#cephalid

Commanders of New Capenna

Another weekend, another brand-new release from me. This time it’s back to the schedule as normal, with the results of last month’s Monster Popularity Contest (a monthly patreon poll where supporters vote to see their favorite monsters, NPCs, and other enemies come to life.) These five friendly mugs are the face commanders from the commander decks released alongside Streets of New Cappena. Each one serves a different family, and plays a different role in the glamorous politics of this 30′s-themed fantasy setting.

Artist: Mark Zug

Omen Hawker --- U

Cephalid Advisor --- 1/1

{T}: Add {C}{U}. Spend this mana only to activate abilities.

After years of fabricating visions for naive customers of the Obscura, Stafano was flummoxed by the nightmarish scenes that played out unbidden in his mind’s eve.

illustrated by Josh Hass

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New Capenna isn’t even out yet and OC design already dropped.

They’re a cephalid who sparked as a child to Ravnica, where they were taken in by a kindly hooded stranger who asked for precious little in exchange for their food and shelter... who of course was a Dimir agent, intent on training the young “Simic hybrid” into a loyal mind-mage.

“Cephalid Looter” © Wizards of the Coast, by Keith Garletts. Accessed at Spiderweb Art here

[Much like the wereweasel, I actually used a version of this in game during the 3.5 era. That wereoctopus monk was a kuo-toa, which was technically cheating (kuo-toa were aberrations, making them ineligible for the lycanthrope template), but it was a memorable encounter nonetheless. It did end in the death of a character, and I suspect that this wereoctopus similarly punches a bit above its CR class. Being one of the few monsters in PFRPG to have 9 attacks below CR 10 makes giant octopus very dangerous.]

Lycanthrope, Wereoctopus CR 9 LN Humanoid This rubbery skinned humanoid has a bulbous head with large eyes and a parrot like beak. Its arms are tentacles, and it moves on six additional tentacles as if they were legs.

Wereoctopuses are rare lycanthropes, most common among aquatic humanoids such as merfolk and locathath. Their physical appearances are often disturbing or strange, especially to land-dwellers, but they are not inherently evil. They are most noted for their curiosity—they tend to devote themselves to solving problems, and physical and mental training. They make excellent scholars or monastic types, but are known to cause problems due to their meddling. In combat, a wereoctopus has many attacks, which they tend to spread out over multiple foes. They favor tactics that disrupt, confuse or impede enemies over outright killing them, but will fight to the death if pressed.

Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor by Christopher Moeller

What is a Cephalid (flavorfully)?

It’s a kid now, it’s a squid now. Okay, it’s actually an octopus. Cephalids are octopus people native to the waters around Otaria on Dominaria.

What is a Cephalid (mechanically)?

Cephalids are a blue race, between 1/1 and 3/3, primarily found in Odyssey block. They have a strong subtheme of either putting cards directly from your library into the graveyard or drawing cards and discarding cards.

Can I make a Cephalid deck?

Step one: Put your library into your graveyard.

Step two: ???

Step three: Profit

Cephalids have a consistent ability to tear through their owner’s deck, but no actual payoff for doing so. They’ve no power worth noting, and the sole reward for actually having a full graveyard is drawing more cards to discard more cards. A Cephalid-heavy deck would need to care primarily about filling your graveyard, at which point you’re making some sort of messy, bad Dredge deck. Worse, they’re not even particularly good at putting your library into your graveyard on their own, and they tend to require you to untap with them before you get to start milling. Now, there are a few combos using Cephalid Illusionist to mill your entire library outright (Shuko, Nomads en-Kor, etc) but then you’re playing a Cephalid Illusionist deck, not a Cephalid deck, and any other Cephalids are dead weight.

For Commander, there are not enough Cephalids to make a Cephalid deck, even though there are two Legendary Cephalids. One of them, Llawan, Cephalid Empress, is a strong hate card for blue decks and could reasonably see play in the 99 of another deck, but makes no sense as a commander. Its only real combo potential is with the banned Painter’s Servant. The other, Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor, is a Cephalid lord that lets you tap permanents by tapping Cephalids. It’s a nice way to slow an opponent down, but it has little use as far as actually securing victory goes. Worse, a not insignificant number of Cephalids already have tap abilities, discouraging them from taking advantage of Aboshan’s.

So no, a Cephalid deck just isn’t going to work.

Is Cephalid a good creature type?

Leonin are cats, Aven are birds, and by all accounts, Cephalids should be Octopuses. Even with a Cephalid reward, the creature type isn’t doing anything for anyone, and it exists in opposition to the idea that animal-people are only given their own type if they’re somehow iconic. Cephalid as a type was a mistake, and an easily rectified mistake. Cephalids should be Octopuses, or, more reasonable, Cephalopods with Octopuses and Squids.

Now, I could go on about how Odyssey Block’s creature types were a hot mess, but the only relevant part here is the Cephalids were intentionally created to not gain benefits of other creature types for the sake of being new and different, but then weren’t given enough support to make that work. Worse, they were followed by a block that supported four different blue tribes (Wizard, Bird, Sliver, and Illusion) none of which were Cephalid. Cephalids were created, and then immediately left to die.