I do 99% of my gaming amongst the same group of 5 or 6 friends... so we are not too strict about rules enforcement. So I was wondering... what are your house rules?
Mine:
One free mulligan. Before losing a single card or anything everyone gets one free mulligan. That makes it so that more of our games are good, rather than people getting stuck all the time with mana shortages. It also means that if somebody throws away a relatively good hand, we can get more of a laugh out of it when he draws an awful one.
Commanders must have 2 or more colors I feel that somebody is going to school me on this but the idea of a 1 color comander just bores me. I'm sure there is a good article out there explaining that mono colored is not always more reliable than multi, but I think the beauty of commander are these huge, crazy, board wiping, token creating, "every player" blasting decks. Of course that narrows our commander list, but ces la vie.
Going back in time Somebody forgot something! If the card says "may" then too bad, if the card says "must" then we add the token, health or card they forgot about.
About the only houserule I usually play with is no maximum hand size. When I first started playing, nobody told me there was a maximum hand size. None of my friends I played with seemed aware of it either. Now that I'm aware of the rule, I usually just ignore it anyways because half the time I'd probably forget about it, and it just seems less fun to me since I'm so used to playing without it.
I don't see what could possibly be wrong with mono-color generals. In fact, most mono-color decks have to work harder to compete with their multicolor brethren. While a multicolor mana base is inherently less consistent (though if your mana base is strong enough, that's not even an issue), you also have access to many more cards; cards in one color which can cover the weaknesses of another.
Admittedly, there are some mono-color generals that can be stupid and degenerate (Azami, Azusa, Arcum... lots of 'A's ;)), but there are just as many if not more multicolor generals that can be just as stupid and degenerate (Sharuum, Zur, Rafiq...). I don't think the number of colors you're dealing with is really the issue, but rather the individual card.
Now, as to the question presented by the topic: house rules. My friends are generally pretty lax, although most of us also play in a league, and we play more structured there. Although at home, my friends are close to banning me from playing my Maelstrom Wanderer deck until Planechase 2 comes out and I de-proxy my general.
None. I usually go by what my opponent is going by. Otherwise, for the most part I go with tournament rules. At most I go with free mulligans. Its casual after all, and if I'm going to lose because I mulliganed down to 3, then I'm just going to shortcut it, concede, then proceed to the next game and draw 7. If my opponent chooses to mulligan with -1 hand, I'll do the same.
What I wouldn't allow in casual --
1) Excessive mulliganning because the deck lacks land in the first place. I've played against players with just 7 lands in the deck, because "I only need two lands in play"; he kept on redrawing 7 until he sculpted the perfect opening hand
2) stuff like 4x tinker/4x sol ring/4x tolarian academy etc. Play something format legal, please. I'd prefer if we played the same format decks, but I'm not going to play against your "unrestricted" deck.
A personal lgs rule: blast from the past and booster pact tutor are OK EDH cards. We also banned warp world and world gorger dragon(recently off teh list). Warp was once copied 5-6 times in a game with teh store owner, he said never again and the dragon has been nuthing but a nuisance.
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When does lightning bolt kill Emrakul? When your opponent's at three.
- free mulligans to get a decent game within reason. don't mulligan to get a god hand but you can so you're not stuck on one land. its no fun blowing an opponent away just becasue they get mana screwed.
- limited take backs. if you forgot to gain a life or put a counter on something that's pretty cool. be prepared to get told to suck it up though if someone thinks it impacts heavy on the game state.
101.4a In a multiplayer game, the first time a player takes a mulligan, he or she draws a new hand of seven cards rather than six cards. Subsequent hands decrease by one card as normal.
Free Mulligans are actually a rule, in the comprehensive rules, used for multiplayer games. I'm not sure how long it's been in the rules but I found it odd that players were mutually agreeing on this for years, only to find it was actually allows the whole time.
It's hard to really nail down exactly what we've got going. Our banned list is more or less Legacy plus the restricted list in vintage. Mulliganing varies, but whatever the players agree on is fine. Triggers are applied if caught within a turn, exempting you-mays. Also, the Don't be a dick (D-bad) rule is in full effect. I'm not saying that you can't play stasis.dec, but I am saying you'll have trouble finding an opponent to play it against.
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1. Get a bad hand, reveal it, free mulligan. I've played with people pretty reasonable about what constitutes a bad hand.
2. Another bloke's house: no draw/go.
1. Free mulls for all. We don't usually abuse this rule.
2. When you are going to lose next turn, you may draw an extra card to check if that card might turn the game around or not.
Way back in the day when I ran casual tournaments among friends (I had just become a tournament organizer and was practicing organizing non-sanctioned tournaments in case I ran a sanctioned one), I allowed one free mulligan if a player had no basic lands in hand. The player had to show me his or her hand (if I was not in the match) before I'd allow the mulligan, something I'd still do now given the general drop in land count in various Vintage and Legacy decks since 2003 when I was doing this before.
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For casual only...the only real rule we have is no banned/restricted list (aside from the vintage banned list which is for playability issues) and no proxy limits.
Sort of follow regular rel: derived info is free and no dq/game/match loss
Honestly we don't play much casual. But it's fun to see stuff like 4x tinker decks and powered edh decks
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101.4a In a multiplayer game, the first time a player takes a mulligan, he or she draws a new hand of seven cards rather than six cards. Subsequent hands decrease by one card as normal.
Free Mulligans are actually a rule, in the comprehensive rules, used for multiplayer games. I'm not sure how long it's been in the rules but I found it odd that players were mutually agreeing on this for years, only to find it was actually allows the whole time.
You're looking at an old version of the CR. The rule you're quoting is now 800.5, rather than 101.4a (101.4a is now the rule regarding APNAP order). But 800.5 refers to multiplayer default mulligan rules (such as grabbing your friends and playing a FFA with Standard format decks). Commander mulligan rules are specified in 903.8:
903.8. The Commander variant uses an alternate mulligan rule. Each time a player takes a mulligan, rather than shuffling his or her entire hand of cards into his or her library, that player exiles any number of cards from his or her hand face down. Then the player draws a number of cards equal to one less than the number of cards he or she exiled this way. That player may look at all cards exiled this way while taking mulligans. Once a player keeps an opening hand, that player shuffles all cards he or she exiled this way into his or her library.
As you can see, RAW, there are no free mulligans in Commander. Of course, the entire point of this thread is to see exactly how people deviate from the RAW. I just don't want people thinking free mulligans are in the rules for Commander.
103.4b In a multiplayer game, the first time a player takes a mulligan, he or she draws a new hand of as many cards as he or she had before. Subsequent hands decrease by one card as normal.
800.5. In a multiplayer game, the first time a player takes a mulligan, he or she draws a new hand of seven cards rather than six cards. Subsequent hands decrease by one card as normal.
903.8. The Commander variant uses an alternate mulligan rule. Each time a player takes a mulligan, rather than shuffling his or her entire hand of cards into his or her library, that player exiles any number of cards from his or her hand. Then the player draws a number of cards equal to one less than the number of cards he or she exiled this way. Once a player keeps an opening hand, that player shuffles all cards he or she exiled this way into his or her library.
When the comp rules says "The Commander variant uses an alternate mulligan rule", they mean in regards to the traditional mulligan. The way you mull, not the amount you mull, is what's fundamentally different. The commander Mulligan is, to the best of my understanding, written for single player so that the rules are best interpreted and then multiplayer aspects of the multiplayer rules apply as need.
In a "normal" game of EDH, the modified mulligan rule is used as it's stated. In a multiplayer game of EDH, the modified mulligan rule is used in conjunction with the multiplayer general RULES.
Even in Two Headed Giant, mulligan'ing uses the multiplayer rules in regards to mulligan'ing. There isn't a format that is multiplayer that doesn't use the "free first mull" rule found twice in the Magic Comp Rules.
EDIT
That's why the Multiplayer rule is in section 800, which deals with multiplayer rules, and section 900 deals with casual variants which can be played using single player rules and multiplayer rules.
1. Get a bad hand, reveal it, free mulligan. I've played with people pretty reasonable about what constitutes a bad hand.
2. Another bloke's house: no draw/go.
How can you really enforce a no draw/go rule? There may very well be times where all you can do is draw and pass the turn.
How can you really enforce a no draw/go rule? There may very well be times where all you can do is draw and pass the turn.
I think he meant no draw/go control decks allowed. Let's face it, they're really not fun to play with or against and really don't fit if you're playing casual.
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We used to play with free mulligans. I stopped doing it once I started playing competitively, as it encouraged me to build bad decks. Mulling down to 6-5-4 cards can really show you what a deck is missing. I also am a lot better at knowing what to mulligan since I've played most all of my decks with 5 or less cards in my opening hand; I know what combo pieces certain decks might really want to dig for or what land counts are playable. Simply put, its made me a much better and more aware M:TG player, and I advise all of you who play with free mulligans to start mulling regularly if you want to become better.
The only house rule that we play with is dice-rolls on card interactions. Neither of us has smartphones, and sometimes can't be bothered to look up a strange interaction in the middle of a game. I had a Runed Halo the other day naming Delver of Secrets, we didn't know if it would protect against Insectile Aberration (and this was before it was a question on Cranial Insertion), so we rolled for it, I won, and got protection against his 3/2 flier. Its convenient at the time, and we'll usually look up the ruling on it before the next time we play so we know how the cards actually work with each other.
Free Mulligans are actually a rule, in the comprehensive rules, used for multiplayer games. I'm not sure how long it's been in the rules but I found it odd that players were mutually agreeing on this for years, only to find it was actually allows the whole time.
Yeah, taht is basically how we have been playing, with an added "if EVERYONE agrees, everyone shuffles and draws 7 again, if not the remaining players who want mulligan draw up to 6".
I play a lot against a religiously "red burn" guy so no way I'm giving him infinite mulligans only to have him end up with the right combo of land and lightning bolt.
I might try some mono colored commanders in the future, I mean that is all kamigawa is.
For sometime we had these two house rules about mulligan.
1. If opening hand has no lands, you can reveal it and be able to take a mulligan without decrease in hand size.
2. If opening hand has 6 or more land cards, you can reveal it and be able to take a mulligan without hand size decrease.
Those two rules eventually disappeared when we got more serious in playing Legacy.
For my playgroup and the players in my area in general, we follow the WotC guidelines.
For Commander we do competitive 1v1. Mulligan rules are 1 free, then you start going down.
What it boils down to is deckbuilding. I know a lot of more casual players disagree, but if we allow you to take five mulligans to 7 just to get a better starting hand it doesn't help you build better decks or become better skilled. Instead of allowing it, handicap yourself and play with what you have. Make the best of it. Same thing goes for take backs. If we're at a point where land has been tapped, a card laid out and then you want to take it back it likely won't fly. Think things through, chat it up if you need to. Take a deep breath.
There's another venue near me that's the polar opposite. The players there will routinely peek at the top card of their deck and that's acceptable. I won't dump on a groups playstyle but it's not for me.
For Commander we do competitive 1v1. Mulligan rules are 1 free, then you start going down.
First you say you follow WotC's guidelines, then you play EDH outside of the WotC guidelines in regards to mulligans! Lol
But I understand. I don't know anyone in my area who doesn't try to follow the WotC rules and I appreciate that WotC has fully followed Sheldon & friends for EDH in their MCR.
EDH is somewhat of an exception. Most of us found 1v1 to be more enjoyable then multi-player which seemed to have gone against the grain of the foundation Sheldon and friends laid. We moved onto the French Ban list as a way of keeping some consistency and it's worked well so far. If I were to play in a multi-player game of EDH I'd probably make sure my deck reflected Sheldons multi-player rules. Or at the very least make sure it was good with everyone else before I started shuffling.
Also remember that EDH existed before WotC got their mitts on it. How I've played any of the eternal formats has remained by far, largely untouched. I will catch myself tapping the wrong lands, or playing a spell and realizing afterwords that there was something better I could have done. It's just too bad. Most mistakes you live and learn from, so I accept it. Most people here do the same thing.
1/ "Arena" mod : other players cannot "burn" you, IE target you with a spell making some damage if you control a creature this spell could target. Was introduced at first for roleplaying purposes (you cannot target me, I'm protected by my monster) and it's never really been reappraised.
I can understand that everyone has house rules, and that everyone's house rules are different, but I'm seeing some pretty stupid ones.
There is a "no whining" rule that we have. In other words:
If its not on the formats ban list, then don't whine about it. To put it in a nutshell...
If you whine about legal moves you are either A) Lazy cause you don't want to find the solutions, B) Stupid cause you can't find solutions, C) A sore loser, D) All of the above.
We figure that if you're enough of a little ***** to be any of A through D then you are not worth playing against and probably are not a quality human being. And yes... All of you people with house rules restricting perfectly legal actions/card, I do think you're one or more of A through D, and I do think less of you as a person.
Mine:
One free mulligan. Before losing a single card or anything everyone gets one free mulligan. That makes it so that more of our games are good, rather than people getting stuck all the time with mana shortages. It also means that if somebody throws away a relatively good hand, we can get more of a laugh out of it when he draws an awful one.
Commanders must have 2 or more colors I feel that somebody is going to school me on this but the idea of a 1 color comander just bores me. I'm sure there is a good article out there explaining that mono colored is not always more reliable than multi, but I think the beauty of commander are these huge, crazy, board wiping, token creating, "every player" blasting decks. Of course that narrows our commander list, but ces la vie.
Going back in time Somebody forgot something! If the card says "may" then too bad, if the card says "must" then we add the token, health or card they forgot about.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
Admittedly, there are some mono-color generals that can be stupid and degenerate (Azami, Azusa, Arcum... lots of 'A's ;)), but there are just as many if not more multicolor generals that can be just as stupid and degenerate (Sharuum, Zur, Rafiq...). I don't think the number of colors you're dealing with is really the issue, but rather the individual card.
Now, as to the question presented by the topic: house rules. My friends are generally pretty lax, although most of us also play in a league, and we play more structured there. Although at home, my friends are close to banning me from playing my Maelstrom Wanderer deck until Planechase 2 comes out and I de-proxy my general.
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What I wouldn't allow in casual --
1) Excessive mulliganning because the deck lacks land in the first place. I've played against players with just 7 lands in the deck, because "I only need two lands in play"; he kept on redrawing 7 until he sculpted the perfect opening hand
2) stuff like 4x tinker/4x sol ring/4x tolarian academy etc. Play something format legal, please. I'd prefer if we played the same format decks, but I'm not going to play against your "unrestricted" deck.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
- free mulligans to get a decent game within reason. don't mulligan to get a god hand but you can so you're not stuck on one land. its no fun blowing an opponent away just becasue they get mana screwed.
- limited take backs. if you forgot to gain a life or put a counter on something that's pretty cool. be prepared to get told to suck it up though if someone thinks it impacts heavy on the game state.
- revenge is a dish best served in the next game.
Free Mulligans are actually a rule, in the comprehensive rules, used for multiplayer games. I'm not sure how long it's been in the rules but I found it odd that players were mutually agreeing on this for years, only to find it was actually allows the whole time.
My Friend Code is: 0146-9645-8893
2. Another bloke's house: no draw/go.
2. When you are going to lose next turn, you may draw an extra card to check if that card might turn the game around or not.
Sort of follow regular rel: derived info is free and no dq/game/match loss
Honestly we don't play much casual. But it's fun to see stuff like 4x tinker decks and powered edh decks
BEtched Champion/InfectB
WSoilders/knightsW
WUVenser SplicerWU
RRDWR
GFeed the Pack comboG
WUPool of ExhaustionWU
EDH
GEzuri, Elf OverrunG
BGeth, GraverobberB
UThada Adel, ThiefU
RUrabrask, Big RedR
WElesh Norn, CrusadeW
WUGAngus Makenzie, Bant ControlWUG
Extended
WGElvesWG
Legacy
RGoblinsR
UBGFariesUBG
UBGRaffinityUBG
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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When the comp rules says "The Commander variant uses an alternate mulligan rule", they mean in regards to the traditional mulligan. The way you mull, not the amount you mull, is what's fundamentally different. The commander Mulligan is, to the best of my understanding, written for single player so that the rules are best interpreted and then multiplayer aspects of the multiplayer rules apply as need.
In a "normal" game of EDH, the modified mulligan rule is used as it's stated. In a multiplayer game of EDH, the modified mulligan rule is used in conjunction with the multiplayer general RULES.
Even in Two Headed Giant, mulligan'ing uses the multiplayer rules in regards to mulligan'ing. There isn't a format that is multiplayer that doesn't use the "free first mull" rule found twice in the Magic Comp Rules.
EDIT
That's why the Multiplayer rule is in section 800, which deals with multiplayer rules, and section 900 deals with casual variants which can be played using single player rules and multiplayer rules.
How can you really enforce a no draw/go rule? There may very well be times where all you can do is draw and pass the turn.
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
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UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
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I think he means the style of control deck called draw-go.
I don't use any house rules really. Sometimes if we both Mul to 6 we both just draw 7.
I think he meant no draw/go control decks allowed. Let's face it, they're really not fun to play with or against and really don't fit if you're playing casual.
If you hate the deck, I'm probably playing it!
The only house rule that we play with is dice-rolls on card interactions. Neither of us has smartphones, and sometimes can't be bothered to look up a strange interaction in the middle of a game. I had a Runed Halo the other day naming Delver of Secrets, we didn't know if it would protect against Insectile Aberration (and this was before it was a question on Cranial Insertion), so we rolled for it, I won, and got protection against his 3/2 flier. Its convenient at the time, and we'll usually look up the ruling on it before the next time we play so we know how the cards actually work with each other.
Yeah, taht is basically how we have been playing, with an added "if EVERYONE agrees, everyone shuffles and draws 7 again, if not the remaining players who want mulligan draw up to 6".
I play a lot against a religiously "red burn" guy so no way I'm giving him infinite mulligans only to have him end up with the right combo of land and lightning bolt.
I might try some mono colored commanders in the future, I mean that is all kamigawa is.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
1. If opening hand has no lands, you can reveal it and be able to take a mulligan without decrease in hand size.
2. If opening hand has 6 or more land cards, you can reveal it and be able to take a mulligan without hand size decrease.
Those two rules eventually disappeared when we got more serious in playing Legacy.
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For Commander we do competitive 1v1. Mulligan rules are 1 free, then you start going down.
What it boils down to is deckbuilding. I know a lot of more casual players disagree, but if we allow you to take five mulligans to 7 just to get a better starting hand it doesn't help you build better decks or become better skilled. Instead of allowing it, handicap yourself and play with what you have. Make the best of it. Same thing goes for take backs. If we're at a point where land has been tapped, a card laid out and then you want to take it back it likely won't fly. Think things through, chat it up if you need to. Take a deep breath.
There's another venue near me that's the polar opposite. The players there will routinely peek at the top card of their deck and that's acceptable. I won't dump on a groups playstyle but it's not for me.
First you say you follow WotC's guidelines, then you play EDH outside of the WotC guidelines in regards to mulligans! Lol
But I understand. I don't know anyone in my area who doesn't try to follow the WotC rules and I appreciate that WotC has fully followed Sheldon & friends for EDH in their MCR.
Also remember that EDH existed before WotC got their mitts on it. How I've played any of the eternal formats has remained by far, largely untouched. I will catch myself tapping the wrong lands, or playing a spell and realizing afterwords that there was something better I could have done. It's just too bad. Most mistakes you live and learn from, so I accept it. Most people here do the same thing.
There is a "no whining" rule that we have. In other words:
If its not on the formats ban list, then don't whine about it. To put it in a nutshell...
If you whine about legal moves you are either A) Lazy cause you don't want to find the solutions, B) Stupid cause you can't find solutions, C) A sore loser, D) All of the above.
We figure that if you're enough of a little ***** to be any of A through D then you are not worth playing against and probably are not a quality human being. And yes... All of you people with house rules restricting perfectly legal actions/card, I do think you're one or more of A through D, and I do think less of you as a person.
WURDelver
[/MANA]MANA]R[/MANA]GTron
WDeath and Taxes
WSoul Sisters
RWG Pod Combo
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URStorm
RBurn