So game nechanics are not random?

New Player Tavern
1

I notice that specific cards get played on the 1st turn in more then 75% of the games which shows me that game mechanics are not random like a deck of cards.

Examples would be Northshire Cleric and Eternium Rover to name 2 that always see play turn 1.

I just wish Blizzard would release the % of getting 1 mana cards in the opening hand compared to others. Does that % go down at turn 2 or what cause it is anything but random.

2

Decks often mulligan for their early cards. It’s close to 50/50 if you send everything back trying to pull one card, if I remember right.

3

Let me guess: you saw them in 3 games of 4? Try to get a bigger sample.

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4

Ok Trump Jr.

No it was over 250+ games

Doesn’t take a genius to see the pattern.

5

Ooh, an opportunity to pull out my middle school math again. :wink: Let’s say I have two Northshire Clerics, I go first (so, a 3-card draw), and I absolutely must have it (so I’ll dump all three cards if I don’t get it the first time).

And keeping in mind that when you mulligan, you’re drawing from the rest of the deck–i.e. you can’t redraw any of the cards you just mulliganed (though you could draw another copy of a card).

So, the chance of not getting Ms. Northshire is:

28/30 * 27/29 * 26/28 * 25/27 * 24/26 * 23/25

= 11793600/17100720 ≈ 69%, so a 31% chance they’ll draw Northshire.

If they go second and have a 4-card draw, it’s

28/30 * 27/29 * 26/28 * 25/27 * 24/26 * 23/25 * 22/24 * 21/23

or ≈ 58% chance of not having her, ≈42% chance of having her.

Now, typically a player won’t be mulliganing everything to look for one specific card. But the odds that a good player will end up with a good card for turn 1 or 2? Quite high.

(Apologies if I got any of that wrong, it’s been a while since junior high…)

6

Over 250 games out of how many? Or are you saying you saw it in every single one of those 250 games?

7

No, that looks about right to me. I tutor this stuff, I was too lazy to do the actual math so I went with an estimate I saw somewhere else

8

I didn’t mean it as correcting you! “About 50/50” is pretty much correct, to one significant digit. :wink: Mainly, just showing that if you really want one card, you’ve got a pretty good chance of drawing it.

My humble speculation: Our esteemed interlocutor has a deck that’s heavy on high-mana cards, and/or they’re reluctant to mulligan really cool cards that would be so great to have on Turn 8 (I always found it really hard to toss away Deathhunter Rexxar). So they end up stuck with nothing to play for the first couple of turns, and wonder why it is the other player always seems to have board advantage… and they figure the shuffle must be rigged.

9

I didn’t take it that way, no worries :slightly_smiling_face:

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10

I do not believe this is correct (I may be wrong). I am certain I have mulliganed a card I only have a single of only to have it come back to my hand. Blizzard has admitted that every time a card is shuffled into the deck, the whole deck is shuffled, so it seems feasible the mulligan also reshuffles your deck. Maybe my recall is off, but I remember having that “are you kidding me?!?!” moment when it came right back.

11

Here’s a tweet from Ben Brode saying that when you mulligan a card, you can’t get it as a replacement:

(You can’t see what he’s replying to but the context is clear enough.)

AIUI, the process is: a) You mulligan cards and they’re set aside (digitally…); b) You draw replacements, which can’t include the cards you mulligan; c) The cards you mulliganed are added into the deck, and the deck is shuffled.

So, if you go first, there’s a possibility that your first draw will be one of the cards you mulliganed. Are you sure that isn’t what happened?

12

I am likely wrong. Did say my recall may have been off and it wasn’t a recorded game to be able to check.

13

This game will only cause you stress and to have less money if you give into the stress.

14

That is wrong period I have on numerous occasions mulliganed a card only to get the same one back.

Besides that was 2014 a lot has changed since then… I want 2018-2019 proofs not 2014.

15

I started a new thread on this topic, precisely because I was hoping a Blizzard dev would confirm my understanding for the record:

Community Discussion > Confirm how the Mulligan works?

That said, nobody has ever been able to produce an actual video or HSReplay showing this allegedly common occurrence. Every time we can check, it turns out to be either: a) The player mulliganed one copy of a card and got the other copy of that card as a replacement; b) The player mulliganed a card and drew it as their first-turn draw after the mulligan (i.e. after the mulliganed cards are shuffled in to the deck); or c) The player mulliganed a card they didn’t like, got another card they didn’t like, and vaguely remembered getting back the same junk they dropped.

If you are the exception, I would be extremely interested to see the evidence! I don’t suppose you have a game replay you can share?

16

No and I really do not care enough to bother. Sorry but I really have better things to do then record stupid HS games.

17

Fair enough. So all the evidence we have is, the mulligan behaves exactly as Brode says it does.

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