It sounds like the problem is that mulligans are necessary to ensure there’s a game to play, which depends mostly on having a reasonable number of lands, but that they have bad side-effects which are mostly the result of giving too much control over which nonland cards you have. So I propose the following mulligan rule:
On your first mulligan, draw five, then choose one: draw a card, or search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand.
On your second mulligan, draw three, then choose as before, twice.
On your third mulligan, draw one, then choose as before three times.
There is no fourth mulligan.
This makes mulligans much better at ensuring you can play, and much worse at ensuring you can find a particular card or combo that you’re looking for.
(For complexity reasons, this rule would work better if there were a keyword for “either draw or fetch a land”, and if it were introduced in advance.)
I don’t like the suggestion; searching for a basic to put into your hand is an ability worth almost a card and a mana; that’s too powerful for a mulligan offset. This rule also weakens color restrictions too much in my opinion; being able to craft the mana for your first couple of turns almost perfectly with just basics and no deckbuilding investment collapses a lot of strategic choices.
As always, the problem with any mulligan rule is that managing decisions under uncertainty is a fundamental tenet of TCG strategy; any step you take to reduce non-games is a step towards repetitive play patterns. Players are smart; if you give them something guaranteed, they can then abandon any effort they were applying to get that thing before and redirect it somewhere else.
It sounds like the problem is that mulligans are necessary to ensure there’s a game to play, which depends mostly on having a reasonable number of lands, but that they have bad side-effects which are mostly the result of giving too much control over which nonland cards you have. So I propose the following mulligan rule:
On your first mulligan, draw five, then choose one: draw a card, or search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand.
On your second mulligan, draw three, then choose as before, twice.
On your third mulligan, draw one, then choose as before three times.
There is no fourth mulligan.
This makes mulligans much better at ensuring you can play, and much worse at ensuring you can find a particular card or combo that you’re looking for.
(For complexity reasons, this rule would work better if there were a keyword for “either draw or fetch a land”, and if it were introduced in advance.)
I don’t like the suggestion; searching for a basic to put into your hand is an ability worth almost a card and a mana; that’s too powerful for a mulligan offset. This rule also weakens color restrictions too much in my opinion; being able to craft the mana for your first couple of turns almost perfectly with just basics and no deckbuilding investment collapses a lot of strategic choices.
As always, the problem with any mulligan rule is that managing decisions under uncertainty is a fundamental tenet of TCG strategy; any step you take to reduce non-games is a step towards repetitive play patterns. Players are smart; if you give them something guaranteed, they can then abandon any effort they were applying to get that thing before and redirect it somewhere else.
Anything this complicated is a non-starter. I do think its heart is in the right place, but needs to be kept simple.