Finding room for a playset of Serum Powder in that Rugged Prairie/SSG list would be amazing!
Well I sleeved up my old RP + SSG list and modified with 1 Grapeshot and 1 Noxious Revival and a playset of Serum Powder. I gold-fished for a couple of hours and wasn't impressed. The new mulligan run does make Serum Powder better, but not wow this is a new reality better. The lack of cantrips is punishing; with the SSG's & SP's in the list there just isn't enough room for cantrips and also I found that having blue mana when you need it can be troublesome. I was only able to run 19 equipment and I found I was even wanting to pull another one for a Leave/Chance because finding Retract without a 5th effect was sometimes tough. I'm not going to post the list right now but I would discourage anyone who was considering going back to Serum Powder because of the new mulligan rule. I was able to drop a creature on turn 1 a lot but I never got there, and often the next several turns were miserable after fizzling.
I played for the first time in almost month last night, beating Humans, Living End and Tron before losing game 3 to Bant Spirits on the play to a mull to 5 with 2 lands, Retract, Equip & Serum Visions that didn't get there. I think against that deck on the play I might try siding in all 3 Claim to increase the range of keepable hands to include Fetch/Claim/Creature, skipping land drop and discarding creature T1. The only thing is I might have to wait on Claim, they could drop a Wanderer T1. Is this just reaching because I'm salty?
Claim was really good against Living End and against Humans I got to Echoing Truth 3 Meddling Mages (1 was a Phantasmal Image; don't target that with ET!) naming Retract, Path & Grapeshot and my opponent was like: Woops!!
The new Incubation is a blue Commune with Nature. It's not quite Stirrings in our deck the same way Stirrings works in KCI, but it's the kind of dig I'd consider testing as engines 9+. The split mode is randomly useful against stuff like Mage too, as long as you have Opal/Mantle to cast it.
As a guy who used to run Serum Powder, I like it a lot. It could make a lot more hands keepable.
I have a Rugged Prairie, Simian Spirit Guide list that runs Leave/Chance that I haven't run in awhile, but I also love that card much more than Hurkle's Recall.
I switched to 16 lands and never looked back! I also keep a lot of 1 landers, which is even easier with Serum & Nox in the list. Mulligan aggressively, with bloodlust in your heart, and never fear going to 4. 3 is number to fear!
There are a half dozen really talented Spirits pilots in my meta running the Bant list with CoCo. Wanderer and Quellor can interact so well and make it difficult to resolve a Retract, and they board in Path and Thalia. I find the matchup 50/50, primarily determined by the die roll.
I went undefeated to take down a five rounder tonight with Ben's list, except I'm running one Nox & 16 lands. Took down creatureless Red (AFAIKT....T2'd him both games), Bant Spirts (from the draw, lucky in a rough matchup), Green Ramp something (twice, crushed him so bad both times that I don't know what his deck does) and a crazy White Prison brew that scared the hell out me and made me miserable game 2 (He had a playset of Runed Halo so I scooped before he could see my post-board Grids.)
Well I had a good run with Artificer's Assistant, but after going 0-3 drop Tuesday night, I'm going back to Serum Visions. AA w/ Sigil can provide evasive damage that I will miss, but ultimately I think it's just a bit too much of a win more card.
I really liked your post about the two Nox's acting as Opals 5 & 6 when Repealing a Leyline is on order. That line of reasoning has affected my sideboarding choices big time! I'm really glad to see you having big tournament success with the deck!!
It came from necessity and ended up being really good. When humans god big, the deck needed to add one peice of interaction so that they wouldn't just win with meddling mage on grapeshot. For that reason, repeal was added. Eventually, it just became obvious that the card was great in the deck regardless. For a while, the deck wanted a 5th retract and a lot of people played hurkyl's. Many have moved away from this in favor of multiple repeals because they act as mini retracts but they also add some interaction to the deck. If you have a creature out, it acts as a draw 2, which is always great. If you have multiple, obviously you draw more. It also cycles for free with a mox, and it deals with problematic game one permanents like chalice, eidolon, leyline, meddling mage, and Thalia. Honestly it's an all star and I would not play less than three at the moment.
Not trying to be argumentative, but Repeal has been in this deck for ages. Before Sram was printed, long before Humans was a powerful deck, Repeal was used to 1) Deal with a Chalice on zero, 2) Bounce a Mox Opal (essentially for free) to get a card and a storm count during the combo & 3) Get a Prowess trigger on Monastery Mentor, who used to see a lot of play. It's an amazingly versatile card in this deck.
Claim was really good against Living End and against Humans I got to Echoing Truth 3 Meddling Mages (1 was a Phantasmal Image; don't target that with ET!) naming Retract, Path & Grapeshot and my opponent was like: Woops!!