Abusing the Powder (and BFD)

[dicemanx]

Powdering isn't mulling.

Powdering is reverse mulling. Let's not get caught up in semantics though. Powdering is the equivalent of mulling in terms of the number of cards you will see in those two hands assuming you only mull once.

Lets say you Powder away a hand that doesn't have the most awesome card (assuming for this example that it is restricted) in your deck. You now have 53 cards for that card to be in and you get 7 chances at finding it.

Lets say you Mulligan a hand to 6. You now have 6 chances out of a 60 card deck to get that card.

The probability reduction you speak of is not very significant, because you don't Powder with that intent in mind. In fact, the probability reduction can either improve or worsen your chances of getting strong hands, so it can go either way.

I don't think you can assume that you'd only be powdering/mulling only once per game, with this deck.

Why not? I think that it's reasonable to assume that, Powder or no Powder, a deck shouldn't have to mulligan more than once per game on average. Of course there will be times when additional mulligans would be desirable or necessary, but the question is whether this offsets the clear downsides of drawing a Powder past turn 0.

Edit: Just saw dicemanx's post.

Quote:
The rfg arguments have no bearing on anything, and arguing that Powder isn't completely useless (as it pitches to TFK and is mana acceleration) is weak because Powders replace significant *business* spells.


Why do the RFG arguments have no bearing? Do the numbers have no relevance? Define Business spell.

They have no bearing on the argument because we cannot completely determine if the probabilities improve or worsen after Powdering, as I stated above.

Business spell - the relevant part here is that Brainstorm (a strong business spell) is replaced by Powder, which is an expensive mana source (as well as Welder food and pitchability to TFK). In other words, you are replacing a very useful spell with a near useless spell to supposedly improve your chances of drawing busted hands.

[Methuselahn]

Powdering is reverse mulling. Let's not get caught up in semantics though. Powdering is the equivalent of mulling in terms of the number of cards you will see in those two hands assuming you only mull once.

I disagree on 'reverse mulling.'  When you powder you remove 'junk' cards.  Junk meaning that it is not a good hand, not optimal for the particular matchup, not broken enough.  So, you now have a deck with cards in it that are better suited for your matchup.  When you mull, you put all the cards back in your deck and draw from the same set -1.  So even if you see the same number of cards, (assuming Powder is 'dead' :p) you are taking from a different deck.

The probability reduction you speak of is not very significant, because you don't Powder with that intent in mind. In fact, the probability reduction can either improve or worsen your chances of getting strong hands, so it can go either way.

Well, it is significant enough for me to write a whole article/thread on it.  It is my intent, and that's kinda why I listed goldfishes for example and included the math and probabilities.

Why not? I think that it's reasonable to assume that, Powder or no Powder, a deck shouldn't have to mulligan more than once per game on average. Of course there will be times when additional mulligans would be desirable or necessary, but the question is whether this offsets the clear downsides of drawing a Powder past turn 0.

Some of the listed goldfishes that had more than one 'Powder or Mull turned out to be fruitful.  I could list more results if you wish.

The rfg arguments have no bearing on anything, and arguing that Powder isn't completely useless (as it pitches to TFK and is mana acceleration) is weak because Powders replace significant *business* spells.

Why do the RFG arguments have no bearing? Do the numbers have no relevance? Define Business spell.

They have no bearing on the argument because we cannot completely determine if the probabilities improve or worsen after Powdering, as I stated above.

Business spell - the relevant part here is that Brainstorm (a strong business spell) is replaced by Powder, which is an expensive mana source (as well as Welder food and pitchability to TFK). In other words, you are replacing a very useful spell with a near useless spell to supposedly improve your chances of drawing busted hands.

Well, we can completely determine the probilities, but it's a headache and I thought it to be not worth the effort unless someone has a real use for the technical information.

Re: Brainstorm.  Brainstorm is sub-optimal here.  It sucks after a turn 1 trinisphere, which is one of the decks main goals, chalice often nukes it, and the fetchland count.

[Machinus]

I hadn't even thought of the fact that Powder can tailor your hand to a specific matchup. That is a nice benefit. Let us examine the use of this card in the deck instead of brainstorm.

Brainstorm: The most quoted argument for this card is that it smoothes draws at the beginning of the game. The deck does not use fetchlands, so it just digs three deep later in the game - but it can cost you 2U with sphere out. The deck does not run FoW, so it is not used as a pitch target. So brainstorm does not have a lot of synergy with the rest of this deck.

Powder: The glaring weakness of this card is that if you don't use its special ability or you draw it later in the game, all it does is provide you with 1 mana for 3. However, the benefits are more subtle than that, and actually this weakness is not as bad as it seems. Casting this off workshop allows you to use the mana for spells, which you would not be able to do otherwise...sort of like a really bad version of gilded lotus. You can weld it or tinker it away for something better after using its mana, which is of course horrible compared to a mox, but we are considering Powder for more benefit than mana. Also it can be discarded to TFK if you can't find any other use for it. So it has some syngergy with the deck. The ultimate question then does not lie in evaluating what value the card has with the rest of the deck, but exactly how much benefit the RFG ability offers compared to brainstorm. I think there is a good argument here, but it will probably depend on more specific probability analysis to see just how good the RFG ability is.

[rozetta]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet it that, under 3sphere, Serum Powder is better than an off-colored mox, since it's not as easy for Gorilla Shaman to eat it.

[Rico Suave]

I don't think you can assume that you'd only be powdering/mulling only once per game, with this deck.

Why not? I think that it's reasonable to assume that, Powder or no Powder, a deck shouldn't have to mulligan more than once per game on average. Of course there will be times when additional mulligans would be desirable or necessary, but the question is whether this offsets the clear downsides of drawing a Powder past turn 0.

Nobody is saying the deck has to mull more than once per game, it's that you want to mulligan more than once.  

For example, I'm not sure if anybody addressed this earlier, but your 7/6 vs. 6/7 arguement needs to be extended to better understand what I mean by wanting to mulligan.  Without Powder it's 7/6/5/4 vs. 6/7/5/6 (assuming every other hand has Powder, and that Powder is totally useless while Brainstorm is always useful - which is not true).  Either way, you get a 7 card hand, but after a point you can't do anything without Powder, because you're stuck with like 4 cards.  Powder lets you go further down the trail, using a combination of regular mulligans and Powder mulligans.  This means you get to see more opening hands if you abuse the card, and not just use it.  

Ultimately, this means your opening hands will be stronger, while your in-game digging will be weaker without Brainstorm.  In a deck that thrives on Trinisphere, having stronger opening hands will simply win you the game outright.  Another aspect is you get to see so many cards that you end up getting your restricted cards, like Tinker and Ancestral, much more often than you would by using Brainstorm.  

I'd like to make it very clear that Powder is not intended to improve consistency-type mulligans, although it still does improve that, but it's to improve those hands you mulligan because they're not strong enough.  They happen to every deck.

Business spell - the relevant part here is that Brainstorm (a strong business spell) is replaced by Powder, which is an expensive mana source (as well as Welder food and pitchability to TFK). In other words, you are replacing a very useful spell with a near useless spell to supposedly improve your chances of drawing busted hands.

Under Trinisphere, Brainstorm costs just as much as Powder, and when faced with first turn Trinisphere or Brainstorm, you drop Trinisphere.  Also, Chalice for 1 is common, nullifying Brainstorm.  Even if you include fetchlands to shuffle things away, saying Brainstorm is a very useful spell isn't accurate in the context of this deck.  Many people will be inclined to base their judgement on Brainstorm's effectiveness in other decks, but that doesn't apply here.  

For example:

Brainstorm: The most quoted argument for this card is that it smoothes draws at the beginning of the game.

Which is true, but this deck does not want to cast Brainstorm in the beginning of the game.  It wants to play Chalice, Trinisphere, Welder, Thirst, Titan, or whatever it can get on the board.  Where do you fit in Brainstorm?  If you want to play first turn Brainstorms, it would be better to use that in a deck that is better equipped for a "come from behind" strategy, like Tog or Slaver.  This deck prefers to shut the opponent out from the get-go.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'd like to make it very clear that Powder is not intended to improve consistency-type mulligans, although it still does improve that, but it's to improve those hands you mulligan because they're not strong enough. They happen to every deck.

I think the real problem here is that not enough people know when to mulligan a too weak but "playable" (in the sense of having mana and spells) hand, and even those who do know don't do it often enough.

[Bobduh]

I think the likelihood of it removing that many lock pieces is even lower than we've thought- if you draw a hand with, for example, serum powder, two volcanic islands, and four mishra's workshops, you don't want to keep it, but you certainly don't want to remove all your workshops from the game. However, you don't have to use the powder ability- you can still mulligan normally. So there's always the regular mulligan "panic button", even with a powder in your hand, if you can't keep the hand but can't lose the cards. So the likelihood of you losing three or four independent lock pieces is extremely low.

[dromar]

I think this whole debate can be boiled down to one simple question: Does Serum Powder drive this deck toward its goal better than another card could? (essentially, Is Serum Powder the best card to accomodate the deck's goal?) And the answer.....

It depends on the person playing the deck. If the person wants to play the deck with the goal of having the best chance to play a broken hand, then that person should play Serum Powder as long as there is no better substitute. If the goal is first turn Trinisphere, the Serum Powder is overtly better than Brainstorm because of it's "all-or-nothing" style effect. However, if a person want's to have a higher consistency of card quality in turns > 0, I think just about any card advantage engine would work better than Serum Powder. Of course, Brainstorm is the best of the possible card advantage engines.

Be a little more goal-oriented.

[wuaffiliate]

the goal is to deal 20 to tha muthafuckin dome.

the tools are trikes and titans.

the tempo producing cards are wasteland, stripmine, 3sphere, chalice and welder.

powder produces broken hands.

broken hands involve a combonation of fast mana, tempo producers, and tools.

broken hands produce winning.

winning = goal

goal = accomplished.

Is Serum Powder the best card to accomodate the deck's goal?

wrong question to ask btw.

the correct question is "is brainstorm better than serum powder?". in a deck that abuses chalice, 3sphere, without alot of coloured mana at its disposal early game if it wants to win quickly brainstorm sucks sweaty monkey nutz.

[Master]

In a deck where the first 7 cards essentially decide the game, playing the powder is essentially like playing with 56 cards in the deck.

In addition, if there is a certain card that you absolutely need to play and thus always want a copy of inyour opening hand, serum powder improves your odds quite a bit as it lets you see the first 14 cards to try and get a copy of the card. It's almost like you're playing 8 copies (not quite, but you know what I mean. And it also means you can probably safely use a spoils in your second hand since there are only 46 cards left in the deck with 4 copies fo the card.

Plus, it can be used with metalworker and the other uses you posted.

Its a very very narrow card. But I do think that certaiin decks could use it to their advantage.

[wuaffiliate]

this deck doesnt use/need metal worker...

[Razvan]

I wonder why BFD doesn't use Metalworker, actually... A first turn Metalworker is very doable, and can produce REALLY broken plays on turn 2. Such as easily casting a Titan, and maybe even a Titan and something else.

Just wondering.

[Machinus]

I think the deck is hard pressed enough to generate 3 mana on turn 1 without dumping its hand. The deck doesn't need mana ramping that starts at 3 and is dependent on hand size.

[dicemanx]

I wonder why BFD doesn't use Metalworker, actually... A first turn Metalworker is very doable, and can produce REALLY broken plays on turn 2. Such as easily casting a Titan, and maybe even a Titan and something else.

Just wondering.

You might be on to something here. It might fit in Toronto-BFD-Slaver over Gilded Lotus, as 3 mana is a huge improvement over 5 mana. But that's a discussion for another thread, post Gencon preferably .

[Methuselahn]

Metalworker was used in the initial build, then dropped because there didn't seem to be enough artifacts to support it.  This is all before Serum Powders were added.  But of course, after Powders go in... well, it still isn't a strong play.  The deck would rather drop bombs turn 1 in the form of chalice, trinisphere, welder, thirst, and wasteland.  

Like Gilded, metalworker has the tendency to suck vs artifact hate such as oxidize, rnr, rod...  I've never felt like I've needed metalworker.  If your plan A is working, then the deck is hosing their mana one of many different ways already.   Thirsting/welding or hardcasting under a 3sphere is much more appealing.  If your plan A isn't working, then you should be swinging with Trikes and going broken off the other spells right away.

I have no idea what a metalworker/slaver/BFD list would be like as BFD doesn't run draw7s like 7-10 yet uses 5 strips + 4 trinisphere MD.  If you are cutting off their mana, how optimal is slaving them?  At any rate, I would hope you are using Serum Powder.  

[Eastman]

It seems to me that powder belongs in dragon more than anything else.

I can't think of a deck more dependent on a single 4-of then dragon (bazaar I mean of course).

That dependency also makes the deck very good at negating the disadvantage of having around a useless serum powder - you can just discard it.

Does anyone agree/disagree?

[TrixR4Kidz]

I can't think of a deck more dependent on a single 4-of then dragon (bazaar I mean of course).

Yeah, I agree, I would say if Serum Powder were to see play, It would have to be in dragon, it does seem like that would be it's best fit, I think removing an entire hand, regardless of how broken a deck is, is just WAYYYY to costly, and drawing a late game serum powder is as pointless as directions on how to use a hand dryer (I don't lie, there are really directions)... the point is, Why mess around with a card that essentially does nothing, when you could be playing someone that actually does something aka brainstorm.... I just don't think I can ever see a real importance of this card in Type 1, or any format really.

My two dollar billz yall....

[wuaffiliate]

yeah after BFD worked well with powder i tought about dragon using it. but i never tested it because i just didnt want to.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Flat out, Serum Powder is good in one type of deck...a combo that wins turn one.  It doesn't work in any other deck, because beyond turn 1, you have 3 ass cards in your library and possibly one in your hand (if you had 6 good cards + powder to start).  If you can drop a turn 1 chalice or trini or trike, great, but that's not game ending, and when you have blown your wad to get that out and top deck serum powders while your opponent draws gas, then you're screwed.  I'd say, with the exception of turn-one-winning combo, serum powder's setback as a 4 of (and it would be god awful crappy as a one of), being unplayable and unuseful after the game begins, makes it worthless in almost every deck.  It's not an unsymmetrical draw 7...it's a "remove some good from the game to cantrip after mulliganing" that is COMPLETELY devoid of value once play starts.

This thread is WAY too old. As a general guideline, don't up threads that haven't been posted on in more than a month, and this one's been inactive for almost five.  See the last sentence in Rule 3 about Unnecessary Thread Redundancy.

Hyperion