#cephalid-breakfast

Very sweet 5-0 vintage cephalid breakfast list by Enrichetta:

1 Ancestral Recall 1 Black Lotus 1 Brainstorm 1 Cabal Therapy 4 Cephalid Illusionist 1 Daze 1 Demonic Consultation 1 Demonic Tutor 1 Dread Return 4 Flooded Strand 3 Flusterstorm 4 Force of Will 1 Gitaxian Probe 1 Gush 1 Lotus Petal 1 Malevolent Hermit 1 Mental Misstep 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Mox Jet 1 Mox Pearl 1 Mox Sapphire 2 Narcomoeba 4 Nomads en-Kor 3 Polluted Delta 1 Ponder 2 Shuko 1 Snow-Covered Island 1 Snow-Covered Plains 2 Teferi, Time Raveler 2 Thassa's Oracle 1 Time Walk 2 Tundra 2 Underground Sea 4 Urza's Saga 1 Vampiric Tutor # sideboard 3 Force of Negation 4 Grand Abolisher 2 Kataki, War's Wage 4 Leyline of the Void 2 Serenity

I sleeved a new deck for this season of legacy FNM and I was happy to sling my newly acquired Aether Vials.

sauce: https://twitter.com/phulkor/status/1557309456299560960

Unfortunately for me, I did not playtest my deck and noticed, too late, that I was missing 3 Narcomoebas when I executed the combo against my opponent. So always be careful to test your deck before playing. However I managed to end up 3rd so it's not bad for a half a broken deck.

How the combo works is that you flip your deck with Cephalid and either Nomad En-kor or Shuko targetting it. The deck flips triggering the 3 jellyfishes. You can then sacrifice those to Dread Return your Thassa's Oracle for the win. With the 3 Narcomoeba missing, I needed to either hardcast Thassa's Oracle from hand or have 3 creatures in play when executing the combo. It worked quite well except against my final opponent on burn. The deck is not only fun to play but blazingly fast so you have time to rest between your rounds. Which is what I like when I'm not well rested.

My results for the night where:

2-1: u/r delver

2-0: fish

2-0: maverick

0-2: burn

Delver

I was happy to play the delver matchup. My opponent got a fast start with a blind flip on delver and put my life to the test right away. My vial allowed me to cast my spells and I flip my deck. Ooops, big mistake, no jellyfish to cast my dread return. We go to game 2.

Game 2 I pull Lavinia and I realize I'm happy to see her as she shuts of a lot of stuff. She takes a pyroblast. I understand my opponent is scared of me vialing in Baleful strix. I do it a few times but never block so that I allow my creature to live. My opponent counters my deputy of detention on the murktide and the next turn I can go for the kill with enough creatures in play.

Game 3 was interesting. I managed to see his hand with Cabal therapy and I force him to counter my next spell by taking his daze. This made him discard his expressive iteration and allows me to build board presence. I go for my combo with Lavinia in play. The only spell left in his hand is a Brazen borrower. So he casts it to bounce but I had the mana to cast her again, sac my 3 creatures and go for the win.

I believe my opponent made the mistake of leaving to much creatures on my side of the battlefield. Had he correctly realized I needed 2 creatures, he would probably have killed them.

Fish

My opponent has a very fast clock and I cannot block anything. Luckily for me, she didn't have much interaction in game 1 had a missplay by attacking with a summoning sick mutavault. I went for the kill with 3 creatures in play when I assembled the pieces of the combo.

Game 2 was interesting as she hold interaction for stopping my combo with merfolk trickster. However she let the cephalid enter the battefiled before casting trickster. Had she done so before, she would have had an extra turn wich might have been lethal.

Maverick

His first play is a turn 2 ouphe but I have no vial so I just cast my Nomads and play the waiting game. The only creature I do not want to see main is Thalia for her taxing effect although I can easyly filter through my deck. I manage to cast a cephalid illusionist and a baleful strix and show him my combo. I saw hushbringers game one so game 2 I prepare the bounce spells and removal.

Game 2 I shoot the first hushbringer on sight. He manages to get a wasteland but decides to curve instead of wasting me. I believe that was a mistake as I was able to freely develop my own game. I prepare enough cards to bounce a second hushbringer with a swords in hand to avoid mum's protection and I clear the hand of any swords I can find in his. When the setup is complete, I bounce his hate pieces, take my turn and finish him.

Burn

Game one was very fast with 2 goblin guides followed by a swiftspear into a clean turn 3 kill on the play.

On the play I have some game an bring in a little bit of swords to answer his threats and eventually gain life if needed. My first land is a watery grave tapped, I daze his eidolon wich put me in a difficult sitation land wize as I do not wanna shock. I ponder, brainstorm but see about 7 lands with a few of my shock/ tap lands. This slows me down a lot and I'm always pinched on blue mana as I fetched a plains as second land. In the last few turns I am always a blue mana short of casting my combo. He finally gets me!

Given my hand I should have mulliganed for something more explosive but I was already on 6.

Takeways

I was really happy with Lavinia in the sideboard as she shuts off all the Daze and Force of Will shennaningans of your opponent. Leaving you with a clear coast to execute the combo.

It was the first time I played, or at least cast daze and I realized how that card is bonkers in gaining time or protecting the combo.