So last night I had my worst game of magic ever. UR thermo-thing vs Atherworks...
I mulled to 2.
They mulled to 4, we each played one land then played draw go for awhile. Until we both hit our second land. They were then able to ramp into chandra, which I countered. I played thermo-alchemist. They play Marvel charge it up a turn then hit Ulamog exiling my lands I still counter it. This is game 2 and I lost the first one.. I achieve nothing by scooping as much as I want to, packs are on the line... Still I really really wanted to flip the table and storm out.
Talking about it afterwards people were asking why didn't I stop earlier.
7 cards, 5 lands. 6 Cards, 1 land. 5 cards, no lands. 4 cards, no lands. 3 cards, no lands. 2 cards, land, negate.
At what point do you keep a no land hand?, on the play
Depends on the format and the deck, but anything past five is reducing your overall chances to win pretty drastically. Once you're down to four cards, your out is probably to draw into something anyway, so you might as well keep a four-card, no-land hand in a lot of situations. It feels bad, at that point it's a question of what's better of two bad options -- lean on the chances of drawing lands to make the four cards in your hand more useful, or having one less card to work with, as well as no guarantee that those cards will be any better? Next time try to imagine what your ideal hand of x cards would look like, then do some quick math about how likely that might be and whether it's that much better than what you're looking at.
It complicates this question that your opponent actually went as low as four, so you weren't that far behind, but generally speaking I'll rarely go below five and never go below four.
I agree with the above post. When you reach 4, any hand is unlikely to have a land, so you might as well have more spells than fewer. I may have mulled to 3 once, but at that point, I was just humoring myself without intending to win that game anymore. I usually go with 5, and once in a while, 4. But going to 2... you're giving up cards for almost nothing, bro.
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Personally, muil to 5 would be my limit for most things. However, post board against combo decks that go off on turn 1 or 2, probably mull until sideboard appears, even if it's mull to 2 (for example, playing against dredge is nearly mandatory to have sideboard card in opening hand or just lose unless you're a combo deck yourself).
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
if you mull to one, can you then mull to zero, or is one the minimum hand ?
You can mull to 0, but only once. This is probably because in theory, you could mull to 0, then say "I mull to 0 again" and stall the game forever by repeatedly mulling to 0. Plus the fact that there's no point mulling to 0 and then doing it again.
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What if I don't stack my deck correctly when I mull to zero so I can get bazaar of baghdad first draw into double golgari grave-troll, then mulling again would be correct I kid I kid but yeah in vintage dredge if your lone card is narcomoeba on the mull to 1, I'd mull to zero as a narcomoeba in hand is worthless.
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You may need to run 24 lands instead of 22 or whatever your running. I call this the cursed land deck. It's happened to me before with great standard and modern decks. I've learn to never to play a top rated deck because there easy to beat with sideboard and hard to draw into. I have about 20 something decks. 4 standard, 8 modern, 1 legacy and rest EDH. I make sure to fill them up with mana unless there's elves or p9.
The lowest I've mulled is 3 cards. At 3, you keep whatever you get. At 4, it depends on the deck. I would say that your specific deck needs to have a desirable 3 card hand to mull below 4, especially with the scry rule. Spanish Inquisition and Restore Balance (in Legacy and Modern respectively) can have strong 3-card hands for example. A deck in Standard probably can't.
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if you mull to one, can you then mull to zero, or is one the minimum hand ?
You can mull to 0, but only once. This is probably because in theory, you could mull to 0, then say "I mull to 0 again" and stall the game forever by repeatedly mulling to 0. Plus the fact that there's no point mulling to 0 and then doing it again.
Anyone who mulls 0 more than once should get an automatic stalling the game infraction.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
If your are on the play you have to have at least 1 land and something to work with (so something that at least reasonable allows you to play a game, given that you need a lot of topdecks anyway).
Mulligan to 3 can still curve out.
Especially in Kaladesh i have seen players mulligan to 3 and still "win" by a quick 2 drop into Renegade Freighter curve, that can still do it, and if your deck has these cards, you just aswell want to mulligan to it, if your hand has 0 lands over and over.
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In vintage you could even mulligan to 2 cards and still get a draw of something like Black Lotus and a draw-7 , Ancestral Recall and what not !
So nothing is lost !
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As a regular game comes down to 1 for 1 trades and the player that is left with creatures simply wins, any card you are down hits home hard.
But a single mulligan will just do you like ~10 to ~20 % win-chance, that is ok, especially with the new scry 1 , the first mulligan isnt really problematic, especially on the draw.
Mulligans on the play are annoying anyway.
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If you play a multi-color deck and you just lack colors, you would keep a hand even if it has like 4 lands and 1 card to play, at least you already have mana to play stuff with (but then drawing more lands is usually pretty deadly, while some bigger cards "can" stabilize you if they dont have a removal at hand).
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Mulligan to 1 or even 0 might "never" be a reasonable option, as you will get a random draw from your draw-step anyway the moment it really matters.
Even in the most extreme situations, like with Pack Rat (yes, 39 swamps and 1 Pack Rat, i did that in a draft, and it was just going to mulligan to a Rat always and did "win" that draft ... ).
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In your specific example as of thermo UR , i would probably keep a no-land hand if it has a bunch of 1-2 drops i can play if i draw lands, which i need anyway (especially if your opponent mulls to like 4 too, they will have a crap draw aswell, and it comes down to who draws the lands first and plays "something" that wins quickly enough before the other gets into the game, and as UR thermo that might be a struggle anyway).
Personally, to me it matters quite a bit what the actual hand is- if I'm down to 5, but it's 2 lands and 3 things that cost 5+, I might as well ship the hand, as I'm unlikely to get the mana to ever cast those cards at that point, so they're effectively -1 hand size anyways. I'd really hesitate sending back a 5-land hand, as my deck is likely to get the impression that means I don't want to see land (more accurately, unless those other 2 cards are total crap, I would have stuck with the 5-land hand as that would pretty much guarantee I could play any card I drew into)
Personally, to me it matters quite a bit what the actual hand is- if I'm down to 5, but it's 2 lands and 3 things that cost 5+, I might as well ship the hand, as I'm unlikely to get the mana to ever cast those cards at that point, so they're effectively -1 hand size anyways.
I don't know if that's always true, though: maybe in some constructed formats, but in limited, having three five drops is bad but not quite as bad as having four cards. Between the scry and the fact that limited is fairy slow, you could see a two- or three-drop in time and be back in business, or your opponent could have a slow start and give you a chance to start casting your beasties.
Not ideal in either case, but I believe this one is on the edge in limited.
If you've decided that your mulligan situation is pretty bleak, you could essentially give up the current game for a superior position in the next one, by mulliganing to 0. Just keep drawing cards without doing anything else, and unless the opponent also mulliganed, they will be forced to show you at least seven of their cards (whether that be by playing them, discarding them, or otherwise) before you ever have to show them any of yours. Then assuming they don't just beat you down quickly, on the turn you finally draw your 8th card, scoop before having to discard. You should now have a pretty good idea what your opponent's deck is, while they have no insight whatsoever into yours, allowing you to sideboard for game 2 with asymmetric information.
Note that 103.4 does explicitly spell out that once you reach 0, it is not possible to mulligan any further.
Four is the lowest I've ever gone and I remember winning one of those games. My red line is probably either 2 or 3 (deck and format really matter here), but getting past 5 takes something extreme. Mulling to 1 is pointless because no matter what card you draw you'll need perfect topdecks for the rest of the game to come back and 0 is strictly worse than 1, so I don't understand why it's even legal.
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I mulled to 2.
They mulled to 4, we each played one land then played draw go for awhile. Until we both hit our second land. They were then able to ramp into chandra, which I countered. I played thermo-alchemist. They play Marvel charge it up a turn then hit Ulamog exiling my lands I still counter it. This is game 2 and I lost the first one.. I achieve nothing by scooping as much as I want to, packs are on the line... Still I really really wanted to flip the table and storm out.
Talking about it afterwards people were asking why didn't I stop earlier.
7 cards, 5 lands. 6 Cards, 1 land. 5 cards, no lands. 4 cards, no lands. 3 cards, no lands. 2 cards, land, negate.
At what point do you keep a no land hand?, on the play
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It complicates this question that your opponent actually went as low as four, so you weren't that far behind, but generally speaking I'll rarely go below five and never go below four.
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RUG Maelstrom Wanderer
WU Dragonlord Ojutai
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
You can mull to 0, but only once. This is probably because in theory, you could mull to 0, then say "I mull to 0 again" and stall the game forever by repeatedly mulling to 0. Plus the fact that there's no point mulling to 0 and then doing it again.
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Anyone who mulls 0 more than once should get an automatic stalling the game infraction.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Mulligan to 3 can still curve out.
Especially in Kaladesh i have seen players mulligan to 3 and still "win" by a quick 2 drop into Renegade Freighter curve, that can still do it, and if your deck has these cards, you just aswell want to mulligan to it, if your hand has 0 lands over and over.
----
In vintage you could even mulligan to 2 cards and still get a draw of something like Black Lotus and a draw-7 , Ancestral Recall and what not !
So nothing is lost !
----
As a regular game comes down to 1 for 1 trades and the player that is left with creatures simply wins, any card you are down hits home hard.
But a single mulligan will just do you like ~10 to ~20 % win-chance, that is ok, especially with the new scry 1 , the first mulligan isnt really problematic, especially on the draw.
Mulligans on the play are annoying anyway.
----
If you play a multi-color deck and you just lack colors, you would keep a hand even if it has like 4 lands and 1 card to play, at least you already have mana to play stuff with (but then drawing more lands is usually pretty deadly, while some bigger cards "can" stabilize you if they dont have a removal at hand).
----
Mulligan to 1 or even 0 might "never" be a reasonable option, as you will get a random draw from your draw-step anyway the moment it really matters.
Even in the most extreme situations, like with Pack Rat (yes, 39 swamps and 1 Pack Rat, i did that in a draft, and it was just going to mulligan to a Rat always and did "win" that draft ... ).
----
In your specific example as of thermo UR , i would probably keep a no-land hand if it has a bunch of 1-2 drops i can play if i draw lands, which i need anyway (especially if your opponent mulls to like 4 too, they will have a crap draw aswell, and it comes down to who draws the lands first and plays "something" that wins quickly enough before the other gets into the game, and as UR thermo that might be a struggle anyway).
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I don't know if that's always true, though: maybe in some constructed formats, but in limited, having three five drops is bad but not quite as bad as having four cards. Between the scry and the fact that limited is fairy slow, you could see a two- or three-drop in time and be back in business, or your opponent could have a slow start and give you a chance to start casting your beasties.
Not ideal in either case, but I believe this one is on the edge in limited.
Note that 103.4 does explicitly spell out that once you reach 0, it is not possible to mulligan any further.