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9 months ago ::
Oct 06, 2012 - 3:01PM
#31
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My playgroup plays it fast and loose with mulligans, too. Most of the people have never been to any sanctioned events beyond prereleases, and don't have the level of interest in Magic that would push them into going online and reading forums or articles about deckbuilding theory, etc. The free mulligan rule doesn't get abused, people rarely have to mulligan more than once, if at all. We're mostly at different levels of skill, so it's just easiest to have free mulligan rules, since the lower end people will figure out that they need to adjust if they find themselves mulling often (because no one likes to reshuffle their deck while everyone else is ready and staring at them), and the higher end people just don't usually need to mulligan at all.
Edit: Mulligans are part of the game, but most casual players don't see it quite as such.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 06, 2012 - 3:02PM
#32
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Date Joined:
Apr 25, 2011
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Our house rules are:
1 free mulligan to 7
Praetors are banned in multiplayer games (not including EDH). This was down to an opponent abusing Elesh Norn in a "bubble in" game of Multiplayer, where most of our group ended up complaining after being unable to regain a board position with her on the field.
(I keep telling them to run more removal. And no, it wasn't me playing Elesh Norn, I was on a different table)
Banned? Really? I find they mean "Hey gaiz! Let's play Archenemy!"
My playgroup seriously doesn't run enough removal. I keep telling them to run more removal to kill the big things but seriously about half of them would rather play fog. God I hate that card.
Thankfully the other half of the playgroup know what they're doing more or less.
Banned from MTGSalvation for being me. They don't like me. I have opinions. That and I called them all Nazi's.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 06, 2012 - 4:12PM
#33
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- UnCon Prizewinner 2008
- Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil
- Chairman of the Board
Date Joined:
Jul 29, 2006
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firstrike
Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
This definitely doesn't mean what you think it means.
I was referring to the painting The Treachery of Images.
I know.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 06, 2012 - 6:50PM
#34
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Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2003
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I like the "first mulligan is free"-rule for casual, but not really much more than that. Unlimited free mulligans or the 0,1,6,7-land-rule can distort deck building, where players get used to only running, say, 18-20 lands in a deck that should really run at least 23. And this works out for them because they can just mulligan until they get at least a 3-land hand or something, whereas an "honest" deckbuilder will be at a disadvantage under such rules because he'll draw more lands and less business-spells during the actual game. On the flip-side: If such a player, who has never learned to include a proper mana-base in their decks because of the free mulligans, goes to play in a store, for example to a Friday Night Magic, or to another group or event where people enforce standard muligan rules, he'll be probably get frustated with his weak manabase as he suddenly gets into mana trouble a lot under those standard rules. Of course getting mana-screwed is not awesome, but if you build your deck properly and in casual use the 'first mulligan is free'-rule then it virtually never happens. Also exciting and satisfying games can come out of such tight situations. Fighting to stay allive until you finally draw land #3 and #4 etc. can feel very rewarding if you pull off to win the game. I also enjoy the deckbuilding challenge that it brings. If I know, that I can't cheat on my mana-base, because I don't get unlimited mulligans, then I have to put some effort into my landbase. If I play a green deck, I might play Viridian Emissary  , because at 2 power for 2 mana, he is effective enough as a creature but also get's me out of land trouble. (I'm happy to not have my opponent attack if he doesn't want me to get another land. Buys me more time.) At the sime time I'll consider putting in manasinkers like Centaur Glade  to help me fight manaflooding. Or maybe include a manland like Treetop Village  , which is a land and a creature, so I can run 23,24 or even 25 lands but still not feel bad about it because I'm not really running less creatures but still have a more reliable mana-base. Other sollutions that fall into this category are cards like Mouth of Ronom  , Stalking Stones  or Mind Stone  . Because of that I think that unlimited free mulligans take away from the value of certain cards and ultimately make deck building less interesting. I find it enjoyable to have to consider another layer of difficulty when creating a new deck.
Moderated by
ORC_Ragnar
on Oct 07, 2012 - 12:59PM
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9 months ago ::
Oct 06, 2012 - 8:48PM
#35
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Date Joined:
Sep 23, 2011
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Why not just have a shared life total?
Phyrexian Processor 
Serra Avatar 
Channel 
Hatred 
Bond of Agony 
But mostly it was Phyrexian Processor that was getting abused
Channel should be banned. Large life totals don't create problems with Serra Avatar , either way it's just a large vanilla, how large it is doesn't matter too much. Having shared life totals makes Bond of Agony worse actually. By doing life totals your way you are more turning Hatred from a fair card into an awful card really, since you are never able to use it as a kill condition. Phyrexian Processor isn't really that bad for the same reasons as Avatar. It's the difference between a 19/19 and a 30/30, and making 30/30s is much riskier anyway. The cards that shared life totals break are Serra Ascendant  and maybe Felidar Sovereign  . But those have an easy fix. Just make a rule that says "Cards that care about life totals care about half those life totals rounded down instead." @Mulliganing discussion
I wholeheartedly agree with Dilleux. And lands aren't the only factor that determine whether a hand is capable of winning. I don't really patition for free mulligans myself. I only do them if my opponent wants it that way.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 07, 2012 - 12:03AM
#36
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I'd rather have the best challenge possible. If my opponent's deck is crippled by starting with 4 or 5 cards, that's just not fun. It's more fun to work for your wins. 
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9 months ago ::
Oct 07, 2012 - 4:34AM
#37
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Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2003
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About free mulligan abuse. New players do this all the time. But it's not about intentionally abusing such a house rule and generally being evil. It's more about not realising that this is not how standard magic rules are and slowly steering towards fewer and fewer lands, because mana-wise it has been working out for them. It's hard for an inexperienced player to realise that this is just because of lax mulligan rules. And slowly bad rules of thumb like "One third of your deck should be lands" develop, which a lot of casual scrubs will teach to new players, spreading the disease. Also, if someone comes up with a new deck, I'm not going to say "Hold it, let me count the lands first! And check if you're not running more than 4 of every card while I'm at it." I'd rather play a few games with him because that's what I'm here for. We'd play under normal mulligan rules (or maybe one free mulligan) and if he constantly gets manascrewed and frustrated, we'll go though the deck and check his land count and average cmc etc.. That way he'll learn through experience that he needs to pay attention to that. This happened so much, when I met new players in the store. Maybe they came from other casual groups or only had one friend for an opponent up to then. They're weren't lowly cheaters or anything. They just didn't know any better, because they had very lax mulligan rules and didn't feel compelled to build proper manabases. If your shuffling is really random and your average cmc is really 1.5, then it's very unlikely to get unplayable hands with the 7-7-6-5 mulligan rules. I think your own empirical data and the following reasoning is questionable. Saying that because you're having exceptionally bad luck all the time, everybody else can/should totally use unlimited free mulligans, doesn't really form a valid argument. It's like one of the extremely few unlucky people who get struck by lightning telling others to not go out during a thunderstorm because he knows from personal experience, that it's "very likely" that you will get struck by lightning. It's just not true.
Moderated by
ORC_Ragnar
on Oct 07, 2012 - 01:04PM
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9 months ago ::
Oct 07, 2012 - 5:09AM
#38
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Date Joined:
Mar 21, 2011
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Our house rule for mulligans goes with the 7,7,6,5, and so-on set up.
We also have a house rule for poison counters in Commander. Since we start out at 40 life, it takes 20 counters to kill, not just 10. Seems too cheap a way to win with just 10.
For Planechase, we do a shared Planes deck, and so our house rule on that, is no one can planeswalk until there's been a full circuit of turns around the table. Doesn't seem fair to planeswalk away from a plane before someone has a chance to make use of it.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 07, 2012 - 5:42AM
#39
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Date Joined:
Sep 22, 2008
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About free mulligan abuse. New players do this all the time. But it's not about intentionally abusing such a house rule and generally being evil. It's more about not realising that this is not how standard magic rules are and slowly steering towards fewer and fewer lands, because mana-wise it has been working out for them. It's hard for an inexperienced player to realise that this is just because of lax mulligan rules. And slowly bad rules of thumb like "One third of your deck should be lands" develop, which a lot of casual scrubs will teach to new players, spreading the disease.
Also, if someone comes up with a new deck, I'm not going to say "Hold it, let me count the lands first! And check if you're not running more than 4 of every card while I'm at it." I'd rather play a few games with him because that's what I'm here for. We'd play under normal mulligan rules (or maybe one free mulligan) and if he constantly gets manascrewed and frustrated, we'll go though the deck and check his land count and average cmc etc.. That way he'll learn through experience that he needs to pay attention to that.
This happened so much, when I met new players in the store. Maybe they came from other casual groups or only had one friend for an opponent up to then. They're weren't lowly cheaters or anything. They just didn't know any better, because they had very lax mulligan rules and didn't feel compelled to build proper manabases.
If your shuffling is really random and your average cmc is really 1.5, then it's very unlikely to get unplayable hands with the 7-7-6-5 mulligan rules. I think your own empirical data and the following reasoning is questionable. Saying that because you're having exceptionally bad luck all the time, everybody else can/should totally use unlimited free mulligans, doesn't really form a valid argument. It's like one of the extremely few unlucky people who get struck by lightning telling others to not go out during a thunderstorm because he knows from personal experience, that it's "very likely" that you will get struck by lightning. It's just not true.
Well in my group, we usually play the new deck 2-3 times and then, everyone that played agaisnt it gather around the table (4+ people) and we dissect the deck if there was an obvious problem/weakness, to make it better or to correct mistakes, especially with new players (new players are people that have played less than 5 years in my group)
My own emperical data never said that it happen all the time, it was to point out that it can happen several times even in one of the most unlikely scenario and that I am not the only one that had that situation happen. That deckbuilding and shuffling technique didnt have anything to do with the fact that you could draw several "i need to mulligan" hands even if you draw 7 cards.
For the sake of it, my 3XUrzatron 4X cloudpost  4X glimmerpost  4X vesuva  4X expedition map  deck lost with 3 mana at turn 6 last night.... instead of the usual 10ish colorless that it should be getting at turn 6
Moderated by
ORC_Ragnar
on Oct 07, 2012 - 01:04PM
I love trolls  Dont hate me because I'm blunt and you cannot handle it
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9 months ago ::
Oct 07, 2012 - 10:17AM
#40
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Date Joined:
Oct 12, 2010
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My playgroup seriously doesn't run enough removal. I keep telling them to run more removal to kill the big things but seriously about half of them would rather play fog. God I hate that card.
Thankfully the other half of the playgroup know what they're doing more or less.
Sh, don't tell them about Isochron Scepter  . Before Mirrodin, I didn't know you could break Fog.
Praetors are kind of funny. I rank them, in order from most unfair to most fair.
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur  (You got OwNed  . Every. Single. Turn.)
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger  (Almost as unfun as Armageddon, but at least Armageddon's arguably fair.)
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite  (Against most non-EDH decks, this is a Wrath/double Anthem, with anything remaining still Wrath'd.)
Sheoldred, Whispering One  (fair)
Urabrask the Hidden  (a bit weak)
yeah, Channel is totally broken with shared life totals
Or normal life totals. 
We have a variant where you're allowed one card banned in Legacy or restricted in Vintage (but not banned in Vintage), but no more. This keeps a lot of ridic combos under control. You have to keep your life total above mine long enough to get   and Channel/Fireball me.
Clever deduction Watson! Maybe you can explain why Supergirl is trying to kill me.
----
Autocard is your friend.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] = Lightning Bolt 
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