New Mulligan Rule

[nedleeds]

Yes but my point is that if you have to crack a fetch, yes you have more knowledge of what could have been but not what actually is. The bonus is to set up for a turn in the future, but you in effect lose that if you crack a fetch at the end of the turn. Likewise, and it is minor, if you scryed away a card and crack a fetch, you now have a non 0 chance of seeing that card on the top again.

The chance of the card still being on top of your library is higher actually after you remove a land and re-randomize your deck. Because N is now N-1 and (assuming the card on top isn't a land you fetched) ... m has remained constant.

This is pure upside being on the play with fetchland.

[diopter]

The Fetchland interaction is awesome. With this rule on mind, maybe deck designers will decide they need to run a couple more real lands so mulligan hands have a good chance of having one?

Don't know. The possibility is sweet !!!!

[Varal]

The "nothing can be behind lands on camera" rule is a joke.  I'm going to totally boycott that.  Nobody tells me where to put my moxen unless they control the greatest thief in the multiverse.

The camera rule only applies to premium events. There will be no Mox played on camera unless they do Vintage or Vintage Masters at the World Championship.

[MaximumCDawg]

So, we play with broken cards, can we break this rule?

As you guys mentioned so far, this is crazy good with Delver and fetches on the play.  How else can we abuse the ability to peek at the top card?

Thinking of reasonable first turn plays only, knowledge of your topdeck and a single scry boosts the power of the following crappy cards:

- Mise (as soon as Unglued is made vintage-legal)
- Spoils of the Vault
- Desperate Research
- Ancient Stirrings
- Augur of Bolas
- Commune with the Gods
- Commune with Nature
- Bloodline Shaman

So... surprisingly little you can do with this.  I'm actually kind of impressed that a change to such a fundemental part of the game seems so innocuous.

[bactgudz]

So, we play with broken cards, can we break this rule?

As you guys mentioned so far, this is crazy good with Delver and fetches on the play.  How else can we abuse the ability to peek at the top card?

Thinking of reasonable first turn plays only, knowledge of your topdeck and a single scry boosts the power of the following crappy cards:

- Mise (as soon as Unglued is made vintage-legal)
- Spoils of the Vault
- Desperate Research
- Ancient Stirrings
- Augur of Bolas
- Commune with the Gods
- Commune with Nature
- Bloodline Shaman

So... surprisingly little you can do with this.  I'm actually kind of impressed that a change to such a fundemental part of the game seems so innocuous.

Predict.
The rule is insane for 5 color...makes your turn 1 contract from below a safe value play.

[Prospector]

I read the entire article, and the reason that they gave was that they don't want games on coverage to be uninteractive. Basically, too many games that were (or were planned to have been) shown on stream were lopsided games where one person couldn't really do anything.

This chimes with me. I've lost count the times I've settled down to watch a final of a major tournament only to witness a blowout due to mana screw.  Whereas most vintage matches I've seen that are blowouts are because one person gets to the broken things their deck is supposed to do.  

Slightly off topic but I suspect this would have the biggest impact in limited where you typically run 42.5% to 45% land.  There are so many times I have one land; mulligan to 6 and still only have one land.  Getting to see my next card and shipping it to the bottom if its not a land makes a huge difference to the odds of drawing another.  In a typical 17 deck if you mulligan to 6 with 1 land in hand the odds of your next draw being a land are 46% (16/34).  With the scry 1 its close to 73%.  Which is still pretty risky.  But with 2 land on the play, your odds of drawing a third in you first draw go from 44% to just under 70%.

So I'm definitely in favour for limited.  I'm still learning how to mulligan constructed hands, this will probably make mulligan decisions harder but ultimately makes it more interesting after the first if you do so I'm all in favour for constructed too.

[Islandswamp]

Finally, Adrian Sullivan can suck it.

  You're the first person to mention the fact that card and library orientation are finally set in stone.

We always were taught to play our lands closest to us, then to put creatures farther away. I never knew that it wasn't in the rule book for a long time. Now that its the rule, I am happy about it.

[vartemis]

The weird one for me is

All untapped cards in play must face the controller of that card.

I always play with my card text facing my opponent. I've played that way since Unlimited. I just find it makes it easier. I know what my cards do, so I don't need to see the text. I don't know if my opponent does, so why not make it easier to read? It also cuts back on my opponent asking to see the card to figure out what it does.

j

[rikter]

Finally, Adrian Sullivan can suck it.

  You're the first person to mention the fact that card and library orientation are finally set in stone.

We always were taught to play our lands closest to us, then to put creatures farther away. I never knew that it wasn't in the rule book for a long time. Now that its the rule, I am happy about it.

When I first started out in the revised era it was always lands up front and creatures behind them. I know some people that still play this way. When did you get into the game?

I think playing lands in the back makes for a clearer board state in general, and I have to imagine for feature matches that it's an even bigger deal to keep everything in frame

[bactgudz]

I organize depending on the deck and format.  In vintage, almost always mana/lands are much more critical than anything else.  I get asked to confirm and ask to confirm "your tapped out right?" or "what do you have up?" way more often than "how many delvers do you have in play?"...so I am usually keeping mana most prominent in the front.  Like this last weekend when playing burning long, you really want to keep an eye on my defense grids instead of lands/moxen?

And like if a null rod or revoker is in play, almost all of us invariably move affected permanents out of the way without regard to type.

[thecrav]

I don't think this makes much difference overall. You still have to know how and when to mulligan, and having more cards in hand is universally better than having fewer. You might get a little more aggressive going from 7 to 6 or 6 to 5, but you still have to make those choices before scrying, so you still can't keep and hope that seeing one additional card will get you there.

I think it will be really interesting to see how many people mulligan because they're overvaluing the scry that they get.

[benrobnu]

I think it's nice to see wizards try to improve the watch-ability of the game by making the viewer experience more consistent.

[jamestosetti]

I've been testing the new mulligan rule in Vintage on Cockatrice. It increases the fun of the format by about 20 times lol. But seriously, this rule adds such a unique twist that all I want to do is play Vintage.

Edit: After more testing I don't want this rule to take affect. It eliminates some of the more important aspects of the format such as capitalizing on one mana hands from the opponent, gaining card advantage, and also the opponent just gets a free Time Walk/Preordain.

[fsecco]

So, it's official now.

http://magic.wizards.com/articles/archive/news/new-mulligan-rule-starting-battle-zendikar-prereleases-2015-08-20

[TheWhiteDragon]

I have concern this new rule will make blue stronger more than anything.  If you scry and know your next card is a dig/draw spell, that's powerful to know.  With any other deck, you're basically scrying to see if you have land/not land.  Blue can look for land/not land/digging cantrip.

This also makes leylines better, I think.  One issue with leylines was you mulled into them with a subpar hand, hoping to draw mana or whatnot to back up your leyline.  Now you have the chance to stack that next draw to an extent.

I guess we'll have to live with it, like it or not.

[fsecco]

You scry after keeping the hand, so I don't think it influences Leylines that much.

edit: I know you meant that you scry before activating Leylines, but I don't think that influences much of anything. There isn't a Leyline that you wouldn't want into play depending on what you scry.

[TheWhiteDragon]

What I meant is that you may feel/be safer mulling more aggressively to get that leyline, because you get to stack your next draw, as opposed to just mulling into it and then hoping for the best.

[fsecco]

Yeah, I don't agree with that either. In theory, at least - since I haven't tested the mulligan rule yet.

People discussed this already, but if you let the new rule affect your mulligan decisions, you're doing it wrong. I really believe the scry 1 can't be taken into account when deciding to mulligan or not - you shouldn't consider it at all as a deciding factor.

There are a lot of reasons for that, but the main one for me is: if you Scry 1 and see something you don't like and put it under, you're depending on your random top once again. Of course scry helps, but you know those 1 land hands that you draw, Brainstorm and still see no lands? Scry won't help that, so keeping that hand is still bad, even with scry.

I don't even think Dredge will use this a lot. Would you keep a 4 card hand that doesn't have Bazaar? The only way Dredge will use this is that now they'll be able to mull to 0 and scry the top to try and find Bazaar harder. The second way I see them using it is game 2-3, if they have a hand with lands and a lot of anti-hate, so they'll have time to wait for Bazaar.

[Aaron Patten]

I don't think mulling to zero gives dredge an advantage in that case since they see the same number of cards. 
I don't think this rule is going to be very breakable since you have to mulligan first to get to see your top card.  You're already locked in at that point so it doesn't really interact with the mulligan(s) you just took beyond what anyone scrying 1 mid game could and scrying 1 mid game is not backbreaking even in combo. 
The rules seems fine to me.  I would have been fine with something more drastic but I think that's a matter of personal taste. 

[gkraigher]

The rule barely helps dredge.  The situation where you mull down to 1 (or 0 if your card is narcomeba)  isn't as relevant as your opponent mulliganing and being able to scry for hate.

Delver benefits the most
followed by other blue decks
Followed by mud.

If everything else gets better I would consider dredge to get worse


Just because dredge mulligans the most doesn't translate into it caring about the top card of its library the most.  It helps all the decks in the field, some more than others.  

[TheWhiteDragon]

I think it will help mulligans only because you can afford to keep a hand of 6 with leyline that is questionable and have a non-zero chance of being screwed, whereas you may have before mulled to 5 hoping for a better hand and a leyline.  It's not back-breaking or anything, but it does let you mull into leyline and set yourself up slightly for the next turn.

I agree with that breakdown of the 3 decks it helps - somewhat.  Actually, I don't think it helps MUD much at all.  They want a strong hand that can drop the lock on turn 1.  they don't care about their next card as much as their starting play.

I see this helping delver most, oath next, and other blue third...and everything else a distance after.  That was my main point is that it has the biggest advantage to blue, and I don't think we need that.  Blue is already the majority of vintage decks and dominance.  I do like that decks don't get screwed as badly on mulls, but I think some blue decks that have draw/cantrip/filter will benefit most and will try to cheat on land count.  It also benefits FoW, letting you know if you will draw a blue card to pitch or will draw an ancestral effect when you kept a Force+blue card hand, expecting to deplete yourself on turn 1 by letting you hide away that land that was on top when you have 3 lands already in hand...or knowing not to force something semi-threatening turn 1 if your next card is not draw/counter...or to counter something less major because your next card is a misstep/FoW anyway.  Blue is a color that thrives on knowledge - thus why scry is predominantly a blue effect. Decks like MUD, GW fish, etc. care less about what their next card is because they need to be impactful/crippling NOW on the play.  Blue is more of a mid-long game strategy by its nature of counter/draw/set-up, so this new rule advantages blue most.

Is that a problem?  I don't know.  If MUD became oppressively dominant and kept winning tourneys, would we want a new rule that advantaged shops most?  Something like "if you have one or less lands in your starting hand, you may put a card from your hand on top of your deck, search your library for a land card and put it in hand, then shuffle your library."  That's an effect that would be helpful to all, but I see advantageing dredge and shops most....would everyone be okay with that just because it can help blue too?  Or are people okay with a rule that helps blue most because it's the most popular color and most people play blue already anyway?

[fsecco]

Is that a problem?  I don't know.  If MUD became oppressively dominant and kept winning tourneys, would we want a new rule that advantaged shops most?  Something like "if you have one or less lands in your starting hand, you may put a card from your hand on top of your deck, search your library for a land card and put it in hand, then shuffle your library."  That's an effect that would be helpful to all, but I see advantageing dredge and shops most....would everyone be okay with that just because it can help blue too?  Or are people okay with a rule that helps blue most because it's the most popular color and most people play blue already anyway?

Actually Belcher would benefit more from that. Someone wrote an extensive article on Wizards some time ago about all the options they thought about when testing the new mulligan rule. I think this change is very well done. Of course Eternal formats suffer more from this kind of change, but I think it's ok too. Vintage can be very lopsided so if that helps in any way, it will be very good.

[youhavenogame]

Is that a problem?  I don't know.  If MUD became oppressively dominant and kept winning tourneys, would we want a new rule that advantaged shops most?  Something like "if you have one or less lands in your starting hand, you may put a card from your hand on top of your deck, search your library for a land card and put it in hand, then shuffle your library."  That's an effect that would be helpful to all, but I see advantageing dredge and shops most....would everyone be okay with that just because it can help blue too?  Or are people okay with a rule that helps blue most because it's the most popular color and most people play blue already anyway?

I don't get your problem. Shops and Dredge are effectively anti-magic decks (one preventing you from playing, the other just being... Dredge, I guess playing YGO disguised as Magic), so giving the real Magic decks better odds to actually play a game of Magic after they are already disadvantaged just seems like a super fair move. I also think that Shops gets a similar advantage as in, if you are already on a mull, you probably keep anything anyway as long as it has mana and either threats or disruption and the scry helps to find the necessary third piece of the puzzle. 

[fsecco]

Come on, still this "no real Magic" nonsense?

[Space_Stormy]

People will not be mulliganing on purpose to get a free scry.  It will help decks be a bit more consistent and until we actually see it in action it is just speculation with no evidence.

[Odd mutation]

I've been testing this rule since I first heard of it and it is awesome! So glad it's an official rule now.

[Oath of Happy]

So what implications do you think the new restricted list will have on the new mulligan rule?

[vaughnbros]

Come on, still this "no real Magic" nonsense?

Didn't you know only Forces and Drains are real magic?

[Smmenen]

FYI: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2015/10/03/the-forbidden-look/

Interesting article that warns players on mistakes they may make in operationalizing this new rule.

[evouga]

Looking at the top few cards to "see if you made the right decision" is a very bad habit (leads to people thinking the correct play was what would have won the game, rather than what maximized the probability of winning the game given the currently-known information) and the fact that it's now illegal is a bonus change in my book.