Scry Mulligan

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

For those Magic: the Gathering fans who may be unaware, a new mulligan rule was tournament tested during Pro Tour Origins Vancouver. Essentially, the this new rule could be distilled down to "If you mulligan so you have less than 7 cards in your opener, scry 1".  This so-called Vancouver Mulligan was evaluated by the tournament organisers, the DCI Judge folks and Wizards of the Coast, and is now set to be official with the Battle for Zendikar PreRelease.  All we have to say is 'Lo scry mulligan non è affatto male'.  The anticipated announcement came down today in this mothersite article (linky here).

From MTG Sally's Wiki, here is a very brief history of the mulligan -

The original mulligan rule applied only if a player had an initial hand of seven lands or no lands. He or she would then have the option to reveal his or her hand, shuffle it back into the deck and then draw a new hand of seven cards. Those cards would become his or her opening hand (the process could not be repeated). This was replaced by the current mulligan system called the "Paris" mulligan. The Paris mulligan was named after the second constructed Pro Tour to use this system in April 1997.

With Magic Origins, Wizards of the Coast experimented with a new mulligan rule: any player whose opening hand has fewer cards than his or her starting hand size may scry 1. Pro Tour Magic Origins Vancouver was the only tournament during which the new rule was in effect and subsequently evaluated, and then accepted.  Expect to see this rule fully implemented with the Battle for Zendikar PreRelease Events.

Here is the new official mulligan rule in its entirety:

103.4. Each player draws a number of cards equal to his or her starting hand size, which is normally seven. (Some effects can modify a player's starting hand size.) A player who is dissatisfied with his or her initial hand may take a mulligan. First, the starting player declares whether or not he or she will take a mulligan. Then each other player in turn order does the same. Once each player has made a declaration, all players who decided to take mulligans do so at the same time. To take a mulligan, a player shuffles his or her hand back into his or her library, then draws a new hand of one fewer cards than he or she had before. If a player kept his or her hand of cards, those cards become the player's opening hand, and that player may not take any further mulligans. This process is then repeated until no player takes a mulligan. (Note that if a player's hand size reaches zero cards, that player must keep that hand.) Then, beginning with the starting player and proceeding in turn order, any player whose opening hand has fewer cards than his or her starting hand size may scry 1.

Here is an earlier article called, MULLIGANS, posted in Latest Developments on August 7, 2015 By Sam Stoddard when WotC was first evaluating the new rule -

What we liked: The biggest advantage of this mulligan was that it was meaningful but not too strong. It does a good job, overall, of increasing the chances that you will hit your early land drops, but without being too easy to abuse. A high number of the non-games result from one player stumbling on lands for a turn or two, and this should help greatly with that problem.

Concerns: While we like this mulligan a lot, we haven't yet (at the time of writing) had time to look at how the Pro Tour played out to see if there were any problems. Part of the idea behind using it at a Pro Tour first is that if there is something we missed, or something that is prone to abuse, it will show up there. We will be looking at both how the Pro Tour played out, as well as the reactions from the players regarding the rule. I don't know when we will have a decision based on this, but we hope to have new information fairly soon.
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