Legacy has been (debatably) saved! White Plume Adventurer and Expressive Iteration are no more! Hopefully, Legacy will move into an era of opportunity now that the top two decks have been powered down, but that remains to be seen.
Since the format still has Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors, it’s very likely that Initiative will just move into a new color. And let’s be honest; Delver decks will always be powerful in Legacy. While many players condemned the addition of Initiative into Legacy, it had some unforeseen consequences, such as combo decks like Cephalid Breakfast becoming a tier-one deck.
While Cephalid Breakfast has been around for a long time, it has not seen the limelight for quite a while. It’s mostly been a fringe deck that was mostly played as a meme. I know a lot of newer players will ask the question, “Why is it called Cephalid Breakfast?”
To that I say early Magic was really weird. For some reason, we used to have a real obsession with naming decks after breakfast. There was the Full English Breakfast, Cheerios, Trix, Fruity Pebbles; the list goes on. If you are interested in Magic lore, you can read more about it here.
What is Cephalid Breakfast?
While there are many old-school breakfast decks, Cephalid Breakfast seems to be one that has endured the ravages of time (and power-creep). The deck revolves around a very specific Cephalid, Cephalid Illusionist, which the deck derives its name from.
Upon first reading Cephalid Illusionist, it may not stand out immediately as a powerful creature. However, this is Legacy we’re talking about, and anything that interacts with the graveyard is usually powerful in one way or another. Now imagine that we had a way to target this creature infinite times.
But why would we want to mill our entire library? The answer is very similar to Doomsday. Thassa’s Oracle. Mill your entire library and reanimate Thassa’s Oracle for an insta-win. It’s that easy!
How do we mill our entire library?
In order to enable Cephalid Illusionist to dump our library in our graveyard, we need something that can target it infinite times. There are a couple of answers to that, and the first and most straightforward answer is Shuko.
While this might seem like the most underpowered equipment ever made, the part to focus on is the equip cost, which is zero. Because of how equip is worded, you can infinitely equip this to the same creature, even though it never actually leaves the creature. Equip a Shuko to Cephalid Illusionist, and your combo has begun.
The best part of Shuko is how easily tutorable it is. Not only does the deck run Stoneforge Mystic, which can find Shuko and get it into play without it being countered, but the addition of Urza’s Saga has also added another way to tutor it up that can’t be countered.
But what if your opponent casts Surgical Extraction on your Shuko? No worries, there’s always a backup combo, disguised in another old, seemingly harmless card from Stronghold; Nomads en-Kor. This 1/1 Soldier has the absolutely horrible ability to redirect damage from it to another creature. Pretty useless, right?
However, damage does not have to actually be dealt in order to activate this ability; it just prevents the NEXT damage that WOULD be dealt to it. This means you can activate this ability and redirect infinite damage to Cephalid Illusionist, triggering the Illusionist and milling your entire library. Pretty nifty!
Okay, so you can mill your entire library, SO WHAT?
So now we know how to mill our entire library, but how does that get us to the win? The answer lies within three particular cards, Narcomoeba, Dread Return, and Thassa’s Oracle. When we mill our entire library, you will most likely mill over some Narcomoebas in the process (as long as you haven’t drawn all four during the game).
When you mill your Narcomoebas, they will trigger and return to the battlefield. Once your library is in your graveyard, you will most likely have three to four Narcomoebas in play, and you will probably have put Dread Return and Thassa’s Oracle into your graveyard.
All that’s left is to flashback Dread Return by sacrificing three of your Narcomoebas and return Thassa’s Oracle to play. The Oracle sees that there are no cards left in your library, and you win the game!
How do you ensure your combo goes off?
Like most combo decks in Legacy, Cephalid Breakfast runs the classic Brainstorm and Ponder package to find most of its pieces. As mentioned earlier, it can also use Urza’s Saga and Stoneforge Mystic to find Shuko. However, a major cornerstone of the combo is the Cephalid Illusionist. How can we reliably find it with only four copies in a 60-card deck?
The answer is a relatively new card introduced in Modern Horizons 2; Step Through. Just like many cards in this deck, this card seems pretty underpowered. But what if I told you that Step Through might be better than Demonic Tutor in this deck? Step Through can be cycled at instant speed to find a Cephalid Illusionist with its Wizardcycling ability. I’m not saying it’s strictly better than Demonic Tutor, but it certainly seems so in this deck.
Okay, so we finally have all the combo pieces; how do we protect our combo to ensure it goes off? A lot of the deck will look very familiar to most Legacy players. Of course it runs the suite of Force of Will and Daze, as well as Teferi Time Raveler to protect the combo, but it has one more trick up its sleeve.
Most Cephalid Breakfast decks will run at least one Cabal Therapy in their mainboard. This provides some nifty incidental advantage, as you can flash it back from your graveyard mid-combo by sacrificing an extra Narcomoeba.
In doing so, you can nab a removal spell from your opponent that would have targeted your Thassa’s Oracle and learn if your opponent’s shields are down. If you cast Cabal Therapy and see that your opponent only has lands in hand, you can confidently go for the combo without worry.
If this isn’t enough to get your combo through, the sideboard is well-prepared to get you there. Usually at least half of the sideboard is comprised of counterspells, with a combination of Blue Elemental Blasts, Flusterstorm, and Force of Negation. The other half of the sideboard is there to deal with your opponent’s game plan, usually in the form of Surgical Extractions, Prismatic Endings, and Swords to Plowshares.
Final Thoughts
Cephalid Breakfast has exploded in popularity lately due to its favorable matchup against both Initiative and Delver decks. It has the tools to combo off quickly combined with the ability to play around Chalice of the Void and Counterspells. Like Painter, this makes Cephalid Breakfast a scary opponent for Delver and Initiative players.
However, with both Initiative and Delver decks having a key card banned, will Cephalid Breakfast continue to be a powerhouse? It really depends on if those kinds of decks can innovate and adapt to survive.
I have a good feeling that Delver will always be around, as it has always been around, but will Initiative survive? It may become Mono-Red Initiative using Caves of Chaos Adventurer, or it may become Mono-Black with Vicious Battlerager, or maybe it will stay Mono-White and adopt Goliath Paladin.
If Initiative stays alive, I think it’s safe to assume that Cephalid Breakfast will continue to be a powerful deck in Legacy. It has a powerful combo that is sometimes impossible to interact with, along with ways to find the combo pieces and protection for those pieces, which usually adds up to a pretty good deck.
Even if Initiative and Delver decks ceased to exist, Cephalid Breakfast would still be good. The other positive thing about the deck is that most of the deck is relatively cheap other than the Dual Lands. If you don’t have dual lands and can find a friend to borrow them from or a shop that allows proxies, you can build the rest of the deck for not much money (comparably).
I would not recommend this deck to new Legacy players, as you need a good understanding of what cards you need to play around and when it is safe or necessary to combo off. However, if you have a working knowledge of Legacy and you know how to use Brainstorm, you should try this deck out.
This deck has a lot of interesting lines and a really cool combo, coupled with the fact that it has one of the greatest names ever. It always feels good to tell someone that you play Cephalid Breakfast in Legacy, only for them to look at you like you have three heads.
If you ask me, we should go back to naming all Magic decks after breakfast food, as the early pioneers and legends of Magic did. Those were the good ‘ol days.
You can find the decklist here!
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