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Thread: Celaphid Breakfast

  1. #1

    Celaphid Breakfast

    Cephalid Breakfast is a graveyard based combo deck with a surprising amount of speed and resiliency, that wins with the cards Nomads en-kor and Celaphid illusionist. Heres the shell:

    combo
    4 celaphid illusionist
    4 Nomads en-kor
    1 Shaman en-kor
    3 narcomoeba
    1 Laboratory maniac
    1 Azami, lady of scrolls/Hapless researcher
    1 Angel of glory's rise
    1 Dread return

    cantrips
    4 Brainstorm
    3 Ponder

    tutors
    3 recruiter of the guard

    protection
    2 daze
    4 force
    3 cabal therapy
    4 aether vial

    6 flex(my current choices after the slash)
    /2 mother of runes
    /2 stoneforge mystic
    /1 sword of fire and ice
    /1 umezawa's jitte

    1 underground sea
    1 cavern of souls
    3 tundra
    4 flooded strand
    4 polluted delta
    1 island
    1 plains

    Sideboard(current)
    3 Tnn
    2 Dark confidant
    3 swords to plowshares
    2 Disenchant
    1 Phantasmal image
    4 flex

    Why would I play this pile? It just dies to X!
    Leaving aside surprise factor entirely, the assertion that the combo dies to a single piece of hate is just not correct. Two pieces of hate minimum are neccesary to shut down the combo, and then you still need to fight the Stoneforge/Mother of runes/ fliers and "unkillables" beatdown plan. For example:

    Deathrite shaman: Your combo now needs the extra piece of labman in play, but they still die just the same.
    Rest in piece : See deathrite shaman.
    Force of will and other countermagic: Aside from the fact that Aether vial and cavern make these cards look silly, your combo dumps a bunch of therapys in the yard and narcomoebas into play.
    Surgical extraction: Is rough when hitting illusionist, but vial can help there and illusionist is the worse plan b card.
    Removal spells: Your opponents interaction window is very small, they need to respond to the second piece of the combo entering the battlefield. In addition, bolt is frequently a dead card, and mother of runes can run spot protection.

    How is this better than sneak and show?
    It has a similar number of disruption/protection spells, It dodges countermagic better, it has a beatdown plan that gets better after boarding, and it actually wins the game once you assemble the combo, which is not remotely a sure thing after casting show and tell.

    But really, the two decks have a weakness to different subsets of things and as such should be considered for different metagames. Breakfast wants to be played in a meta with lots of death and taxes, chalice decks, and combo decks slower than it such as Show variants, Storm variants, UB reanimator, and Infect.

    Okay, i'm on board. What kind of tricks can i pull?

    here's a few:
    Infinite butt- mother of runes + nomads/shaman, nomads/shaman + sofi equiped guy if the souce is U or R, nomads/ shaman + tnn.

    Damage dissipation trick- Shaman can take damage from any creature and move it to a mother of runes/ sofi guy/ or Tnn.

    Yes, the illusionist does have a second ability too- can turn a creature into a dissipation sink for the high cost of three mana.

    Brainstorm/Illusionist "combo"- if you need to get rid of something. Combine with Narcomoeba for good results.

    Force, pitch white card- vial @ 3/ recruiter/ force of will cause sometimes you really need a blue card for force.

    Partial combo: If the full combo isn't safe but the opponent is almost dead to plan b, just making 2-3 flying men on their end step can get the job done, especially with equipment.

    Tnn "chain"- Recruiter gets phantasmal image and Tnn in addition to the rest of the nonsense here. this allows you to do a combination of things that bury your opponent in true name nemisises (nemisi?)

    This deck looks freaking sweet, but how the heck do i tune it?

    Well the six flex slots in the main are good, but there's also a lot of things i haven't had time to test that could be better.

    shuko: I want to find the space somewhere. Thinking of cutting the third therapy or the SoFI.
    STP in the main: Yeah obv this would be great, but again, space is tight.
    Absolute grace: to fight push, decay and dismember. Also lets you block grislebargan and marit lage for free.
    thalia in the board/ taxes side plan: Thalia does nothing to you, you run 23 creatures, Vial, and a bunch of free spells. Putting some taxes stuff in the board to fight delver may be better than the current "Tnn for days" plan.
    grand abolisher: I really have no idea how this card performs here.
    back to basics: Could be fine, not like you need to tap mana anyways. Seriously though, your combo is 3 mana on two cards both vialable, your countermagic/ discard is all free, and people are running 4 color decks held together
    with glue and deathrite shamans.

    Stuff i tried but didn't perform:
    monastery mentor- close but no cigar. by the time you resolve it, your resources are mostly gone and its hard to trigger.

    More than 15 lands: I started with 18, then cut 1 after flooding way too much. still flooding i cut another, and then had a "this can't be correct" moment. Turns out the math (after considering that theres no way you are casting angel of glorys rise or dread return for value) works out to 2.24, which is close enough to ANT as makes basically no difference.

    Gitaxian probe: makes the deck much more flood prone, and there are too few things to do with your mana, especially with an active vial.

    Stuff i use sometimes:
    Second Phantasmal Image: in fair meta's
    Unearth : Is good with both the combo and the beatdown plan.
    phyrexian revoker: sometimes there's annoying stuff for which you need an answer, and this can be searched with recruiter.

    Alright let me give this thing a try.
    It's pretty good against all the combo decks running around, and presents a lot of awkward interaction points for a lot of decks. Its at least as fast as infect, while not needing a critical mass of spells to win and not folding to any one piece of commonly played hate. It also has the "oops i win" factor of just brainstorming into both combo pieces. most importantly(imo), it has a variety of things it can do if things go wrong with its plan a, and those things blend with the
    A plan seamlessly.

    Give it a shot, and if the let their guard down for a second, serve them breakfast!

  2. #2
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    Re: Celaphid Breakfast

    There's already a thread for this deck http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...light=cephalid

  3. #3

    Re: Celaphid Breakfast

    I missed the other thread, it was buried in established on the last page 5 posts from the bottom.

    However, the sources definition of established deck is " Decks which are optimized and thoroughly tested." I don't think a very convincing argument can be made for either of those criteria, but especially not for the second. Not when the last time someone responded to someone else in that thread was over 2 years ago.

  4. #4
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    Re: Celaphid Breakfast

    I mean it was thoroughly tested back in 2008. Does that count

    I have been playing a version of this deck and it has been pretty sweet. couple questions.


    1. Do you find that Stoneforge has been worth it to you?
    2. Have you tested Monastery Mentor?
    3. How often do you mulligan?

    Thanls

  5. #5

    Re: Celaphid Breakfast

    Stoneforge / equipment is a pretty intergral part of making your opponent care about all your creatures. they cant really afford to ignore your nomads if you manage to stick a jitte/sword.

    I tested mentor in the side in a build without stoneforge/eqipment/mom + 3 probe/+2 unearth/+1 ponder. it just didn't cut it, i imagine for the same reason it doesn't make it in stoneblade just more so.

    Mulligans are oftenish, but the deck mulls pretty well outside of attrition matchups. only being 2 colors with the lightest splash in history in game one is really helpful with that.

  6. #6

    Re: Celaphid Breakfast

    Trying this pile or something like it in the near future.

    grixis wizard breakfast /wizards off the coast

    3 celaphid illusionist
    2 shuko
    1 Laboratory maniac
    3 snapcaster mage
    2 young pyromancer
    2 trinket mage
    2 dark confidant
    1 patron wizard
    3 cursecatcher

    3 cabal therapy
    4 Brainstorm
    2 gitaxian probe
    4 aether vial

    3 lightning bolt
    2 daze
    4 force

    2 narcomoeba
    1 dread return



    3 cavern of souls
    4 polluted delta
    4 scalding tarn
    1 island
    3 volcanic island
    2 underground sea

    Had some discussions about different potential breakfast shells.

  7. #7
    Big Fat Hard Kicks, Oh My God I Want That Shit!
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    Re: Celaphid Breakfast

    Quote Originally Posted by Therealmslayer View Post
    I missed the other thread, it was buried in established on the last page 5 posts from the bottom.

    However, the sources definition of established deck is " Decks which are optimized and thoroughly tested." I don't think a very convincing argument can be made for either of those criteria, but especially not for the second. Not when the last time someone responded to someone else in that thread was over 2 years ago.
    If that's the case post in the correct thread and ask the meds to move it then, however it should be there as even 2 years old it has been thoroughly tested it's just not well positioned.

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