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Editor: Yaro Starak. Wednesday 14 August 2002.
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 Card Review: Scalpelexis
Flying
Whenever Scalpelexis deals combat damage to a player, that player removes the top four cards of his or her library from the game. If two or more of those cards have the same name, repeat this process.
1/5
Expansion: Judgment
I've seen this guy collect many a scalp in limited formats...does he a blue
win condition make?
Limited:
I quite rate this guy as a finisher in a white/blue or perhaps black/blue
deck. I'd steer clear of him in green/blue and I don't really know about
red/blue; I've never had the occasion to play (against) such a combination
since judgment came in so I don't know how aggressive it has to be. But as
a guy, he has quite a fat posterior that can get in the way of a lot of
guys and when you finally manage to get rid of their fliers some how I
expect him to end the game in about 3 attack phases. Sure in limited
formats there are more one ofs than in constructed but i think the copious
amounts of two kinds of basic lands (usually) makes up for this quite
nicely. He's quite hard to deal with except by white enchantments - black
has to Waste Away and red is just in trouble...I guess Acceptable Losses is
the only way out. I'd probably take a Phantom Flock over Scalp if I was
blue/white but there's not too much else that I'd take over him.
Constructed:
I don't think he quite makes the cut here. I suppose it is good that
Wizards are printing purely blue possible win conditions that make people
think "Hmm, just maybe..." about tournament playability. I mean, we don't
really need one that is just obvious it'll just increase the bad rep that
blue has picked up over the years. It's a bit cruel to just give it
phantom whelp level creatures as well. So where do you draw the line? I
think Scalp is a fair level of goodness in creatures for blue - a slight
possibility of making it one day if he gets in training. Anyway, blue
comments aside, I'd just like to say that a member of my team has played
this at low level constructed tournaments and it can really be one of those
"good times" cards. Flipping those four over one by one and the last one
being a repeat, well, it is certainly good fun.
Value: I'd sure sell them for $5.
Jason Street
Scapleplexis? Scalpelexis? Scalplexies? Ah, whatever. I'll call it "The
Card".
The effect sounds pretty cool, sorta like Grindstone but more nasty if
there's no matches. Unfortunately the first glance at the rules text had me
reading the key parts that I like and my brain glossed over the conditional
bits: "If something happens remove the top four cards of their library from
the game and if something else happens repeat the process".
WAHOO! Remove the top four cards and there's a good chance of it repeating!
Then I read it again.
The combat damage is easy enough, I used to use Somnophore and it worked.
The other condition is a little worse - let's get out the maths shall we?
Okay, I'll do the math, come back!
Assume you cast it and get to attack as soon as possible, and say your
opponent has 50 cards in his deck. How many ways are there to pick 4 cards
from 50? We use n!/(n-r)!r! where n is the number of items to pick from, and
r is the number of things being picked (n! means n-factorial. 3 factorial is
3x2x1, or 6). This is called nCr, and we use it because it takes into
account the fact that we are picking them in any order from the deck, but we
don't care what order they are in on the top of the deck (24 different
combinations if they are all different). If the order on top of the deck
mattered there is a different formula for it.
Answer: 230,300 different combinations. I'm doing a trick I leared a few
weeks ago in my computer science degree: You can discard the high (20+ of
the same basic land) and low (1 of a card) possibilities and just
concentrate on the average distribution - thus telling you how well it
(program or deck) will perform over it's lifetime.
That can be a general guide for us - there is a more accurate way of
analyzing it but I can't remember how (and have left the notes in my
locker).
This doesn't take into account the possibility of someone having already
drawn and used some of the cards. If they have a couple of Llanowar Elves in
play already then if the first card is a Llanowar Elf then you are highly
likely to NOT hit another one in that block of four. Now you come to the
tricky bit - every time you subsequently attack you will hit cards that have
had their counterparts already removed from the game or played.
Basically the effect comes down you you taking a gamble on getting the right
grouping of cards - And the odds are not in your favour. People will say
"Aha but there's a lot of land!" to which the answer is: There are a lot
more cards that are NOT land. You are basically playing Poker with a hand of
four cards and hoping to get a pair - and there are not 52 cards in the
deck. I used 50 as the number of cards in the deck for the first attack but
it's actually 48, and your opponent has already stripped away some of the
pairs from the deck, so it's a losing prospect. Also, don't count on bad
shuffling helping you after their deck is nice and clustered from the first
game, because there will be some thorough shuffling going on.
As a card the effect of trimming four cards from a deck is always
entertaining, but you have to be able to keep "The Card" alive (I don't know
what the picture is like, but it might as well just be a bit bullseye and
have the flavour text "kick me") and also get it through. Sizewise he's a
nice chunky blocker - but so is a Wall of Air. I'd certainly use one or even
two in a deck just for the frustration factor, but I would never count on
the thing actually hitting duplicates.
Value? Um, I'd say $6-$8. It's a card that looks cool in theory, but the
practise is that it will have good and bad hits. One thing to remember when
buying or trading for cards is that you generally want something you will
use a lot and get good mileage out of every time you use it. If you want it
for the removal of four cards, good. But I would never buy one because of
the words "Repeat this process".
Jason
This card has to be one of the most trickiest to spell
correctly.
Limited - One of the better rares for blue in
Judgement Scapelplexis can block any flier except
Commander Aesha. As decks are generally smaller in
limited it would not be unrealistic for Scapelplexis
to deck his/her opponent and the cards are removed
from the game so you don't have to worry about
threshold, flashback etc. A high pick in draft you
will always play this card and it can be easily
splashed for one blue mana.
Constructed - Type 2 - Five mana is a lot in
constructed magic at the moment and you want something
really good for that much. Scapelplexis would have
been good when U/W millstone decks were around as
between the two cards your opponent's library would
deplete rapidly. I'm not saying these decks are bad
now but they can be rather slow and will find it hard
to keep up with all this Wild Mongrel/Roar of the Wurm
nonsense.
OBC - I have played in a couple of these tournaments
and I must say I really like the format as one deck
does not dominate the field. As there are a lot of
graveyard reliant cards in this format Scapelplexis
could find itself in an aggro/control deck (U/G). The
casting cost is it's only drawback in my opinion so
you would only play with one or two.
Expect these to go for around $6
Until next time
Dan
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Scalpelexis (Rare)
Danesh Jogia
Dan Turner