Hello; I’m Javier Dominguez, one of the Spaniards who designed Cephalid Breakfast and took it to the Top 16 at Pro Tour: Columbus. I will try to show you all the keys to the deck, to discuss all card choices, and to give you advice for almost every matchup in the field.

Cephalid Breakfast or Cephalid Life?
When I saw that Lucas Glavin’s deck, Cephalid Life, came in second at Grand Prix: Boston, I immediately started to play his deck — and after a couple of matches, I was loving it.

Why? Because it solved a big portion of the problems that our version had: the Life part gave to the deck more chance of winning against almost every aggressive deck in the field, and changed the matchup against Red Deck Wins from a nightmare to a winnable pairing. I started to note testing results against problematic decks, and they were only slightly better than the notes we had on Breakfast’s results.

So, what happened? A couple of days later, a friend told me that he had to decide if he was going to play Mind's Desire or Aluren, and he asked me to test with him, using Cephalid Life. It took me a few matches to see what I didn’t want to see; the amount of wins it pulled off against Desire was alarming, and then I started to ask myself if I was sure whether Cephalid Life was the correct choice. I started to see that having two combos in the deck increased the chance of getting stupid hands with Cephalid Illusionist and Daru Spiritualist without any en-Kor.

At this point, it’s obvious that the choice of the deck depends on the metagame, but at the time I had the feeling that one has to be better. At this point, I began to think what I liked about each: Eleven Tutors, so it had a slower game plan but with a shot in game 1 against Red Deck Wins, or a deck with a slightly higher percentage of turn 2 Cephalid Illusionist + Nomads en-Kor but with eight Tutors.

In this metagame — especially after Grand Prix: Boston, where there were 6 Combo/Reanimator decks in the Top 8, with 1 U/G Madness and 1 U/W — the choices are easier. Cephalid Life can win Red Deck Wins with fewer problems and has a better matchup against Madness, but since Breakfast is considerably better versus six of the current Top 8 decks (and also stronger against The Rock), Breakfast is definitely the best choice for future events unless you expect a considerable change in the metagame.

Cephalid Breakfast
Once there, if we want to tune the deck for our event, starting with the version that we ran in Columbus is the best way to go. The first thing that we did back home was to switch Kami of Ancient Law for Uktabi Orangutan, and Dragon Shadow for Dragon Wings. Now I’ve realized that we were wrong. Why?

Kami/Orangutan
First of all, why not run both? Basically, because adding both to the maindeck would mean removing another card — probably a Shaman en-Kor — and this would increase your mulligan rate (See How to Play It).

We brought the Uktabi Orangutans to the maindeck mainly for three reasons: Affinity, Isochron Scepter, and the occasional option of destroying an opponent's Chrome Mox. After a few games, we noticed that the Uktabi Orangutan’s effectiveness against Affinity was relatively low, and the Destroy-A-Mox ability wasn’t attractive, either. That left us with Isochron Scepter.

“The Stick," was, in fact, the most important reason for the maindeck inclusion of the Uktabi — but after playtesting, we noticed that Uktabi Orangutan wasn’t really effective without Aether Vial in game 1, basically because the Scepter player usually won’t tap out in Turn 2 to play their Isochron Scepter. Instead, they will play it on Turn 4 with Orim’s Chant backup, so your Uktabi will be useless.

On the other hand, Kami of Ancient Law provides us a good answer against maindeck Engineered Plagues, Seal of Removals, Worship, Parallax Waves, and every evil enchantment you could think about.

Dragon Shadow/Dragon Wings
We put the Dragon Wings in the sideboard after Columbus because we thought that Birds or Paradise wouldn’t be played in The Rock and that Affinity’s popularity was going to increase a lot. This happened, but not in the amount that we expected. There are people who play Birds of Paradise in The Rock, and Affinity isn’t being played that much.

Why does Birds of Paradise matter? If you are playing vs. The Rock, and they play Coffin Purge on your Sutured Ghoul when you Exhume (you should try to Exhume instead of Reanimate if you expect a Coffin Purge), your winning plan is to put your Krosan Cloudscraper in play enchanted with Dragon Shadow or Dragon Wings. If they can block your mutant, they’ll win a turn to Chainer's Edict it — plus, if they Edict it and you Exhume again, they will return their Birds of Paradise to play and block again.

Dragon Shadow is also better vs. U/G Madness, so unless your metagame has a large amount of Affinity, Dragon Shadow is the best choice for that sideboard slot.

Wall of Hope
After deciding Breakfast was better than Cephalid Life, the first thing I did was to swap Daru Spiritualists for Walls of Hope. After some testing, my conclusion was that you don’t want to have three Spiritualists because you can’t win infinite life with them, and they cost two while the Wall costs one. That's very important if you don’t draw the Aether Vial, so it’s better to have two Walls of Hope and a Daru Spiritualist for being tutored if you have all two combo pieces in your hand.

Bone Shredder
Bone Shredder is here basically to destroy opponent’s Meddling Mages, but it’s also useful against other decks like Life or even the mirror match.

Mana Base
The only thing I’ve changed in the mana is removing a Tarnished Citadel for a Tendo Ice Bridge. This has been done because you never want to draw two Citadels, and you usually use it for colored mana once a game. But there are still two still here because they are so useful to throw out a turn 1 Birds of Paradise.

So the deck looks like this:

Cephalid Breakfast:
1 Riftstone Portal
2 Tarnished Citadel
2 Yavimaya Coast
1 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Brushland
1 Caves of Koilos
2 Underground River
4 City of Brass
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Chrome Mox
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Brainstorm
2 Shaman en-Kor
4 Vampiric Tutor
1 Dragon Breath
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Krosan Cloudscraper
1 Gilded Drake
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Nomads en-Kor
1 Kami of Ancient Law
4 Cephalid Illusionist
4 Worldly Tutor
1 Exhume
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Reanimate

Sideboard:
1 Krosan Reclamation
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Dragon Shadow
1 Bone Shredder
4 AEther Vial
1 Daru Spiritualist
2 Wall of Hope
3 Phyrexian Negator

How To Play It: Some Tips
Playing this deck is sometimes very difficult — but for the most part, the games are easy: play two combo pieces, play Krosan Reclamation/Reanimate, and win. As in every deck, there are some complex situations where only experience can tell you what to do or what not to do, but there are other situations where you should keep in mind a couple of things.

Brainstorm is the key of a very high percentage of games. In almost every situation, if you play a Brainstorm and you can’t go off or snag a shuffle effect, you are going to lose the game unless your opponent’s draws are really weak. This means that if you have another play like Birds of Paradise without any Tutor in hand, you should never play the Brainstorm before the creature — since every turn you hold the Brainstorm means one more chance for your deck not to fizzle.

If you have a hand with Brainstorm and a tutor, you should almost always play the Brainstorm in your main phase. Let’s imagine you draw Chrome Mox and a card that shares color with the tutor; if you have one piece of the combo, that will probably mean you go off on turn 2. Obviously, you won’t always draw that, but sometimes you will have hands with Brainstorm + Chrome Mox or something similar; if this happens, play Brainstorm.

What about Duress and Cabal Therapy? You can play around them anyway, because if you are not going to play the Tutor this turn, you can just hide the important card on the top (which, since it's the favorite card for players to name with Cabal Therapy, is often Cephalid Illusionist). Balance the chances of drawing Chrome Mox and the correct color card to Imprint on it with the colors you have — because if you draw nothing, you would want to play the Tutor in your next upkeep. Playing a turn 1 Brainstorm with a Underground River instead of a Yavimaya Coast with Chrome Mox and Reanimate in hand could result the loss of that game! This may seem obvious, but little misplays like this are very relevant.

Birds or Paradise are very useful against red damage, because it means your opponent has to spend an extra burn spell to deal with your combo — so you should play it before Nomads en-Kor, even if you can cast a Cephalid Illusionist the turn after that. You don’t want to see a single Mogg Fanatic ruining your day.

Don’t fear the opponent. You have two Cabal Therapies to strip his hand after you play both pieces, so they probably will have to topdeck the answer to your kill. If they have something like a Vampiric Tutor or Brainstorm, they will get their answer, but if it’s a Diabolic Edict you can keep the Nomads en-Kor alive and if it’s an enchantment you just can Reanimate Kami of Ancient Law. If it’s a Cranial Extraction, however, you better hope that they don’t have creatures in the board so you can kill them with Krosan Cloudscraper, taking an unexpected game 1 against The Rock.

Keep in mind at every moment what you’ve imprinted on your Chrome Mox. A Moxed Reanimate means you can’t play Krosan Reclamation for two, or a Moxed Cabal Therapy and the Sutured Ghoul in your hand means you only have one shot to destroy your opponent’s hand; those are things that can change the result of a game if you forget about them.

Unless you are totally sure it won’t be targeted, never let the Cephalid Illusionist live after you put your library in your graveyard, so the first creature being sacrificed to Cabal Therapy should be it. If you do, your opponent can target the Cephalid after the Krosan Reclamation and you’ll lose the game. If the problem is that you need to block, you just can block with the Cephalid Illusionist and with the en-Kor and then Millstone your entire deck.

About keeping hands or not: you should mulligan a hand if it doesn’t have at least two combo pieces and/or tutors for it until your hand is down to five cards. From there, you want to keep anything with a land in it. Brainstorm is the card that sometimes makes the "keep or not" choices hard, but generally, a Brainstorm + a tutor is usually keep, while non-tutor hands with Brainstorm will require some time of thinking.

Oh! And don’t forget your Riftstone Portal, who can help you to play your Krosan Reclamation and to pay Krosan Cloudscraper’s upkeep.

The Matchups

Red Deck Wins
Your nightmare, especially in Game 1. Although it isn’t that bad as people tend to think it is, it’s still very bad for Breakfast Player, since they have a lot of answers for your threats.

For game 1, the key cards are Chrome Mox and Birds of Paradise, because they give you mana acceleration against their disruption and every Bird can effectively “counter” a Seal of Fire. The best thing you can do in game 1 is try to hope they keep some Jackal Pup/Grim Lavamancer + mana disruption and you get a enough fast hand to beat them, or just a hand with one Birds/Reanimate/Exhume for every damage card they draw, which usually is hard. However, you can steal games with explosive flash kills with Reanimate, especially if you won the roll.

Sideboard:
-1 Cabal Therapy
–1 Reanimate
–1 Kami of Ancient Law
–1 Gilded Drake
– 4 Vampiric Tutor
+ 4 Aether Vial
+ 2 Wall of Hope
+1 Daru Spiritualist
+ 1 Uktabi Orangutan

First of all, in games 2 and 3 vs. Red Deck Wins, you have to be careful about imprinting a Cabal Therapy on a Chrome Mox, because this will leave you with only one try to force them to discard Ensnaring Bridge, or zero tries if you draw one of the kill components (Ghoul, Breath and the 13/13).

Games 2 and 3 are winnable, but the fact that you normally start 0-1 means the victory is never easy. In these games, playing turn 1 Aether Vial or turn 1 Wall of Hope will put you in a very good position — but otherwise, you will be like in game 1 but with the option of tutoring Daru Spiritualist.

Aluren
A very good matchup. In fact, it’s probably your best matchup among the top decks of the format. This is due mainly to the turn of advantage your deck has over it; you need to resolve one one-mana spell and one two-mana spell, while they have to resolve one four-mana spell. In the average Breakfast vs. Aluren game, you'll win almost all the games one turn before they would, so only manascrew or a very bad hand can let them win.

Sideboard:
-1 Shaman en-Kor
+1 Ray of Revelation

The sideboard doesn’t change things so much, so every game in the match is almost the same, and you need to be unlucky if the deck fizzles 2 games of 3.

Mind's Desire
Desire matchup is not bad, but it needs to be played carefully. Against Desire, you should wait until the Reanimate kill (having Reanimate/Exhume in hand so you don't have to play Krosan Reclamation) every time you’re able to — because if you go off with only the two pieces of the combo, they can Brainstorm in response, hiding their Cunning Wish or Brain Freeze, and you’ve lost.

If you don’t draw the Reanimate or a Vampiric Tutor for it, you just can play a third creature after your combo and then Cabal Therapy your opponent, naming Brainstorm. If they have Deep Analysis, you will have to wait until you get a Reanimate, because they can target you with it if you mill your deck. Otherwise, just keep attacking their defenses with discard and hope they don’t topdeck a Cunning Wish.

Keep in mind that if they have Deep Analysis but they have no other stuff, you can discard the Analysis and wait to mill your deck at their end of turn. This will increase their topdeck rate in Snap and even Intuition if they have enough mana… but if they draw any other thing, like a Sapphire Medallion (or a land, of course), you’ve won.

Sideboard:
-1 Shaman en-Kor
–1 Gilded Drake
–1 Kami of the Ancient Law
–1 Krosan Cloudscraper
+ 3 Phyrexian Negator
+ 1 Uktabi Orangutan

Sideboarding makes things better for you, since your Phyrexian Negators are a very good win condition. Despite the fact that Desire players can buy turns playing Snap on them, you’ll find that turn 2 Negator with Birds of Paradise, followed by a Cabal Therapy, is usually game against Mind’s Desire.

Madness
This one is a disappointing matchup. No, it’s not a bad matchup, but on paper it seems that it’s going to be very easy, yet when you play it you see that it’s a 50-50 pairing, with game 1 favoring you.

More often than not you aren’t going to be able to play around Daze, and cards like Circular Logic and Waterfront Bouncer (which buy time for the Madness player) will hurt you so much, since all Madness creatures attack for three or more. In addition to this, you also have to be careful about Deep Analysis, and you have to keep in mind that they can block your Sutured Ghoul, and this can be important if you have no cards in your library because you Exhumed your creature.

On the other hand, the big thing in your favor is that Madness has a very high amount of hands with nothing against you — or worse, just a lonely Counterspell, which can be avoided by a Reanimate or an extra copy of the countered card. A mana curve of turn 1 Basking Rootwalla, turn 2 Wild Mongrel, discarding Basking Rootwalla, turn 3 Arrogant Wurm shouldn’t be a problem for you.

Sideboard:
-1 Shaman en-Kor
+1 Dragon Shadow

Things don’t get better for you after sideboarding, because you only get the Dragon Shadow that stop their blocking while they get a good amount of solid cards like Gilded Drake, Seal of Removal, and Waterfront Bouncer.

Goblins
Goblins, on the other hand, seems considerably harder on paper because they have direct damage cards — but in playing it, you can see that it’s actually a very easy matchup. Shaman en-Kor shines in this matchup because it makes Mogg Fanatics useless unless there are multiple copies. You are always faster, but they can steal games with starts like turn 1 Mogg Fanatic, turn 2 Sparksmith, turn 3 Goblin Warchief.

Gilded Drake is a good answer for Sparkmith or Goblin Sharpshooter, but remember that if they get three goblins in play, you’ll need to play one creature + Cephalid Illusionist + en-Kor in the same turn, and that is a hard task — especially with at least two goblins attacking you. Goblins with black and Burning Wish have more chances of winning thanks to a red sorcery that can be topdecked after your two Cabal Therapies.

Sideboard:
-1 Kami of Ancient Law
+1 Daru Spiritualist

Daru Spiritualist may help you if you are in the previously mentioned scenario where your opponent has a Sparksmith with three goblins, or it can prevent Gempalm Incinerator’s effect if they’re playing it.

If you are playing against mono-red goblins or splashing green, you should expect Cursed Totem or Ensnaring Bridge, so you should do an additional:

-1 Cabal Therapy
+1 Uktabi Orangutan

Life
Life matchup is a race where you got Cabal Therapy and Chrome Mox and they don’t. That means the pairing is good for you, but game 1 is still very winnable for life, because an early Daru Spiritualist with an en-Kor would mean you’d have play or Reanimate Gilded Drake and then Reanimate the Sutured Ghoul.

Sideboard:
-1 Kami of the Ancient Law
-1 Shaman en-Kor
+1 Dragon Shadow
+1 Bone Shredder

After sideboard is where games against life become easier, thanks to Dragon Shadow that forces Life player to win with infinite Life before you go off — or to have en-Kor and Daru Spiritualist in play plus Starlit Sanctum in hand when you do so. Nevertheless, you should be careful about cards like Orim’s Chant, because they can win random games (especially if you forget about them).

Scepter Chant
This is a notably bad matchup, especially in game 1. They have a lot of answers to your combo, like Meddling Mage, Counterspells, Cunning Wish, Force Spike, and most of them play Fire / Ice as well. Since Turn 4 Isochron Scepter imprinting Orim’s Chant is game against you, you should try to win before that happens. Like RDW, your best plan for game 1 is stealing the game with a turn 2 combo, but this matchup is by far easier than RDW.

Sideboard:
-4 Chrome Mox
–1 Krosan Cloudscraper
–1 Gilded Drake
–1 Shaman en-Kor
–1 Kami of the Ancient Law
+4 Aether Vial
+3 Phyrexian Negator
+1 Uktabi Orangutan

For games after sideboarding, you’re not looking for explosive and fragile hands; you want more stability and less card disadvantage for those games. Aether Vial can make a game against Scepter Chant very easy — but if you don’t draw it, you still have Phyrexian Negator, which is a powerful win condition and will force the Scepter player to spend a lot of resources to deal with it. And you have eight Tutors for the Negators and the Isochron Scepter’s nightmare, Uktabi Orangutan.

Don’t fear a Vampiric Tutor for Aether Vial if you expect that you’ll need to Vial your Uktabi Orangutan to destroying their Isochron Scepter.

Reanimator
Reanimator is a very good matchup; your deck kills usually faster than theirs, you can steal their creatures after a turn 1 Careful Study, and eight Tutors for your maindeck Gilded Drake should also help in the matchup, so drawing a Tutor in game 1 makes that game reasonably easy.

Sideboard:
-1 Shaman en-Kor
+1 Krosan Reclamation

After sideboarding, games are less easy, because they get more answers to your threats, and an early Akroma, Angel of Wrath with some discard spells and a Smother for your Gilded Drake is the kind of game that you are probably going to lose.

The Rock
The Rock matchup is favorable for you, but it depends heavily on the build. Basically, it’s a very slow deck with some Wall of Blossoms and Treetop Villages, and a lonely Cabal Therapy won’t ruin your day. One Cabal Therapy with a pair of Smothers plus a Vampiric Tutor for Cranial Extraction after that would ruin your day… but you getting a turn 2 combo is likelier than them getting that draw.

Be careful of Diabolic Edicts.

Sideboard:
-1 Worldly Tutor
-1 Shaman en-Kor
+1 Krosan Reclamation
+1 Dragon Shadow

You can remove the Gilded Drake instead of the Worldly Tutor if they don’t play Living Wishes and if you expect no Withered Wretch or something similar.

After boarding, things usually don’t get easier but they are still favorable for you. Since they can play Coffin Purge or other hate, you have to be careful before trying to kill them. If they have a Coffin Purge, you need to either have a third creature, play Cabal Therapy from your hand, or be lucky with your opponent’s black lands, since he needs two of them.

To actually win, you have to do the following: Cabal Therapy your opponent naming Coffin Purge, then mill your deck, and Reanimate the Krosan Cloudscraper (which has fear) and swing for the game, helped by the two extra turns that the second Krosan Reclamation provides. If they don’t have the second black mana (which happens a lot in the early turns), just mill your deck and play Krosan Reclamation, targeting Exhume. No matter what they remove, you will have a big guy with three attacks or a 28/28 guy if they remove Krosan Reclamation.

I recommend you to play this deck basically because it only has one really bad matchup while it has a lot of very easy ones. Like in any deck, testing is needed for getting good results — but you’ll find that you need more testing to play this deck correctly than to play a deck like U/G Madness.

Javier Dominguez
Thalai almost everywhere (MODO, etc.)
finkeh@hotmail.com