(TLDR) We, the humble players of MTG, ask that the community assembles at this time to put forth support for a much-needed change in EDH rules and gameplay. The proposed change is an amendment to the current London mulligan, where instead of drawing randomly assigned opening hands, players are able to sculpt an opening hand from the top 12 cards of their deck and place any leftover cards on the bottom of their library. The proposed amendment's potential benefits include faster start up times (less shuffling), less frequent "non-games," and engaging strategic depth.

   There are associated pros and cons to any system put into place by humans, never can someone with power make a decision that will rightfully and justly appease an entire community, nation, or gathering. It is our job as human beings to weigh the comparative opportunity costs as well of the marginal benefit of each system and select the most objectively accepted solution for each issue we encounter. Magic the gathering is much the same, many advocates are rightly fond of the London mulligan, however the system has its own pros and cons that I will discuss here as to better understand the comparative advantage of this necessary change.

The London mulligan.

   The current mulligan system is employed as such: all participating players start the game by drawing seven randomly selected cards from their preconstructed legal deck, any player may decide to forgo the seven cards in favor for drawing seven new cards as many times as that player may choose. once each player has chosen the hand they wish to keep, they must choose a card from their hand to place on the bottom of their library for each mulligan taken after the first (commander exclusive). 

   Firstly, this system stands out because hands are completely assigned at random. This means deckbuilding is more challenging as you try to finagle probability and curve to the perfect harmony. This largely enables better crafted decks to outpace less thought through builds on average over many games. The randomized nature, however, misrepresents objective strength of each deck within a massive percentile (30+), meaning the most well-crafted deck in the world could lose to mana screw against the jankiest The Lady of the Mountain tribal (If that is what you enjoy playing then you have 100% support, this is not here as a deck adviser). The ability to reshuffle your hand mitigates this somewhat but leads me to the next point: strategic uncertainty.

   When someone draws a hand of seven cards, there is a certain psychological aspect of toying with the unknown. In fact, it is very rare to meet someone who is so well versed with mulligans that they make the strategically correct decision more than half the time. This is because (based on mathematics and statistics), the correct decision to make is usually to reshuffle any hand that is not in the top 25 percentile of opening hands. But people generally do not do this in casual play for a few reasons. One, people do not want to start the game with less cards. people are scared of being outpaced by luckier opponents and choose to play it safe and keep a hand consisting of more cards, after all, drawing seven cards seems way better then drawing six (a similar comparison can be made when assessing treasure cruise vs dig through time). Two, people are afraid of the unknown. If you have ever played against Fortunes Favor, then you are familiar with this concept. Having to choose between a face up pile and a face down pile is a notoriously mind-numbing decision (which is why it is the concept of many game shows), and it is in human nature to take a guarantee rather than a risk. As any statistician would tell you, if you had to choose between getting 100$ or having a 50% chance of 200$, it is easily the better choice to choose the guarantee. And because of this, less and less people aggressively mulligan then there should be. The strategic element of this rule is debilitating, and almost always a Feel-Bad, due to its nature of unknown risk.

   Finally, what I would like to point out about this rule is the social aspect. Commander is a casual format, that promotes creative deckbuilding, diverse battles, and epic turns. In support of this, the community has a rule in place that allows a free mulligan for each player in a multiplayer commander game. This seems like a great idea at first, and it is -- but it has social flaws. Commander is about doing what your deck wants to do, and often who wins is irrelevant as long as you successfully carried out the gameplan of your deck and had fun doing so. This rule is supposed to promote this aspect of the game yet ignores a crucial aspect of playing that no one ever talks about -- shuffling. How many times have you kept a bad hand, that you know needs to be reshuffled, but are too scared to do so since everyone else at the table has already decided on their opening hand? Too many times. And when several people do ship their hands, it can take forever to shuffle and draw, and decide to keep, and shuffle and draw etc. etc. It can be awkward, annoying, and miserable for all involved. We players have a right to keep a hand that enables our deck to shine, without the glaring eyes of your pod waiting for us to finish.

The Commander Mulligan

   The rules for this new mulligan system are simple. All participating players draw 12 randomly selected cards at the start of the game from their preconstructed legal deck and select 7 of those cards to serve as their opening hand, placing the five remaining cards on the bottom of their library.

   The upsides of this system are many, however the biggest one is the most important: less non-games. This allows you to sculpt an opening hand from 12 cards, letting you decide how many lands you want to include in that hand. unlike the London mulligan, this forgoes an element of luck for an element of strategy. This system goes with the philosophy of the format, allowing players to play their deck as intended every game. There is however, a very low probability that your opening hand has no lands, or all lands, this happens far less frequently than the current system but is always a Feel-Bad when it does. the sculpting aspect of it allows you to choose select pieces of ramp and card draw to mitigate this as much as possible in the event that you do draw lands later in the game.

   The strategy associated with this rule also adds a new layer of depth to the format that enriches gameplay. When sculpting a hand, it is important to remember curve, draw, ramp, commander cmc, early game, late game, interaction etc etc. Here are some examples of this to prove a little further the validity of this point. 

"I have a pretty expensive 12 cards, I should keep 4 lands to help cast some of these."

"If I play arcane signet t2, then t3 I have 4 mana open, so I should choose this four drop instead of this three drop."

"My hand has only two lands so I will keep mystic remora AND brainstorm to help hit my land drops."

"Since I have sol ring, I should probably choose arcane signet over Birds of Paradise so I can have an explosive early game."

   These examples and many more show an extra level of skill to this rule that makes the game more rewarding the better you are at it, while being intuitively easier for new players to understand. This complexity adds to the format philosophy, while enabling awesome games every time a group sits down to play.

   The system, as are all systems, is not devoid of flaws. Some potential problems this could include are incentivizing poor deckbuilding, upping power of certain cards, and seeing sol ring that much more often.

   With a deck of 36 lands, you will draw about 2.55 lands per opening hand on average with a seven-card opening hand. With a 12 card hand this number jumps to an astounding 4.34, meaning, nearly every hand will have at least three lands, so deck builders may incorrectly assume that this number is too high and try to run less lands in their deck. If you run 23 lands in your deck, there will be on average in the top 12 cards, 2.78 lands! The statistics seem higher than they are in the seven-card system but allow 13 more card slots for spells. However the idealized 35-38 land rule of thumb is based on more than just your opening hand, you will quickly realize that you don't draw lands in game and miss more and more land drops. This will highly benefit cEDH pods who only need two or three lands a game, depending instead on fast mana for their spells. Finally, the statistics of average misrepresent probability. In our 23-land example, the probability of at least three lands is 0.56268 (56%), while the probability of starting with a three-land hand with the London mulligan is nearly .75108 (75%)! this is because the London mulligan can see a new hand by shuffling the old one back in (the probability is based on your first and second hands only). The probability of keeping a three-land hand with 36 lands in the Commander Mulligan is .88602 (89%), which is overall higher than London mulligan, without being crazy off. the statistics even out further if you consider keeping a six or five card hand with the London mulligan.

   The Commander Mulligan helps certain cards shine more then they would with the London mulligan. Imagine for a second, Temple of the False god, which is notoriously kind of bad because of its uselessness in the early game. In this system, you simply need to choose to keep a basic land instead of it (as, as we have already determined you will have upwards of five lands to pick from), so you may draw it later. At that point it feels much more like an ancient tomb then an Unholy Citadel (within reason, obviously ancient tomb is far, far better because of its USEFULNESS in the early game). likewise, any such card that is subpar in your opening hand, but broken open in late or mid game, will receive an objective upside being subject to this rule.

   Finally, it is pertinent that we consider the practicality of sol ring at this time. It is the face of commander, the most iconic card in the format, and the strongest card anyone may ever play with (RIP mana crypt, might as well have Benjiman Franklin in the art). The Commander Mulligan technically makes sol ring appear less since you only get to see 12 cards as opposed to the 14 of the London mulligans, but practically speaking, we may see it more (since people don't mulligan properly). This can be concerning or exciting depending on your stance of the card, but it should be noted that t1 sol ring players usually get targeted anyway.

   In conclusion, the Commander Mulligan is a system that honors the format philosophy, and objectively makes playing casual EDH more fun. It should be noted that its advantages largely outpace those of the London mulligan, yet come with its own set of challenges that the community must work to overcome and adjust to. 

   With enough support, the CAG and RC will take notice, and with your help, we can forge the future of magic together, as a united community.

   All credit for the birth of concept for the Commander mulligan should go to MagicalHacker on twitter, he did a great service for the community by creating this system and it is up to us to make sure his legacy spreads.

https://twitter.com/Magical__Hacker/status/1619218622718812160

Sincerely,

An avid member of the EDH community