Mulligan

A mulligan is an optional process by which any player may attempt to draw a superior hand before starting the game. For sanctioned play, the mulligan process is exactly defined in the Comprehensive Rules.

Description

Any player dissatisfied with their hand, for any reason and without being required to reveal that hand, may return his or her hand to their library for an opportunity to draw a new one, after shuffling. The choice to take a mulligan is made after the starting player is determined, but prior to any other action. Players may take multiple mulligans, until either they are satisfied with their new hand, or they draw a hand of zero cards.

In most cases, sanctioned play requires that players use the "Vancouver" mulligan process. In this process, the player draws one fewer card in each new hand, and if the player keeps a hand with fewer cards than their starting hand size, that player may scry 1 once all mulligans are completed. Multiplayer games utilize a slightly different mulligan process.

One card, Serum Powder, interacts with mulligans. Abilities that may be used while a card is in your opening hand, such as the first ability on Leyline of Anticipation, may only be used after all mulligans are completed.

Mulligan variations

Vancouver mulligan

The Vancouver mulligan replaced the older "Paris" mulligan in sanctioned play beginning with the Battle for Zendikar prerelease in September 2015. To perform a Vancouver mulligan, the player returns his or her hand to his or her library, then draws a hand of one fewer card. Once all players keep their opening hands, each player with fewer cards than their starting hand size may scry 1.

Multiplayer bonus

In games with more than two players, the first mulligan for each player is "free". For the first mulligan only, players draw as many cards as their starting hand size. Subsequent mulligans consist of one fewer card each time, as usual.

Commander mulligan

Commander officially uses the Vancouver mulligan. However, the rules committee informally advises deviating from that process and allowing "free" mulligans (as in multiplayer games) even in games with only two players, and suggests that shuffling be reduced by setting aside unwanted hands, rather than shuffling in each one, until after a hand is kept.

Rules

From the Comprehensive Rules (April 12, 2024—Outlaws of Thunder Junction)

• 103.4. Each player begins the game with a starting life total of 20. Some variant games have different starting life totals.
  • 103.4a In a Two-Headed Giant game, each team’s starting life total is 30.
  • 103.4b In a Vanguard game, each player’s starting life total is 20 plus or minus the life modifier of their vanguard card.
  • 103.4c In a Commander game, each player’s starting life total is 40.
  • 103.4d In a two-player Brawl game, each player’s starting life total is 25. In a multiplayer Brawl game, each player’s starting life total is 30.
  • 103.4e In an Archenemy game, the archenemy’s starting life total is 40.

On Restarting the Game:

From the Comprehensive Rules (April 12, 2024—Outlaws of Thunder Junction)

• 714.3. Sagas use lore counters to track their progress.
  • 714.3a As a Saga without the read ahead ability enters the battlefield, its controller puts a lore counter on it. As a Saga with the read ahead ability enters the battlefield, its controller chooses a number from one to that Saga’s final chapter number. That Saga enters the battlefield with the chosen number of lore counters on it. (See rule 702.155, “Read Ahead.”)
  • 714.3b As a player’s precombat main phase begins, that player puts a lore counter on each Saga they control. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.

On Subgames:

From the Comprehensive Rules (April 12, 2024—Outlaws of Thunder Junction)

• 715.3. As a player casts an adventurer card, the player chooses whether they cast the card normally or as an Adventure.
  • 715.3a When casting an adventurer card as an Adventure, only the alternative characteristics are evaluated to see if it can be cast.
  • 715.3b While on the stack as an Adventure, the spell has only its alternative characteristics.
  • 715.3c If an Adventure spell is copied, the copy is also an Adventure. It has the alternative characteristics of the spell and not the normal characteristics of the card that represents the Adventure spell. Any rule or effect that refers to a spell cast as an Adventure refers to the copy as well.
  • 715.3d Instead of putting a spell that was cast as an Adventure into its owner’s graveyard as it resolves, its controller exiles it. For as long as that card remains exiled, that player may cast it. It can’t be cast as an Adventure this way, although other effects that allow a player to cast it may allow a player to cast it as an Adventure.

History

Magic was originally published without a mulligan rule, because some of the original playtest group believed the concept would reward poor deck building. Various informal mulligan rules existed in the period following the game's release.

The first official mulligan rule was instated by the DCI in 1994. That rule allowed a player with an initial hand consisting either of all lands or no lands to reveal his or her hand, shuffle it back into their deck, and then draw a new, full hand of seven cards. This process was allowed only one time per player.

Dissatisfaction within R&D with that rule led to the testing of an alternate mulligan process, suggested by Pro Tour player and later Wizards of the Coast employee Matt Hyra. That mulligan rule, now known as the Paris mulligan, allowed mulligans for any reason, but stated that each new hand contain one fewer card. Though the rule was first tested at Pro Tour Los Angeles and a smaller gathering in Boston, it was also accidentally included in the tournament rules for the April 1997 Pro Tour Paris. From this, the name "Paris" stuck instead, for no very clear reason.

The current default mulligan rule was first tested at Pro Tour Magic Origins in Vancouver, British Columbia. Like the earlier Paris mulligan, it has adopted the name of the city in which it was demoed. The process is also very similar to the Paris mulligan, with the addition that any player who keeps an opening hand with fewer cards than their starting hand size may scry 1. Like the previous mulligan rules, this mulligan is intended to reduce the frequency of "non-games", where the winner is effectively determined by the contents of the players's opening hands. It also fulfills a secondary goal of accelerating tournament play, because the scry option increases the likelihood that a player will keep an opening hand after fewer mulligans, and thus fewer shuffles.

Previously, the Commander format used a more complex mulligan process known as "Partial Paris". In response to the new Vancouver mulligan, that process came under renewed scrutiny. The Commander rules committee determined that both processes offered comparable results, and adopted the Vancouver mulligan with the release of Oath of the Gatewatch.

External links

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