Pointed Discussion

Decent blue Legend. Not many cephalids out there to tap, so it might be hard to get off his first ability. His second ability would be good if it only affected opponents.

I anxiously await the arrival of more cephalids . . . maybe. This card is really fun, though.I love the image of this guy flooding the world and incapacitating all those pesky beast of the land (as well as his fellow water-kin) — only the birds are outside of his domain of influence. Great flavor. He can also be comboed with Temporal Distortion.

I really think he's playable in EDH. Blue has lots of fliers. I think it's pretty good control for the cost.

Levitation

its true levitation would own with him but that wont help in a edh where you likely wont have levitation ud have to build the deck around him for that combo n i dunno if it pay off

Well, obviously, you could use levitation yourself and then tap only opponent. Or you can simply declare attackers and then tap all the other creatures (you'd probably have to keep UUU ready to tap them all in opponent's turn as well).

There are probably better combos that will do the same job done, tough.

Can't you just tap everything on your opponent's turn, after their untap step? They can't attack, you untap on your turn and attack, rinse and repeat.

Changelings can p@ss as cephalids if need be.

Why isn't this a wizard :<

what if i tap a planeswalker?

Fun fact: Aboshan is the only creature in the history of Magic to carry the title Emperor (well, according to gatherer). Well, there is emperor crocodile, but I don't think that really counts.

There are, however, 3 Empresses.

On top of the 2nd ability, at the very least with his first ability he can tap himself to tap a permanent. Decent instant speed control. Plus he can start tapping the turn he comes out. I give him a 5/5 for causal control and style.

@ Palmspark: Then you turn that planeswalker sideways. Nothing else happens.

Aboshan is so cranky. He looks like he's shaking his tentacle at the sky like a grumpy grandpa, tellin' kids to get off his sand lawn.

Aboshan is a pretty cool guy. He sunk a third of Otaria (which is a continent) under the Sea.

levitation? pfft

all the cool kids use wonder

Aboshan is the man! Especially in EDH! All you have to do is when you swing with your creatures, before blockers are declared, use his second ability to take out all blockers whilst your creatures also get tapped but are still attacking!! In addition he can tap down flyers or other permanents with his first ability.. he is a cephalid himself!! This guy is really versatile I can't say how many times I have scoffed at my opponents hordes of saprolings, goblins, soldiers, zombies, slivers by just tapping three mana!!!

I have a memnarch edh deck and i need to stop getting zergling swarmed
this works

Interestingly, his {U}{U}{U} taps himself as well.

And that's why Aboshan's Desire is to gain flight. He's just like Kamahl.

I use him as a commander in an EDH deck. It has the most control of any deck I've seen, not to toot my own horn. People at FNM seem to be getting pretty sick of it, so I should probably build something they can win against.

Brutal Emperor of the Cephalids. Controlled a secret network of flooded tunnels throughout Otaria. His hatred of "drylanders" included the desire to conquer Otaria, and to this end he maintained a tenuous political alliance with the Cabal. When Kirtar lost control of the Mirari and died, Cephalid agents retrieved the orb and brought it to Aboshan's treasury. There, Laquatus tried to steal it, but the Emperor lost control of its power and sank most of Northern Otaria beneath the ocean (the Mirari's literal interpretation of his desires). Aboshan was killed, and the Mirari fell into the hands of Braids, the Cabal's liaison to the Empire, who returned it to the Cabal Patriarch. After Aboshan's death, Laquatus tried and failed to conquer the remains of his Empire.

Deluge
Aboshan's Desire

Dies to Murder.

I like this guy better for his ability to tap artifacts such as Genesis Chamber and Howling Mine that only give benefits when they are untapped, all while being a Legendary creature and therefore more consistent than most other ways of doing so in EDH. Its a pity that the other Cephalids suck though, but Changelings and cards with choosable creature types work.

(Creature type rant)

I wonder if Aboshan's ability is the reason why they wouldn't just drop the type Cephalid for Octopus.
When he was printed, there was only one Octopus in existance - and a forgettable one at that.
So i wonder what kept them from making them Octopuses in the first place.

Surprisingly, the Grad Creature Type Update didn't change that.
By now we only got one more (although granted, a very notable one).

This is about the only humanoid, animal-based species in existance that does not simply use its species' type.

Seriously, the examples are endless and span almost every major classification imaginable:
- Aven: Birds. First showed up at the same time as Cephalids, yet didn't get a seperate race either. Often Soldiers.
- Nantuko: Insects. Again, same as with our avian Aven. Usually Shamans.
- Anurids: Same again. Originally Beasts, now more fittingly Frog Beasts.
- Loxodon: Elephants. Thick-skinned Soldiers and Clerics from Mirrodin.
- Leonin: Cats. More white Soldiers and Clerics from Mirrodin, this time felines.
- Nezumi: Rats. Relentless Ninja and Samurai rodents from Kamigawa.
- Kitsune: Foxes. Mythic canines from Kamigawa.
- Orochi: Snakes. The most extreme example, sharing less traits with its actual species than Cephalids.

The only other exception i can think of are:
1. The infamous Homarids. They first showed up in Fallen Empires, so them having a seperate type comes as little surprise. Wizards might simply kept that type for fun because of its special status, considering the infamy it gathered that even resulted in a whole new type in Unglued that's based on them: Clamfolk.
2. Viashino: Although their first major appearance was in Urza Block, they first showed up in Visions.
Which is another old set that still cared very little about creating overly specific creature types.
Oh, wait. Actually Viashino Warrior is even older, which first showed up in Mirage, the expansion right before Visions. So, err... if anything, this makes my point even more obvious, doesn't it?
I bet if this race would have first shown up in Ravnica Block (maybe even Urza Block), they would've just been Lizards (or Dragon Lizards, see my comment here for details).

Obviously i'm not the one to decide that stuff, but it just seems logical to either give all or none of these animal-based humanoids a unique type.

TL;DR: Since (to the enjoyment of every tribal fanatic) about 90% of humanoid animal species went for the animal's type, i'd really like a type change for those who did not.

Amusingly, he and his Cephalid army get thoroughly crushed by his exiled wife, Llawan.

Blue players can make everything a Cephalid if they want to.

Love aboshan, hes on of my generals.

Just had an idea for an Aboshan planeswalker. It's something like this.

Aboshan, Ender of Otaria

3UU. 4 loyalty.

+1 put 2 0/2 cephalids into play
-2 exile target permanent until aboshan leaves the battlefield.
-8 you get an emblem with "creatures without flying cant attack you."


Yeah the moat emblem is a great idea, since it only hoses half the time i think they could print it.

Perfectly fine without any tribal support, becomes completely stupid with enough of it. Being able to tap down most of your opponent's mana base on their upkeep consistently (and not have to worry about blocking because you can tap everything) can get really oppressive.

Travis_86 pretty much man, the whole odyssey block was amazing some of my fav heroes, second to the brothers war and wetherlight era.
This card reflects the cephalids domineering nature, and their mastery and wish for dominance, thanks for linking the cards wasn't until today that I figured it out hah :)

Even though hes a mediocre card, to those who've read about it i imagine there's so much more in terms of richness and just a trinket of those awesome days when magic wasn't dominated by planeswalkers but fought by ordinary men and women across all worlds and planes!