@fsecco said in SMIP Podcast # 88 - The "London" Mulligan in Vintage:
@smmenen said in SMIP Podcast # 88 - The "London" Mulligan in Vintage:
I play Alpha40, which uses no mulligans at all, and the player who goes first draws on their first turn.
It’s not hard to remember.
Also, I have always hated the scry mulligan in Old School. I wouldn’t permit it at all.
I don’t consider any paticular mulligan to be a “core” magic mechanic.
Those are casual formats, Steve, it's way different than official, sanctioned formats. Differences between Limited and Constructed are so big that having 40/60 cards is inconsequential. That said, I also think that if it's necessary I wouldn't have issues with different mulligans for different formats, as long as it's a last resort only policy and that the formats with the different mulligan have something very distinct to remember which one(s) have it. For example, if it's only 1 format (like everyone gets Vancouver except Standard, or everyone gets London except Vintage) or if it's something like "all Eternal formats stay on Vancouver" - but just to show how confusing that could be, there are a LOT of players that think Modern is an Eternal format, so even that would be a problem hahaha
Magic tournament floor rules change regularly.
Players are expected to be up to date on countless areas of minutia, from errata to triggers to mulligan rules. I have lost games and received tournament penalties for applying out-dated rules in tournament contexts, because I was unaware of a relevant change, including the countless changes around triggers. I'm sure many players forget to 'scry' in Vintage games, especially old time players.
I'm not advocating that Vintage has it's own mulligan rule. But the idea that such an approach is too administratively cumbersome, inefficient, complex or challenging is not particularly convincing. Especially given the innumerable ways I've already listed in which formats differ or the innumerable rules changes over the years that players must adapt to.
While it's true that many rules changes are ostensibly universal across formats, the reality is that many rules have unequal effects across formats. The removal of interrupts from the game of magic basically only impacts Vintage and Legacy today.
Players already have to track numerous facets of game play. It's trivial for a judge to remind players at the beginning of a tournament what mulligan rule is in force, or whatnot. Just as they do about banned and restricted lists follow B&R changes.
The fact that there have been so many different mulligan rules in Magic - as covered in this podcast - illustrates that mulliganining is not a 'core' Magic mechanic.
People thought that separating the Type I and Type II B&R list was too administratively cumbersome, and it was done. Same with Type I and Type I.5. A separate Vintage or Legacy 'mulligan' rule is far less disruptive than, say, the removal of the stack during combat or changes in how optional triggers are handled.