Mulligan

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aspidites
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Mulligan

Post by aspidites » Sat Mar 01, 2014 05:46

The current rules state that
During each players first turn he/she is allowed to do a Mulligan.
I'm wondering if it makes sense to reword this as
During the start of a match*, each player is allowed to Mulligan
instead?

Reasons for wanting to do so:
  • As it stands now, the second player has an advantage in that when it is his turn to mulligan, he can already see what the first player has played up until now. If each player must decided at the beginning of the match, they will be on equal footing.
  • It will simplify the wording that will be used in the quick rules that I'm writing**.
  • Less confusing There is ever only one "start of a match", so it won't be so easy to accidentally try and mulligan at the beginning of every turn
* match, game, set, whatever we've decided to call these things.
** Oh yeah...after some prodding, Mattaiyah has convinced me to write a quick start guide, which I hope to be a little more accessible than the (incomplete) official rules.
Mattaiyah
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Re: Mulligan

Post by Mattaiyah » Fri Mar 07, 2014 15:47

Well, I gave you an answer in IRC, so I might as well give an official answer as well.

The mulligan rule ONLY applies to the start of the match. Being able to mulligan at the start of every turn is dumb and would break the game.
aspidites
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Re: Mulligan

Post by aspidites » Sat Mar 08, 2014 07:35

To be clear, I don't think the original rules ever intended to presume that you could mulligan every turn. Rather, my point was that the were written as such that a person new to TCGs or who otherwise wasn't paying attention might interpret them as such.

At any rate, I've updated the github version of the quick start guide to say start of match.
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snowdrop
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Re: Mulligan

Post by snowdrop » Sun Mar 09, 2014 19:13

I'm fine with the change that asp suggests and agree. What we will have now as a result though is the mulligan happening in some strange pre-game phase, just like the deck building itself, since it doesnät happen on anyones turn.

That doesn't have to be an issue though and I agree it levels out some disadvantages for one of the players. That said, the disadvantage could actually also be wanted as a way to balance something else out if issues arise, but let's revist the topic then if needed.
ngoeminne
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Re: Mulligan

Post by ngoeminne » Sat Apr 16, 2016 13:39

Hi folks,

Personally I would ditch the mulligan all together. It was introduced by MTG to fix resource shortage, or 'bad first hand'. And now it is misused/exploited to try and get a key card from your deck when you start the game. (It results in unbalanced deck building, but that's up to the player to decide, so I don't mind that)

Both the ORC and the ARC don't suffer resource shortage, since we know exactly at which turn you'll have what resources available. The 'first bad' hand isn't that bad in our rulesets, because we have a bigger card rotation (up to two cards in each draw, by default).

So in fact, in the ARC I just dropped it. If playtesting really shows we need it, I'll add it then.

Kind regards,
Nico
Mattaiyah
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Re: Mulligan

Post by Mattaiyah » Sat Apr 16, 2016 21:28

Here's a point to be made: Mulligans exist to allow people to play even if they get unlucky. If we remove them, people will lose games because of bad draws.

If I start with all my endgame cards in hand, the argument that "you draw cards faster" is pointless because I still can't do anything and my opponent gets a bunch of free turns.

Mulligans punish people who use them by giving a form of disadvantage. Here's a few mulligan rules.
  • MtG's requires you to draw 1 card less each time.
  • MtG's old Commander allowed you remove any number of cards and draw that number - 1.
  • Force of Will's puts any number of cards at the bottom of the deck and draws that number from the deck (only once).
ngoeminne
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Re: Mulligan

Post by ngoeminne » Sun Apr 17, 2016 19:29

Hey Matt,

You have some good points there, however. I do think people will get 'unlucky' less, because in our rule set you get 7 active cards in your opening hand, compared to 4/5 in MTG (7 - the lands).

The card rotation here is not pointless, because you get to draw deeper into your deck faster, so even if you start out with a bad hand, you do lose some tempo, but e.g. by turn three you reach 7+2+2+2 = 13 cards, or more then 20% of your deck. (With no dead lands cards). If you're deck is so unbalanced that it doesn't get good cards, maybe something's wrong with the deck.

Card depth in MTG by turn three is only 7+1+1+1 = 10, and probalby there will be some dead lands in the draws as well. If we set our card cost a little higher than average MTG, it would also slow down the game vs card rotation.

Of course, I could be wrong about all of it. But that's not really a big deal,
As playtesting shows, unlucky draws are really an issue, we can add the rule later on.
Anyway, players could always up front decided if they allow mulligans. When we play MTG with friends we allow muligans, when you have no lands, (the really old MTG mulligan rule).

Kind regards,
Nico
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snowdrop
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Re: Mulligan

Post by snowdrop » Wed Apr 20, 2016 15:26

The "issue" can be test with just math that I don't master, more or less, and in part the answer to it depends on how you define "a bad starting hand".

For the sake of argument, let's say you have 60 cards in deck and draw 2 at a time, with a first draw of 7. Let's also assume that you are a shitty player and that 50% of your deck is made up of really expensive cards, and that 50% is made up of cheap ones (here = good starting hand) that are ready to be played in the early game.

However you do this, you have at least 50% chance to draw a good starting card every time you draw the first seven cards, in the sense that you can at the very least afford it. This is not even entirely true, because probability grows the more unlucky you are - if you drew 3 expensive cards then chanses are higher that you on the fourth draw will get a cheap one.

Yes, you might get a 7 cheap cards that you can afford on turn one, but they may be useless for some other reason at that point in time in the game. So, either you mulligan to get other cards, or, if whatever you get is a bad start, then your deck is broken and you should not win to begin with.

*

Despite that I'm not sure I follow you Nico:

You want to solve a problem by removing mulligan. The problem is described as people trying to get an optimal hand for the deck, and you imply that if a person has built a deck around 1 or maybe 2 cards, and that person really needs those 1-2 cards superfast, maybe even on turn 1, then that person shouldn't ever be helped into victory by doing a mulligan since the mulligan gives that person a greater probability of succeeding with his bad deck. Am i right? (If not, what other reasons are there for not wanting to allow the mulligan?)

The player has a chance of at least 1,6% of getting the card he needs on turn one, every time he picks one of the 7 first cards, and growing. Assuming he only has one single copy of the golden card ; ) If he has 4 copies he has 6,5% chance of getting the card, 7 times in a row, and growing, on the first draw. (Sorry I don't know the math to accumulate them and get the "real total chance...")

A mulligan wouldn't "double" the chances to get that card. It would double the opportunities, with the same chances. So, still pretty low chance even if you do include a mulligan, and even if it's 4 copies of the card in the deck.

*

In any case, I don't see a player that builds a deck around 1 or even 4 copies of one single card actually winning any tournaments or winning more than losing. If his while game depends on it he should lose at least 90% of all games, unless he plays other morons... in which case not the best, but "the least idiotic" deck, will win ;)

Furthermore, if there are worries about card positioning in deck and fetching then a lot of other mechanics in the game would also need to be revised for the same reason: Re-shuffling, card fetching cards/abilities, random draws et.c.
ngoeminne
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Re: Mulligan

Post by ngoeminne » Sat Apr 23, 2016 15:42

Hey snowdrop,

I'm not at all against a mulligan per sé. I'm just questioning the need for it, in our ruleset.
It's indeed all dependent on what deck you have, how you've balanced the small cost cards against the heavy cost cards.

All I'm suggesting is that we try it out. With our two cards draw and see if a 'bad opening hand' really is a major issue in the win/lose conditions. I'd also opt for anything that's not core to the gameplay to be removed from the initial rules. A mulligan can be added later, or when playing among friends, they can just agree (for now, for playtesting).
In any case, I don't see a player that builds a deck around 1 or even 4 copies of one single card actually winning any tournaments or winning more than losing. If his while game depends on it he should lose at least 90% of all games, unless he plays other morons... in which case not the best, but "the least idiotic" deck, will win ;)

Furthermore, if there are worries about card positioning in deck and fetching then a lot of other mechanics in the game would also need to be revised for the same reason: Re-shuffling, card fetching cards/abilities, random draws et.c.
That might be true, until someone came up with his champion dredge deck based on one card. (granted, now players sideboard against it).

Kind regards,
Nico
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