variant uses his set 8 promotion since it has the wonderful ability to class change any non-promoted ally you have with a different copy of them from the retreat. The most important part of this ability is that it doesn’t care about colors. This ability is what leads into most of Chrom’s splash options, with Yellow being one of the strongest. Set 22 Sigurd is a bond accelerator that pulls a card from the retreat to the bond area when he’s class changed into. Your main play in this deck tends to go something like this:

1. Deploying the 0-cost Sigurd from set 19, and using Chrom to promote him into the Set 22 from your retreat.

2. Grabbing a strong bond skill card like Set 8 Seliph or Set 12 Lachesis to re-flip another bond or draw with Sigurd.

3. Sigurd boosts Chrom (and potentially himself too) up to 100 power through the opponent’s turn with Sigurd’s second effect.

If your opponent wastes resources on Sigurd, you just pull him back on the next turn and the cycle repeats.

It’s a little complex to picture without actually playing it, but Chrom also has access to a lot of different dragon units in blue, all of which gain large attack boosts when your bonds hit a certain number. You tend to run a smaller Yellow package of 14-18 cards, including 8 Sigurds with the majority being focused on doing deployment combos. Dragon units like Tiki, Nowi, and Nah are still popular choices to help recycle cards to bond over and over again. Set 22 Lucina also tends to be a good option in this variant, since she can pull a 4-cost or less Blue Unit from the retreat when she’s class changed into.

I know I’ve kind of ragged on blue throughout this primer, but I do find it to be a rather boring color mechanically. It has lots of interesting gimmick characters, but doesn’t have an interesting shared color-gimmick. Chrom is a good “uniter” of sorts for blue. He pulls all of the color’s best options into a solid deck that’s really easy to pilot and rather fun to combo-off with. Even after putting together what would be Chrom’s optimal core, there’s still plenty of spots to add in whatever other Awakening characters you want, or even a completely different color.

In an almost “history repeats itself” kind of way, Chrom is probably one of the best Main Character options to learn the game off of post-mortem, just like how he was at launch.