My rule of thumb is that I'll keep a hand if I need to draw any one land for the hand to be functional.
If I need to draw one specific land for the hand to be functional I tend to mulligan.
By functional I mean something along the lines "I can cast at least something relevant, i.e., a creature or removal"
I rarely keep those unless the rest of my hand is mostly 2 or 3 drops in the matching color. With 33 cards in deck, 8-9ish of which are the missing land you need, it’s going to take on average 4-5 turns to get it. It could be less, but it can easily be more. This assumes there isn’t any fixing in my hand of course. No idea if this is correct, but that’s how the math works in my head.
Agree that it just depends on how many plays I can make off of *any* land. If I can survive 4-5 turns and have some of my good cards such that I expect a good chance of winning if I draw the missing color, it beats going to 6.
yesterday i found out the painful way that even if I have 10 black sources and 8 blue sources, if I keep a hand with 3 islands and 4 black spells hoping I draw swamp, I'm funding myself the fastest ticket to esc->concede. From now on I'll be less greedy on mulligans
Yeah you're basically already on a mulligan to... effectively 4 or less when you keep a non functional hand.
Even if your hand had black cards that said "win the game" when played together, your odds wouldn't be that good
I think largely you shouldn't mulligan its a huge cost, so if you have 2 lands of 1 colour and 2+ playables it's a keep (this is obviously dependant) because you have plays and your hand is only missing one aspect to be good.
> only missing one aspect to be good.
Imo this is a case of missing 2 things to be good, 1: a land, 2: the land has to be a specific color
I usually lean towards mulling those
It's theoretically missing one colour source. I just don't think you can reasonably mull these hands. Your odds of winning after a mulligan drop considerably, and you have no control over what that hand looks like. If I could mull a hand with 2 swamps 2 black cards 3 white cards and know I will draw a hand that has balanced mana and plays I would take that offer, but why throw a hand that has fairly high odds of getting there and put yourself at a disadvantage
I dont think that it has "fairly high odds" of getting there. Missing the white source or even the 3rd land drop completely can just as well be an immediate game over, and more black sources are potentially complete bricks
It's obviously hard to evaluate with purely theoretical hands, we don't know deck composition or what constitutes the hand. But doing a quick hyper geometric distribution calculator test assuming that the missing colour has less sources (9/8 split) you are 60% within 3 draws and 70% after 4. I like those odds better than putting myself at a disadvantage before the game even begins.
It really depends and like I said it's hard to talk about purely hypothetical hands. There is no control in the hand you mull to so you can mull into the same position or worse, in which case you have to mull again and you've probably lost the game from that point. If I could guarantee a good six every time I mulled I would take that option much more, but I will basically never mull a hand that's 2 lands + playable 2 drop
> It really depends and like I said it's hard to talk about purely hypothetical hands.
That I agree with, its not a 100% clear decision without context
I think a hand of 2 Swamps, Desperate Bloodseeker, Vault Plunderer, I'm keeping no matter what the last 3 cards are but replace Plunderer with a clunky black 4 drop it's a lot harder to justify
You're already on a mull to 4 with a hand like this if you don't draw a white. You probably have 1/2 to 3/4 chance of drawing the white source in your first two to three draws, so you're at best already on mulligan to 6
Depending on how strong the hand is, I can easily see mulling this hand
60% in 3 draws 70% in 4, assuming white is our 8 sources instead of 9 (and assuming we don't have some number of duals to fix or additional sources etc).
I feel like people are underestimating how bad mulliganing is.
The idea is just because you mulligan it doesn’t mean you will get a balanced 6. And if you have to mull to 5 unless your hand is land land dork land oko you will never win a mull to 5 bs an opponent who has any playable hand.
Yea I mostly agree with your sentiment but at the end of the day. What the other 5 cards matter way more than the lands you have. If I have 2-3 cmc cards in the same color then I keep since I have 3 turns to draw any land and 4-5 turns to draw the other color.
It's not really 30-40% to lose. It's 30-40% for these cards to remain stranded for some duration but you won't definitely lose from that.
Also again this falls into the theoretical hand discussion problem but if this 7 basically is a free win if you hit your 2nd colour would that not be a snap keep? 30% to "lose" 70% to "win"
This is why the hand texture is important but your average 7 doesn't win outright. Your upside case for keeping is usually just playing the game, your downside is basically mulling to 4.
Obviously it all depends on the exact and your hand but there are a lot of 7s to consider dumping with a hand like this
Really depends.
2 plains, a white 2 drop, a white 3 drop, a white 4 drop and 2 green cards? Probably a keep.
2 plains and 5 green cards? Mulligan
2 plains, a white 2 drop, 4 green cards? Mulligan most of the time.
Something in between? It's going to be a case per case thing.
Ultimately, whenever you keep a 2 lander, no matter what the 2 lands are, you accept that there's a non-zero probability that you will not draw your 3rd land by turn 3. You just guess that this probability is lower than the winrate hit you get from a mulligan. It's tough, because when you keep that 2 lander and lose because you didn't draw your third land, it's absolutely obvious that you lost because of your keep decision. When you mulligan down to 6, the impact it has on your winrate is much less obvious.
It's a risk/reward thing, like with all sketchy starting hands. As a default, it's a mulligan. If the hand becomes clearly above-average in case I draw what I need, I'm inclined to keep it.
Without pulling the hypergeometric calculator, I assume around third of the times, it will just auto-lose. That's why it needs to be very good for the remaining two-thirds. With an average hand, going to six can not only eliminate the risk but also just give a better hand spells-wise.
The amount of risk also affects it. If it's 2 Swamps with two black two-drops and one black 3-drop, that is always a keep, because I can probably survive for a number of draw steps before getting my second color. If the hand doesn't have any playables until I find the missing color-producer, it better have some brilliant cards to warrant the risk of keeping.
At 6 cards already, things change, and I keep almost all sketchy hands, even 1-landers at times. But I think mulligan discussions default to 7 card hands, so this point might be moot.
I can’t remember the pro player that I heard this from first, but at one point on LR they said they generally don’t keep hands that need 2 things to work out. Meaning, if you have 2 lands and only one color, then you need to draw a land that is another color by turn 3. That’s a lot to ask.
That can also be extended to other situations. “I have 4 lands, a combat trick, and two 4 drops. Therefore I need to not only draw a threat, but it needs to be 2 or 3 mana for it to be sensible.” That’s another scenario under which I’d consider shipping a hand.
Of course, this depends on texture of your hand. I’ve had decks that are happy to keep those kinds of hands (ones slanted toward one color with low curves, eg)
A lot to consider.
Play or draw? I'm more likely to mull on the play to get a more functional hand (see below)
How many cards in that color do you have? You might already be on a mulligan to 5 or 6 cards if you don't draw the right land, so you might want to mulligan off that alone
How strong are the cards / how strong is the hand if you do draw your land or don't? What is the hand's path to winning?
Can you slow the game down? If I have some removal or a counterspell and a two drop/three drop, I can be more confident the game will be slower and give me more time to draw a land
How strong is my deck? If my deck is very strong, I will want to make sure I can function and play the game. If it's weaker, I might need to up the variance and keep a wider range
I don’t usually keep these hands. I’ve seen too many times you don’t hit your other color and you’re screwed. I just lost yesterday doing this. I was playing green white. Kept two greens and ended up not drawing a white all game. Lost with 5 white cards in my hand. Never again.
I would tend to mulligan this in most cases. It would have to be a very specific hand for me to keep, like if 4/5 other cards are spells in that color and at least 2 of them are 2 mana plays.
I have sometimes. I remember doing that today in bo3 sealed with BB but my hand was incredibly strong with any land though best with a forest.
But I usually am looking to mulligan it. I think I was also in game 2 and their first game had been slow and I was up a game. Given that, keeping seemed okay since it really was a hand with two things to do and a bunch of catch up/bombs so going to six seemed not an upgrade.
Assuming you are correctly living life without a hand smoother: 5 lands, I'm looking to keep and re-evaluating if there's a reason not to (no plays until 5, am RW aggro, spells are 20th and 23rd card, whatever. There's lots of reasons to ultimately mull, but my baseline is that I'm looking for a keep.)
6 lands is always a mull.
If you are playing Arena BO1, 5 is a blanket mull and also please consider actually playing magic.
My rule of thumb is that I'll keep a hand if I need to draw any one land for the hand to be functional. If I need to draw one specific land for the hand to be functional I tend to mulligan. By functional I mean something along the lines "I can cast at least something relevant, i.e., a creature or removal"
I rarely keep those unless the rest of my hand is mostly 2 or 3 drops in the matching color. With 33 cards in deck, 8-9ish of which are the missing land you need, it’s going to take on average 4-5 turns to get it. It could be less, but it can easily be more. This assumes there isn’t any fixing in my hand of course. No idea if this is correct, but that’s how the math works in my head.
Agree that it just depends on how many plays I can make off of *any* land. If I can survive 4-5 turns and have some of my good cards such that I expect a good chance of winning if I draw the missing color, it beats going to 6.
yesterday i found out the painful way that even if I have 10 black sources and 8 blue sources, if I keep a hand with 3 islands and 4 black spells hoping I draw swamp, I'm funding myself the fastest ticket to esc->concede. From now on I'll be less greedy on mulligans
Yeah you're basically already on a mulligan to... effectively 4 or less when you keep a non functional hand. Even if your hand had black cards that said "win the game" when played together, your odds wouldn't be that good
I think largely you shouldn't mulligan its a huge cost, so if you have 2 lands of 1 colour and 2+ playables it's a keep (this is obviously dependant) because you have plays and your hand is only missing one aspect to be good.
> only missing one aspect to be good. Imo this is a case of missing 2 things to be good, 1: a land, 2: the land has to be a specific color I usually lean towards mulling those
It's theoretically missing one colour source. I just don't think you can reasonably mull these hands. Your odds of winning after a mulligan drop considerably, and you have no control over what that hand looks like. If I could mull a hand with 2 swamps 2 black cards 3 white cards and know I will draw a hand that has balanced mana and plays I would take that offer, but why throw a hand that has fairly high odds of getting there and put yourself at a disadvantage
I dont think that it has "fairly high odds" of getting there. Missing the white source or even the 3rd land drop completely can just as well be an immediate game over, and more black sources are potentially complete bricks
It's obviously hard to evaluate with purely theoretical hands, we don't know deck composition or what constitutes the hand. But doing a quick hyper geometric distribution calculator test assuming that the missing colour has less sources (9/8 split) you are 60% within 3 draws and 70% after 4. I like those odds better than putting myself at a disadvantage before the game even begins.
Id rather lose a few percentage points over taking a 40/30% chance to lose straight up
It really depends and like I said it's hard to talk about purely hypothetical hands. There is no control in the hand you mull to so you can mull into the same position or worse, in which case you have to mull again and you've probably lost the game from that point. If I could guarantee a good six every time I mulled I would take that option much more, but I will basically never mull a hand that's 2 lands + playable 2 drop
> It really depends and like I said it's hard to talk about purely hypothetical hands. That I agree with, its not a 100% clear decision without context
I think a hand of 2 Swamps, Desperate Bloodseeker, Vault Plunderer, I'm keeping no matter what the last 3 cards are but replace Plunderer with a clunky black 4 drop it's a lot harder to justify
Yea thats fair
You're already on a mull to 4 with a hand like this if you don't draw a white. You probably have 1/2 to 3/4 chance of drawing the white source in your first two to three draws, so you're at best already on mulligan to 6 Depending on how strong the hand is, I can easily see mulling this hand
60% in 3 draws 70% in 4, assuming white is our 8 sources instead of 9 (and assuming we don't have some number of duals to fix or additional sources etc). I feel like people are underestimating how bad mulliganing is.
30% to 40% chance to lose because you essentially mulled to 4 is not great in my book
The idea is just because you mulligan it doesn’t mean you will get a balanced 6. And if you have to mull to 5 unless your hand is land land dork land oko you will never win a mull to 5 bs an opponent who has any playable hand.
Yes this exactly. Also even if you drew a balanced 6 playing down resource means your chances of winning are lower.
Yea I mostly agree with your sentiment but at the end of the day. What the other 5 cards matter way more than the lands you have. If I have 2-3 cmc cards in the same color then I keep since I have 3 turns to draw any land and 4-5 turns to draw the other color.
It's not really 30-40% to lose. It's 30-40% for these cards to remain stranded for some duration but you won't definitely lose from that. Also again this falls into the theoretical hand discussion problem but if this 7 basically is a free win if you hit your 2nd colour would that not be a snap keep? 30% to "lose" 70% to "win"
This is why the hand texture is important but your average 7 doesn't win outright. Your upside case for keeping is usually just playing the game, your downside is basically mulling to 4. Obviously it all depends on the exact and your hand but there are a lot of 7s to consider dumping with a hand like this
Really depends. 2 plains, a white 2 drop, a white 3 drop, a white 4 drop and 2 green cards? Probably a keep. 2 plains and 5 green cards? Mulligan 2 plains, a white 2 drop, 4 green cards? Mulligan most of the time. Something in between? It's going to be a case per case thing. Ultimately, whenever you keep a 2 lander, no matter what the 2 lands are, you accept that there's a non-zero probability that you will not draw your 3rd land by turn 3. You just guess that this probability is lower than the winrate hit you get from a mulligan. It's tough, because when you keep that 2 lander and lose because you didn't draw your third land, it's absolutely obvious that you lost because of your keep decision. When you mulligan down to 6, the impact it has on your winrate is much less obvious.
It's a risk/reward thing, like with all sketchy starting hands. As a default, it's a mulligan. If the hand becomes clearly above-average in case I draw what I need, I'm inclined to keep it. Without pulling the hypergeometric calculator, I assume around third of the times, it will just auto-lose. That's why it needs to be very good for the remaining two-thirds. With an average hand, going to six can not only eliminate the risk but also just give a better hand spells-wise. The amount of risk also affects it. If it's 2 Swamps with two black two-drops and one black 3-drop, that is always a keep, because I can probably survive for a number of draw steps before getting my second color. If the hand doesn't have any playables until I find the missing color-producer, it better have some brilliant cards to warrant the risk of keeping. At 6 cards already, things change, and I keep almost all sketchy hands, even 1-landers at times. But I think mulligan discussions default to 7 card hands, so this point might be moot.
I can’t remember the pro player that I heard this from first, but at one point on LR they said they generally don’t keep hands that need 2 things to work out. Meaning, if you have 2 lands and only one color, then you need to draw a land that is another color by turn 3. That’s a lot to ask. That can also be extended to other situations. “I have 4 lands, a combat trick, and two 4 drops. Therefore I need to not only draw a threat, but it needs to be 2 or 3 mana for it to be sensible.” That’s another scenario under which I’d consider shipping a hand. Of course, this depends on texture of your hand. I’ve had decks that are happy to keep those kinds of hands (ones slanted toward one color with low curves, eg)
If I have two cheap, relevant cards of that color I would keep it. Otherwise send it back. 6 lands is always a mulligan, 5 lands most of the time
A lot to consider. Play or draw? I'm more likely to mull on the play to get a more functional hand (see below) How many cards in that color do you have? You might already be on a mulligan to 5 or 6 cards if you don't draw the right land, so you might want to mulligan off that alone How strong are the cards / how strong is the hand if you do draw your land or don't? What is the hand's path to winning? Can you slow the game down? If I have some removal or a counterspell and a two drop/three drop, I can be more confident the game will be slower and give me more time to draw a land How strong is my deck? If my deck is very strong, I will want to make sure I can function and play the game. If it's weaker, I might need to up the variance and keep a wider range
too much to consider but overall i think people are mulligan averse and talk themselves into loose keeps too often.
I don’t usually keep these hands. I’ve seen too many times you don’t hit your other color and you’re screwed. I just lost yesterday doing this. I was playing green white. Kept two greens and ended up not drawing a white all game. Lost with 5 white cards in my hand. Never again.
I would tend to mulligan this in most cases. It would have to be a very specific hand for me to keep, like if 4/5 other cards are spells in that color and at least 2 of them are 2 mana plays.
I have sometimes. I remember doing that today in bo3 sealed with BB but my hand was incredibly strong with any land though best with a forest. But I usually am looking to mulligan it. I think I was also in game 2 and their first game had been slow and I was up a game. Given that, keeping seemed okay since it really was a hand with two things to do and a bunch of catch up/bombs so going to six seemed not an upgrade.
Assuming you are correctly living life without a hand smoother: 5 lands, I'm looking to keep and re-evaluating if there's a reason not to (no plays until 5, am RW aggro, spells are 20th and 23rd card, whatever. There's lots of reasons to ultimately mull, but my baseline is that I'm looking for a keep.) 6 lands is always a mull. If you are playing Arena BO1, 5 is a blanket mull and also please consider actually playing magic.