OMG! Do we have the makings of some kind of crazy ass Serum Powder Combo deck in the running here? :lol:
So I realize you're joking here, but I think this raises an interesting point with a lot of hoser cards, particularly the Leyline cards since getting them in your opening hand gives you an even bigger advantage. The question I'm interested in is just how advantageous is it to open the game with a Leyline of the Void against the current type1 decks. Given that for a lot of decks, counter is the dominant means of control, resolving an uncouterable Leyline has a lot of advantages over Tormod's Crypt. Decks like Control Slaver, Gifts, and Dragon don't often run more than one card (Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor often) that can remove in-play enchantments. They rely mostly on counter to keep hosers from ruining their day. Just out of curiosity I calculated the probability of opening the game with a Leyline of the Void in play before the first turn assuming you are willing to mulligan down to one card in order to get it. It comes out to 86.5% If you add Serum Powder to the deck the probability goes to 94.3%.
Now granted running a transformational sideboard that sucks up 8 cards of your sideboard to hose graveyard decks is a big hit to your other machups. I'm wondering if anyone thinks the number of graveyard based decks in the environment are worth running such a strategy given that you can say with 95% confidence that you could win games 2 and 3. Or 85.6% if you're only dedicating 4 cards.
Here's my math if you want to check it:
// Probability of opening the game with Leyline given L leylines, S serum powders, H handsize, and D cards in deck
P(_,_,0,_) = 0 // if the hand size is zero there's zero probability.
P(L, S, H, D) =
// Probability of getting a Leyline in the hand
P-card(L, H, D) +
// Probability of getting a serum powder and no leyline times the probability of getting the card in a new hand after you powder
P-snl (L, S, H, D) * P(L,S-1,H,D-H) +
// The probability of getting neither leyline nor powder time the probability of getting the card after you mulligan.
(1 - P-card(L+S,H,D)) * P(L,S,H-1,D)
// Probabiliy of drawing a card from a deck with N occurances, Handsize H and deck size D
P-card(N, H, D) = 1 - ((d - n)! * (d - h)!) / ((d - n - h)! * (d - h) !
// Probability of drawing a card drawing a serum powerder S, without a Leyline L, in hand size H and deck size D
P-snl(_, _, 0, _) = 0 // if the hand size is zero there's zero probability
P-snl(L, S, H, D) =
// Probability of getting a serum powered time the probability of not getting leyline in the rest of the hand
(/ s d) * (1 - P-card(L,H-1,D-1)) +
// Probability of getting neither in the opening hand times the probability of getting serumpowered and no leyline in the rest of the cards
(/ (d - s - l) d) * P-snl(L, S, H-1, D-1)