Mulligans in VTES?

Cat_in_Exile wrote:

Look, I'll be the first to admit I'm quite conservative when it comes to rule changes, so take that for what it's worth, but my view comes from my experiences with fan mods in other games, which are (again, IMO) almost always poor. And that's how I view many of these rule change discussion threads that have popped up lately.

Do you have an example of a game adding a mulligan option? I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly interested to know what the impact was on the game.

I think there are a lot, a lot, of great things about VTES. But there are a lot of things that can be better. Garfield and LSJ made mistakes. That's not to say adding new rules won't also be mistakes, but we can address them without ruining the game. And that's the fear that all the people who have been playing for 24 years has. Change is scary, and it's easy to look for reasons to maintain the status quo instead of facing the fact that things may be better on the other side.

Lönkka wrote:

One of the rare instances where I agree completely with Elotar.

No. Just no to Mulligans!


With the current system you occasionally get screwed especially with Library but with Mulligans you could way more easily play degenerate star decks with noticeably lower ratio of the star minion and be guaranteed to get it out.

I like the current system where if you need to increase the amount of those cards you want to have in your opening hand thus affecting the balance of the deck building as a price.

Crypt mulligans don't interest me nearly as much as library mulligans. I think the 12 card crypt is probably the right amount of planning versus randomness that a card game requires.

The balance of deck building shouldn't change drastically. Think about it critically instead of using your "gut reaction". If anything, I think more people would be interested in more regularly running 60 card decks. That's a change, but a change toward consistency isn't bad in my opinion.

DJHedgehog wrote:

Cat_in_Exile wrote:

Look, I'll be the first to admit I'm quite conservative when it comes to rule changes, so take that for what it's worth, but my view comes from my experiences with fan mods in other games, which are (again, IMO) almost always poor. And that's how I view many of these rule change discussion threads that have popped up lately.

Do you have an example of a game adding a mulligan option? I'm not being snarky, I'm honestly interested to know what the impact was on the game.

I think there are a lot, a lot, of great things about VTES. But there are a lot of things that can be better. Garfield and LSJ made mistakes. That's not to say adding new rules won't also be mistakes, but we can address them without ruining the game. And that's the fear that all the people who have been playing for 24 years has. Change is scary, and it's easy to look for reasons to maintain the status quo instead of facing the fact that things may be better on the other side.

Lönkka wrote:

One of the rare instances where I agree completely with Elotar.

No. Just no to Mulligans!


With the current system you occasionally get screwed especially with Library but with Mulligans you could way more easily play degenerate star decks with noticeably lower ratio of the star minion and be guaranteed to get it out.

I like the current system where if you need to increase the amount of those cards you want to have in your opening hand thus affecting the balance of the deck building as a price.

Crypt mulligans don't interest me nearly as much as library mulligans. I think the 12 card crypt is probably the right amount of planning versus randomness that a card game requires.

The balance of deck building shouldn't change drastically. Think about it critically instead of using your "gut reaction". If anything, I think more people would be interested in more regularly running 60 card decks. That's a change, but a change toward consistency isn't bad in my opinion.

To be fair, i'd rather had 11 crypt cards with no mulligan. And free one time selective mulligan (you can keep any cards, redraw, then shuffle into deck leftover starting cards)

It's been a while I believe Mulligan would help in our beloved game.

I am interested in all propositions because I will playtest a new version soon ! (We used to pay one pool for a Crypt redraw and one pool for a Library one, limited to one of each)

DJHedgehog wrote:

The balance of deck building shouldn't change drastically. Think about it critically instead of using your "gut reaction". If anything, I think more people would be interested in more regularly running 60 card decks. That's a change, but a change toward consistency isn't bad in my opinion.

A Mulligan would simply allow a tuned deck to trigger perfectly every game.

I get a little giddy / excited at the idea of it — that's a bad sign.

If you're running 7x Zillah's + 2x Highways now; a Mulligan simply boosts your game more than a player who thinks 2x Zillah's in a deck is useful...

I don't like a library mulligan. Pretty much all of the core VTES mechanics (no card limit, card flow, free discard every turn, variable deck size) have been designed to make the game less reliant on the starting hand. Most decks should not need a mulligan, and the decks that do are not the kind I want to see more frequently at the table.

However, there is something to say for a crypt mulligan. Crypt cards are much harder to cycle to library cards, and bad crypt draws cost games all the time.

Ke. wrote:

A Mulligan would simply allow a tuned deck to trigger perfectly every game.

I get a little giddy / excited at the idea of it — that's a bad sign.

If you're running 7x Zillah's + 2x Highways now; a Mulligan simply boosts your game more than a player who thinks 2x Zillah's in a deck is useful...

IMO, everyone should be playing "tuned" decks in a competitive format. That being said, your logic regarding boosts to your game is flawed. The percentage chance to see a specific card is the same, so including more copies won't increase the frequency any more than it does now. You will simply see more hands, and by virtue of that see more good hands.

Consistency doesn't bother me. If there is a way to truly abuse a mulligan I'd love to hear people's ideas. I'm sure there is something I'm not considering.

To be clear: a mulligan would take the 7 card hand and shuffle it into your deck, and then you would draw 7 new cards. The only way to increase the frequency of a specific draw is to add more to your deck.

Non-existant user wrote:

I don't like a library mulligan. Pretty much all of the core VTES mechanics (no card limit, card flow, free discard every turn, variable deck size) have been designed to make the game less reliant on the starting hand. Most decks should not need a mulligan, and the decks that do are not the kind I want to see more frequently at the table.

However, there is something to say for a crypt mulligan. Crypt cards are much harder to cycle to library cards, and bad crypt draws cost games all the time.

I think that's a good point. The design of the game does allow for more flexibility as you build your hand out through the course of regular play. That being said, I can't think of a specific deck or archetype that would benefit more from a mulligan. Combat decks get master/action floods, bleed decks get stealth floods, vote decks also get stealth floods lol. The point being that everyone for one reason or another could benefit from greater consistency.