Opening Moves Week Day 3 - Mulligans
Blizzard is holding "Opening Moves Week" across all their Esports titles to celebrate the start of the new competitive year. Each day, a small blog post is going to be made which will talk about a different part of a competitive match. Today's topic is Mulligans and tomorrow they'll be talking about the early game strategy.
Quote from Kevin HovdestadNow that we’ve identified our win condition and filled in our deck around it, we’re finally ready to take on an opponent. To do that, we need to learn the ins and outs of how to correctly mulligan cards for our opening hand.
If you've played Hearthstone, you already know that how many cards you are offered in your mulligan is determined by whether you’re going first or second. Players going first get three cards in their opening hand (and draw a fourth as their first turn starts), while the player going second gets four cards (plus The Coin). Before play begins, each player can shuffle any number of the cards they were initially dealt back into their deck for a chance at something different. What you keep or throw back depends on multiple variables, but there are some general rules of thumb worth keeping in mind.
Mulligan AdviceTake your time, and think through the matchup carefully. What cards set you up for the best early game, and which cards are such a huge swing that keeping them in the opening hand is right—even though you may not play them in the first few turns?
Throwing back your entire hand is always risky, so until you’re comfortable with the ins and outs of piloting your deck after many games, holding on to at least one card that you’re offered can be a good idea. This becomes less of an issue in aggressive decks, where you really want to get early game plays, but it can be practical to use as a starting point if you’re playing a combo-style or control deck, where you could accidentally end up with a starting hand of all late-game cards.
You’ll also want to mulligan differently based on what you’re up against. If you are playing a Zoo Warlock deck (that runs a lot of low-cost minions, looking to end games quickly), your mulligan strategy against a Druid opponent might vary based on whether you think they’re playing an Aggro Druid or a late game Druid style. Against the former, you need to make sure you can contest the board and get efficient early game trades; against the latter, you’d rather have cards that can snowball and get more value over multiple turns, like Darkshire Councilman.
The best advice you’ll ever get regarding mulligans is just to keep practicing. The more games you play, the better you’ll become at navigating your own deck, as well as knowing what types of decks you’re up against when you face the different classes! Hang in there for Day 4, when it’s time for us to decide on our early game strategy.
Yay, more cool guides!
"Take your time"
let's talk about this aspect of the game. stalling for time is a WIN CONDITION. the fact that a player has less time to do their turn because the opponent sits their and does nothing on their initial turn taking up valuable rope timer , and then come turn 10 the rope timer effects their turn. THIS IS RIDICULOUS and NEEDS TO BE CHANGED ASAP. THe rope timer does not exist in solo play, and it arguably should either be modified or non existent in AT LEAST CASUAL PLAY MODE and TAVERN BRAWL. CREATING A BRAWL WHERE ALL YOU DO IS DISCOVER CARDS but THEN CAN"T PICK YOUR CARDS BECAUSE THE ROPE TIMER CANCELS YOUR TURN is BLEEPIN RIDICULOUS. THE ROPE TIMER NEEDS TO GO.
The guide doesn't help that much if you mulligan away a 10-mana card and draw another 10-mana card and on your first turn draw the same card you just threw into the deck back into your hand.
same with mulligan the Patches the Pirate, you throw it back into the deck... and you draw it on your first turn.
Clap Clap Clap
Then don't put 10 mana cards in your deck.
Problem solved.
Blizzard - Stop spending time creating these mini-guides and spend time on creating new in-game features.
You realize that game developers with a significantly sized staff can task different people to do different things, right?
Edit: Wow. I'm going to laugh at being downvoted for speaking to facts rather than cashing in on an opportunity to make fun of Blizzard. I do wonder though what all you salty little kids are even doing here. If Blizzard is "so terrible", why are you supporting their game or on a site based on a community around it?
WRONG - have them tasked to do meaningful things.
I agree - cleaning toilets and getting coffee would be more suitable tasks
you think, that developers write these guides?
Just found Kevin Hovdestad in Linkedin, he is a "Editor on the Esports Communications team at Blizzard" and not a developer.
Welcome to Hearthpwn - the site where we all come together to discuss the game we mutually love and downvote anyone who says anything positive about it.
Vanilla Latte, skim milk.....
mulligan guide: never keep patches, always keep keleseth, raza, firefly and millhouse manastorm.
Instructions unclear : kept Patches the Pirate and started a turf war with my neighbors ...
If Blizzard really wants to help the new player experience, knowledge articles are good and appreciated, but a faster/cheaper means of obtaining the classic set would be much better. Quest chains that teach you game mechanics that end in earning a class legendary or achievements that unlock card packs - that kind of stuff.
2 months and one week till Patches, the Pirate is a forgotten freak...
And finally Razakus Priest will also disappear from Standard