Several months ago, Wizards of the Coast announced the London Mulligan. This new mulligan rule is designed to reduce Magic: The Gathering‘s natural variance and improve the quality of starting hands. It went through lots of testing internally and was openly tested on Magic Online and at the Mythic Championship II in London. Yesterday, Wizards confirmed that the London Mulligan will MTG Arena‘s new standard mulligan rule. They will implement it alongside Core Set 2020 on July 2nd.
What is the London Mulligan?
We go into detail a little more here, but here’s the gist: With the London Mulligan, you will always draw 7 cards each time you take a mulligan. However, you will also put cards equal to the number of times you’ve mulled onto the bottom of your library. For example, if you mulligan one time, you would draw 7 cards and put 1 of those onto the bottom of your library. If you need to mulligan again, you draw 7 and put 2 cards onto the bottom of your library since you’ve now mulled twice.
How does this affect MTG Arena?
The idea behind the London Mulligan is that it will increase the quality of games. Whether you’re in Best of 1 or Best of 3, you can expect games to be a little more interactive! Control decks can make sure they have Thought Erasure. Aggro decks can make sure they have Experimental Frenzy if they’re facing a Control deck. Midrange can be sure to have the mana they need to curve out. It works for everyone to help make games better. The London Mulligan will also heavily encourage Best of 3 games simply due to its nature. If you know what your opponent is playing, you can be more picky with what cards start in your opening hand for games 2 and 3.
Won’t Combo decks be too strong?
Maybe. But here’s the thing: the London Mulligan makes it to where all decks can play Magic more often. You should be able to find the pieces you need more often and get mana screwed a little less! So maybe this makes Combo decks who only need a couple of cards to win the game too strong, but Wizards has most likely thought of that. They wouldn’t move forward with the London Mulligan if they weren’t prepared to target ban problem decks.
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