General Fixing Mulligans, Improving Games

[Grillo_Parlante]

fwiw with a mana base of bouncelands and scry lands, a cube full of cheap cantrips, and using either a free mulligan or scry rule, I can't remember the last time I've seen actual mana screw. I've seen color screw, but that was the deck designers fault.

Mana flood will come up occasionally, but even than the cube is full of sinks so it dosen't really negatively impact gameplay.

 

[Aoret]

Grillo can you define "scry full"? Everything else you said made sense

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm sorry, just one of my typos.

"scry rule"

We were bouncing between using CML's mulligan scry rule and a free mulligan rule. Now we are using the WOTC varient they are using at the pro tour.

Their is a lot you can do structurally to a cube to cut down on negative variance. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if cube wouldn't just be vastly better if you could attach cantrip to more staple spells.

Also, squeezing the curve down, like safra mentioned, helps too.

 

[Aoret]

I figured it was a typo, thanks for clarifying.

I feel like the CML mulligan scry is a strictly better rule where gameplay is concerned. The flip side of that coin is that I think the WOTC variant is easier to teach. I may try just running the CML rule with my more skilled players and watch carefully for abuse by combo players. Honestly I suspect I'm more worried about those abuses than I should be.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I figured it was a typo, thanks for clarifying.

I feel like the CML mulligan scry is a strictly better rule where gameplay is concerned. The flip side of that coin is that I think the WOTC variant is easier to teach. I may try just running the CML rule with my more skilled players and watch carefully for abuse by combo players. Honestly I suspect I'm more worried about those abuses than I should be.

I think now that a WOTC sanctioned scry variant exists, it's going to be harder to push marginally better alternatives to your player group.

 

[James Stevenson]

Actually I think it opens up the idea of experimentation. Not even wizards is claiming this is the final perfect solution.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Actually I think it opens up the idea of experimentation. Not even wizards is claiming this is the final perfect solution.

Ah, right, good point.

 

[Lucre]

Looks like wizards put a big bandaid on a huge problem I had with library (/card advantage) access vs the colour wheel.

 

[Eric Chan]

Fascinating, in-depth article about the development of the Vancouver mulligan rule:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/mulligans-2015-08-07