[Budget] Cephalid Breakfast

[emidln]

The goal here is to present a viable combo deck for budget-oriented players. Cephalid Breakfast is very cheap to assemble on a 5c manabase if you switch out the Goyf-infused kill to the Flash kill of Reveillark/Body Double/Mogg Fanatic/Carrion Feeder (the secret being to hold back 1 copy of Therapy in your yard so when you Dread Return Body Double, you can sac it to start the infinite chain). This lets you avoid extra misc hate cards like EE for 0, Propaganda/Ghostly Prison, Maze of Ith compared to using Pestermite + Jiki Jiki. You can get relatively cheap protection spells (Cabal Therapy is given, Duress, Pact of Negation, Pyroblast are all available), Aether Vial + Shusher as protection from permanents, and a consistent turn 2-3 goldfish.

The basic plan:

// 10ish engine cards
4 Cephalid Illusionist
4 Nomads En-Kor
1-2 other En-Kors

// 8ish protection spells
4 Cabal Therapy
2-4 Pact of Negation (more are required if you use the Lark kill)
0-4 Duress

// 5 more protection and 4 ways to cheap on mana
1 Vexing Shusher
4 Aether Vial

// 9-10 dead combo cards
3-4 Narcomoeba
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below

1 Kiki, Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Karmic Guide
1 Pestermite

OR

1 Reveilark
1 Body Double
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Mogg Fanatic

//5-7 Tutor effects (Worldly Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, Lim-Dul's Vault, Living Wish, Eladamri's Call
//are all viable, with my current choices being 4 Worldly, 2 Sylvan Tutor)
4 Worldly tutor
2 Sylvan Tutor
4 Brainstorm

// sue me, the manabase blows, but it seems to work fine for what we're going for (which is produces lots of colors and doesn't break the bank)
4 Lotus Petal
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Forbidden Orchard

We end up with between 0 and 4 Free slots I think. These could be extra lands, Ponders, Chrome Mox, extra protection, or more tutors. I'm inclined to make these Lands and protection.

The sideboard is going to want to deal with common hate. Discard and Countermagic are good solution to just about everything. I'm not going to list Duress/Therapy/Thoughtseize/Force of Will (though these last two might be outside the budget range, but you might play them if you have them).

// Chalice/Trinisphere/Pithing Needle Solutions
Shattering Spree
Ancient Grudge
Ingot Chewer
Krosan Grip
Generic Bounce

// Recap of good generic bounce
Chain of Vapor
Echoing Truth
Rushing River
Wipe Away

// Leyline solutions (not counting alt win conditions)
Wispmare
Ray of Revelation
Krosan Grip
Generic Bounce

// Good Counterbalance Solutions
Vexing Shusher
Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast
Wispmare
Krosan Grip
Wipe Away
Rushing River

// Tormod's Crypt/Relic Solutions
Artifact Hate
Generic Bounce
Pithing Needle (not a very good budget solution)

// Extirpate
Discard is the only good way of dealing with this

// Moon effects
Vial lets us play around this to a certain extent. Lotus Petal does too. I'm not sure that we would play anything besides Generic Bounce (float the mana through) that would ever want to deal with Moon effects.

// Burn/STP
- Benevolent Bodyguard
- Edit: It's probably worth noting that you can beat burn without playing Bodyguard/something else if you play 2 Carrion Feeder and 2 Body Double (perhaps in the sb). This would allow you to remove any burn spells that hit more than one target with Therapies and then ignore the rest by getting 2 Carrion Feeder into play (so you can never lose to burn on one of them) before you start recurring Fanatic. Also, the standard Breakfast Vial tricks involving hardcasting one engine piece and then vialing the other into play in response to removal still applies.
- I'm a bit rusty on this and don't feel like researching it. I'll leave this up to the thread and update this later.

I'm probably missing stuff here. Let me know in the thread.

[Obfuscate Freely]

This lets you avoid extra misc hate cards like EE for 0, Propaganda/Ghostly Prison, Maze of Ith compared to using Pestermite + Jiki Jiki.
Huh? The only one of those cards that affects the Kiki-Jiki combo is Propaganda. The Carrion Feeder deal is at least somewhat vulnerable to EE (set at one), but these considerations are marginal, anyway. I'll take the extra slot(s), please.

The K-J combo also has the advantage of being relatively easy to actually put into play from your hand, between Aether Vials and the rainbow land manabase. Being able to dodge graveyard hate this way can be pretty useful.

Consider this package:

3x Narcomoeba
1x Dread Return
1x Karmic Guide
1x Kiki-Jiki
1x Sky Hussar/Pestermite

...keeping in mind that you don't have to run more than one or two Therapies. This saves a fistful of slots to be filled with better disruption (Thoughtseize, Duress, maybe Daze) or better draw/tutors.

Speaking of tutors, I think Eladamri's Call should be in here. The rainbow manabase makes its difficult casting cost irrelevant, and it's much better than Sylvan Tutor, anyway. It's also important to have some Tutors you can leave in postboard against aggro-control decks.

[emidln]

The lack of Bridge from Below is something that I really hated the few times I played the deck in extended. Removal in response to Cabal Therapy was often game over if I didn't correctly guess the removal spell the first time (or if I had drawn a Narcomoeba and didn't have more than the 2 engine pieces as creatures on board). That said, my assessment of Kiki Jiki/Pestermite appears to have been off (fixed).

With a switch to Kiki Jiki/Pestermite, the deck isn't forced into running extra Therapies (there to make sure that you can both Therapy away removal and to have one Therapy left to start your combo).

The reasoning behind Sylvan Tutor is that I don't always have two permanent mana sources. That can probably be fixed by a more stable manabase/chrome mox which would easily allow its (Eladamri's Call) inclusion.