There is a card that was printed in the Mirrodin set that I consider to be overlooked by mostly all of the Vintage community. This card is Serum Powder. Yes, at first sight, this card looks like ass. Here it is:
Serum Powder
3cc Artifact
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
Any time you could mulligan and Serum Powder is in your hand, you may remove your hand from the game, then draw that many cards. (You can do this in addition to taking mulligans.)
There are many reasons to
not play this card. These reasons are quite convincing. It's turn-0 ability is moot after the game has begun. Three mana for a vulnerable artifact that only taps for one colorless colored mana is bad. Often, arguments proclaim that it is just like taking a mulligan by drawing one in your opening hand because you really only have 6 cards + 1 Powder. This argument tends to fall flat (at least in the decklist below) because of the broken nature of T1 and the multiple alternate uses beyond the card's primary function.
There are also reasons
to play this card. To really maximize this card you have to fuse it into a deck that can turn the drawbacks into bonuses. (or at least make par with it.) The fact that this card can let you see 7 new cards for zero mana while your opponent gets nothing is potentially huge. JP Meyer has recently toyed with a deck seen in his SCG article
"Blood and Iron:.." As stated, the drawback of Serum Powder is made up by the fact that you can sac it to Ironworks, cast it off Workshop for a colorless colored mana, and use it with Metalworker.
This brings me to another use for Serum Powder. Rico Suave's "BFD" brainchild deck is something Team Reflection has been working on. Ok, I admit, this is also a shameless plug for readers to examine our Titan deck too. For reference, you can find the early April build
here. An updated list with Powder and a tourny report can be found
here. As Rico will no doubt agree, 'Big Fat Dick' is all about dropping big fat bombs on your opponent. It looks like a beatdown down deck but it's really about the board. Trinispheres are just as important here as the Titans. The reason, I think, cards like Trike are better than Juggernaught is because the former is all about impact. Aggro decks have such a hard time because their opponent's life total is irrelavent unless it is zero. I digress. I don't want to cover the deck's missing cards or matchups because this short article is about what Serum Powder and BFD have the
potential of doing. By not listing matchups and how it plays out, I can avoid discussion degenerating into whether the deck succeeds or fails. Besides, I'll leave the serious questions regarding the deck to Rico. One of the strongest reasons to play Serum Powder in this deck is first turn Trinispheres. We all know how back-breaking a turn 1 Trinisphere is. The Powder pushes the odds a bit further in favor of drawing into that plan.
Let's go over the deck a little bit and hopefully how it relates to Serum Powder. Here's a recent list.
Creatures (11)
3 Sundering Titan
4 Triskelion
4 Goblin Welder
Disruption (8)
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
Utility (12)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Serum Powder
Mana (29)
4 Mishra's Workshop
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Volcanic Island
4 Shivan Reef
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
8 SoLoMoxCrypt
1 Mana Vault
SB:
3 Open
4 Rack and Ruin
4 Damping Matrix
4 Tormod's Crypt
This is a pretty vanilla version here. Titan, Trinisphere, Chalice and Wastes are probably the most central cards to the deck. The rest of the deck is geared to abuse them. With Brainstorm out and Powder in, Chalice for 1 isn't nearly as painful. Pitching Powders to Thirst is nice. Welding Powders into Titans is fun. Drawing 7, Powdering for 7, mulling to 6, then Powdering again for 6 into turn one Shop ->Trinisphere is solid gold.
So how do you get Powder to work? You simply expect more out of your deck when you also draw into a powder at the beginning of the game. Mulling aggressively is a prerequisite. If your hand is average (read: not broken) versus the unknown opponent and you hold a powder, you 'Powder away. The theory is that you are removing non-broken cards (read: a non-broken
hand) to draw into a broken hand. When you 'Powder under this theory, you are drawing into a more broken and smaller deck. The cost of this is occasionally having to maximize the use of a mediocre card after turn 0.
Everybody likes seeing hardcore stats, right? Well, I've lost all of my math skills for the most part as it relates here. I really gotta thank my teammates here, especially Matt for coming through with the percentages and making sure it was done right. Since the purpose of this test is to find out what our best odds are at getting Workshop/Trinisphere out turn 1, I thought some stats would be in order.
The odds of getting at least one of a four-of in a hand of seven in a sixty card deck is 40%. (.40) Getting one Workshop and one Trinisphere (assuming 4-ofs on both) is 15%. That rises to 18% in a hand of eight.
Probability of getting:
-Exactly one Workshop:
(56 c 6) * (4 c 1) / (60 c 7) = .3362
-Exactly two Workshops:
(56 c 5) * (4 c 2) / (60 c 7) = .0593
-Exactly three Workshops:
(56 c 4) * (4 c 3) / (60 c 7) = .0038
-Exactly four Workshop:
(56 c 3) * (4 c 4) / (60 c 7) = .00007
where (X c Y) = [X!] / [(X-Y)!][Y!] Adding all four possible ways of drawing a Workshop gives .4.
Now, lets say you are fortunate enough to draw a Serum Powder in your opening seven and are unfortunate in that your hand isn't sufficiently broken and you don't have the said 'combo.' If your protocol is to Powder into brokenness or the combo then these are the numbers we need to know:
If you powdered away no combo pieces, you have an 18% chance of drawing the combo in your next seven (out of 53 cards).
If you powdered away one combo piece, you have a 14% chance of drawing the combo in your next seven (out of 53 cards).
If you powdered away two combo pieces, you have a 10% chance of drawing the combo in your next seven (out of 53 cards).
If you powdered away three combo pieces, you have a 5% chance of drawing the combo in your next seven (out of 53 cards).
This shows us that our odds have slightly increased. Of course it doesn't take into account many other variables that are important as to how the match plays out, but that is for another thread. (or not).
Ok, so is the information useful? Lets go over some sample hands. To get the following results, I sharpied 60 cards so that I could shuffle the deck many, many times very easily, despite only really looking at the top cards for testing results. The listed goldfishing assumes that you are going first. It is difficult to rationalize whether to keep a particular hand in some cases without the assumption of a particular matchup, obviously. So bear with me when I keep some hands.
Hand 1-chalice, volc, tomb, welder, thirst, powder, sapph...Keep (Turn 1 thirst, welder in hand)
2-trike, shop, reef, thirst, reef, walk, trike...Mull
reef, shop, tomb, waste, titan, jet...Mull
powder, titan, pearl, thirst, chalice...Powder
sapph, emerald, waste, welder, trini. Keep! (turn 1 trinisphere)
3-shop, powder, thirst, emerald, chalice, volc, volc....Powder
trike, recall, sapphire, shop, waste, reef, reef...Keep (not too bad)
4-thirst, tinker, trike, chalice, crypt, tomb, waste...Mull (no U, ouch)
crypt, chalice, powder, academy, trini, tomb...Keep! (turn 1 trini, turn 2 chalice)
5-thirst, recall, trike, powder, strip, welder, titan...Powder
reef, reef, trini, volc, trini, tomb, trini....Mull
walk, chalice, shop, powder, reef, volc...Powder
shop, jet, crypt, tomb, trini, volc...Keep! (turn 1 trini)
6-volc, tinkar, shop, trike, titan, titan, academy...Mull
chalice, reef, walk, waste, trike, jar...Mull
trike, chalice, academy, shop, waste...Keep (it's hard to mull this down to 4, iffy call)
7-welder, tomb, crypt, shop, waste, jet, thirst...Mull
trike, jet, chalice, powder, titan, volc...Powder
thirst, titan, volcanic, chalice, reef, welder...Keep (another iffy call?)
8-welder, shop, jet, reef, powder, ruby, reef...Powder
chalice, titan, pearl, chalice, thirst, chalice, academy...Keep! (turn 1 chalices, thirst)
9-shop, waste, reef, trike, waste, trini, trini...KEEP! (many bombs)
10-reef, tinker, trike, trini, strip, sol, titan...Keep (solid hand)
11-titan, powder, chalice, welder, titan, volc, chalice...Powder
walk, trike, recall, titan, sapphire, sol, shop...Keep! (broken cards galore)
12-titan, welder, chalice, academy, chalice, ruby, volc...Keep? (goldfishing chalice is hard)
13-sapphire, titan, academy, volc, vault, reef, shop...Keep. (turn 2 titan, REALLY dependant on match)
14-chalice, sol, vault, trini, powder, strip, lotus...KEEP!! (turn 1 chalice=2, trini, strip mine)
15-jar, volc, shop, sapph, reef, trike, volc...Mull
trike, waste, shop, welder, chalice, trike...Keep? (your 2nd turn = chalice for 2, iffy)
I'll stop here after 15 of 30 fishes. Because, I fear that this type of data is very apprentice-log-esque. If you managed to read this far, maybe you will consider 'BFD.' At the very least, I hope some of you will take a second look at the magical powder. The card has broken written on it, somebody will no doubt find a way to break it. The bottom line is that you get to see 7 new cards for no mana, plus it is a non-symmetrical effect. Myself, I am half expecting to see this card somewhere at one of the 'cons. We'll see.