I have noticed that you often get the same cards you want to change from the starting mulligan of a match.
I know im not the only one that feels this happens way too normally, since I have seen some other people complaining about it.
Maybe its just me being unlucky, but I dont really think so. Either way it doesnt affect a match all that much, in my opinion.
I initially felt like this too (as do many, going by forum topics), but I’m pretty sure this is just confirmation bias and math goblins, because:
- Abrakam says they’ve checked that it’s working as it should.
- I also did a test here and the results were within reasonable error. (there’s also more discussion about this on that topic).
It also happens more if you have duplicates, of course.
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I dunno. I just feel like if you mulligan a card, you shouldnt be able to get it back. You should be getting a different card for sure, since that is the whole point of the mulligan.
Here’s my analysis:
Some cards are early game and some others are mid/late game. The ability to mulligan reduces the downside of drawing mid/late cards early. A mulligan that guarantees the card will be replaced reduces that downside further.
No matter what, the game is hugely influenced by RNG, and mulligans are only a tiny part of that. Also, reducing RNG in one area can kinda amplify the remaining RNG, statistically (although the total RNG is still reduced).
Also, you have to consider whether having a card replaced by another of the same card is OK when you have multiple copies - or whether when mulliganing multiple cards that guarantee still holds (if so, you can ensure up to 9 of the cards in your deck won’t ever be in your initial hand).
But however you decide, you then balance the cards for that decision. The game has been balanced for the current mulligan mechanism. If you switch to guaranteed-change mulligans you’ll make mid/late cards better, relatively, and screw with the balance a bit. (Although there’s still (almost always) balancing required - but it just adds some more).
Plus, if you do use guarteed-change mulligans, you’ll then see people stacking their decks with more high-power late game cards, while I kinda like where the current distribution of early/late cards is at now (or, at least, was pre Oversky - harder to tell now).
My current opinion is that changing it doesn’t really improve things much (except by annoying people less, which I suppose isn’t negligible), and adds extra balancing work (which Abrakam does slowly (which isn’t necessarily bad)).
