Where is Serum Powder now?

[Sylvester]

From the consequence of speed

And, following this logic to its inevitable conclusion, your first turn "substantial play" is enabled by your opening hand.  So the fundamental turn in Type 1 is zero.  

Am I to understand that this hasn't been extremely obvious to everyone for over a year and a half?

If the opening hand is so important:
1. Why are mulligan decision algorithms discussed so little?
2. Where is Serum Powder?

I haven't put enough thought into the second point, and I don't think I'm in position to discuss the first, so I'm bringing the topic up here and hoping to see good discussion. Hopefully, I'll have something more insightful to show later.

[Marton]

I know you asked for insightfull comments, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Mines are in the trash can

[Freelancer]

I'm affraid that I don't have an answer to your first question...but your second question isn't so hard to answer...

In vintage every slot in every deck matters because off the sheer brokeness every card replaces, what this means is that if you want to play 4x serum powder (any less and you can't really relie on getting it in you opening hand) it replaces other broken cards and thus will weaken the rest off your deck...IMHO serum powders power isn't good enough to warrant inclusion...
Also when you have serum powder in your hand but the hand is keepable (ie. you don't want to powder) than it's technically a mulligan (serum powder is near useless)...

[doomhed]

Honestly, there is no deck that can properly abuse this card. sometimes wizards does well with out of the box thinking (Mindslaver) and sometimes bad (Trinisphere and Serum powder).

[Methuselahn]

Also when you have serum powder in your hand but the hand is keepable (ie. you don't want to powder) than it's technically a mulligan (serum powder is near useless)...

Actually, with Serum Powder decks, 'keepable' hands are not broken hands. If your hand is fair and you have a powder, you often RFG your hand for the chance at true broken power.  Serum Powder allows you and rewards you for mulliganing aggressively.  The real trick is building a deck that not only maximizes powder effects before turn 1, but after with cards like Metalworker, Trinisphere, Karn, Welder, Thirst for Knowledge, and Masticore.

[illuzion]

Honestly, there is no deck that can properly abuse this card. sometimes wizards does well with out of the box thinking (Mindslaver) and sometimes bad (Trinisphere and Serum powder).

If you take a cue from extended and test Manuel Bevand's crazy Sneak Attack deck, you will find that Serum Powder can actually be a strong card.  Would it work in Type 1?  Probably not, thanks to Force of Will and plenty of very strong control decks  in general, which is something extended is currently lacking (in numbers of people playing good control decks, that is)... but if you want to investigate Serum Powder, Bevand's deck is probably the best place to start, so you can see what sort of deck can be helped by this card:

4 City of Traitors
4 Crystal Vein
2 Dwarven Ruins
6 Mountain
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Chrome Mox
4 Symbiotic Wurm
4 Serum Powder
4 Arc-Slogger
1 Crater Hellion
2 Final Fortune
4 Gamble
1 Rorix Bladewing
4 Seething Song
4 Sneak Attack
4 Through the Breach
4 Serra Avatar

And, sorry to veer into extended, but I believe it's quite applicable to the discussion of Serum Powder.

[Charlie]

You know, there's really no reason to quote someone's entire post if is directly above your reply to said post. So edited.   - Bram

Well, I would say Sneak Attack may be playable in T1... It's the least hated combo, surviving Trinisphere, Null Rod, and may even be playing Trinisphere itself. Though having to kill with Serra Avatar means you can't play fetchlands for splash, and your only disruption would be REB

[illuzion]

Well, I would say Sneak Attack may be playable in T1...

It's not even worth playing in extended.  The only thing it's good for is a few goldfishes to see Serum Powders potential... that, and some laughs, since it is capable of quickly raping a few extended decks.