What is the deal with mulligan?
You need specific cards?
Or generally you will need 1,2,3 mana cost cards. Am I making a mistake if I am being creative and taking a risk of sometimes getting irregular 4,5 cost mana or even sometimes 8.
I’m not that good so please be a bit slow in explaining.
My thinking if I don’t even have the perfect deck made up but my mulligan should be done correctly. I know there should be guides but I would need your input of how you think or manage this early game. Myself I take it seriously and want it done the right way.
Like if I’m facing priest I think I would need to take a gamble and even keep 8 cost mana or not as priest are the best in the meta.
Having an early curve out always helps. However if you are playing control and you suspect aggro and there’s one board clear you should probably keep it.
Or if you are playing OTK and you suspect a slow control deck you might keep an expensive combo card to speed up your win condition.
Against a Priest they usually struggle with aggressive starts that either have follow up or sticky boards via deathrattle.
Post a deck list if you want specific recommendations.
What is OTK?
If I’m only practising on zoo lock should I still post some of my decks so I can get specific advice I don’t really have a deck that I know which is made perfectly hence why I am struggling a bit. Or I’m missing something? Should decks always be perfect? I’m usually burned down by what to include I’ve been buying expansions recently but haven’t got my stuff set in stone.
There is a few parts you need to consider,
- What is the best starting hand for YOUR deck?
- What is the best starting hand against your Opponent’s deck (guess) ?
If you are playing an aggressive deck, then you will want to have the strongest start (from turn 1) and hope your opponent have no answer to you, as you keep building on your presence.
If you play other types of decks, then you would want to have the best starting hand to i) achieve your deck win condition and ii) ensure survivability till you can reach your win condition.
Which leads to point 2, where if you (guess) what type of deck your opponent plays.
In general:
In aggro vs aggro matchup, you want the best hand that can fight and maintain board presence.
In a aggro vs other matchup, you want the best hand to build dominance and end the game as soon as possible.
In a control vs aggro matchup, you look for survivability
In a control vs control matchup, you look for best resource management and value
For other matchups, we can discuss on that as when the need arises.
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You should always aim for the “reliable” cards the RNG likes to give you in the beginning that will aid you wisen the reliable rug gives you cards in the middle of the match (turns 4 - 8) to what the reliable RNG will give you late game turns 9 - End.
Pay attention to cards you get and cards your opponent gets. You will begin to recognize something, some may all it a pattern, some call it perhaps a system - others might say its just luck. Pay attention to it and make a deck based on your experience. Or grab a net deck and see what they work so well.
OTK = one turn kill. These are a type of combo deck, where you stall your opponent until you have the cards necessary to do that combo and take off all his health in one turn. They are weak to mill decks, and some are weak to aggro.
You can always post decks you aren’t sure about or need advice on. I recommend always trying to perfect your decks. The way I would do that is keep track of how many times you actually use each card in your deck when you play and keep track of what mechanics would’ve made your losses a win (or at least, less of a loss). Then swap cards accordingly.
For example, I play a lot of joke priest and mage decks in wild. If I’m playing a priest, and I keep drawing Emperor Thaurissian, but I never actually get to play him or he doesn’t do much, because I don’t have a lot of cards in my hand, or a lot of high mana cost cards in my deck, then maybe I would benefit from replacing Thaurissian with another high cost card that can immediately impact the board.
But as a rule, keep in mind that the forums tend to tech decks against the general ladder. While that’s good, the meta isn’t entirely the same across all ranks. So if you netdeck or ask the forums for advice, you might have to swap out some cards as you rise or fall in rank. For example, you might need more or less board clears depending what rank you are.
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If your deck is a netdeck, go to HSReplay. you can see every card win rate if it start in your hand. Notable history are druid with wild growth starting hand, heal zoo with Keleseth or big priest with barnes. This are just stats, but it allow you to know which card let you win more if they are at your starting hand.
Meanwhile, you need to know the meta. In standard, if you meeting a paly, good chance they are aggro based, keep your taunt and board clear. if you meet a priest, they likely into combo, keep your low cost minion and play on curve to build the pressure to win.
It takes time to be good in the mulligan phase. It’s not just mulligan for your deck, you really need to take into consideration what deck you are playing against. If you are starting into this game, hsreplay is a reliable source for mulligan. But if you don’t pay, it doesn’t give you mulligan vs each class and archetype (and i don’t even know if it gives you that information if you pay). And this is the information you want. You easily can learn what is a good mulligan for your deck in general. But if you want to win some games against hard matchup, you need to know the meta. You need to know what is your win condition against each deck and what is the win condition of the deck you are playing against.
If you really think there’s a pattern, set up your own statistical study to prove it. Find this “pattern” in the cards you draw. Prove all the other statisticians and mathematicians in the Hearthstone community wrong. Because until you do, people will just dismiss your theories as simple paranoia.
Humans have a tendency to see patterns where there are none. They seek explanations for why things happened a certain way. They’re often not content with being given an answer like “It’s just random chance”.
So, again, set up your own statistical study. Play at least 100 games with the same deck, and measure how often each of your cards were drawn over the course of each game, and what order they were drawn in. If you notice a clear outlier (like, for example, drawing a 4-drop on turn 4 much more often than you should be), then tell us about it.
But until you do offer some actual evidence like the statistical study I just outlined for you, most people (including Blizzard) will simply dismiss your theories as wild imaginings and baseless rambling.
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Something not on topic. I’m going to the early beginnings when I started asking for help on forums and had no idea how to play. I got feeling that advice was you don’t need to buy expansions but I was buying so many expansions maybe 3-4 now or more thinking that I would get better and I enjoy opening cards and seeing what I get but have no idea how to use it. Should I post this on forums as lol I would get a better answer? Cause I was completely new so ppl didn’t completely understand my problems but they tried their best to explain things… but I still haven’t really had any idea what that help was or how I could use it.
I feel some lost chance or there is some big picture missing from me something is missing and not letting me play out? Or am I wrong? Because I didn’t take the advice seriously now this is where it got to.
Simple answer: No
More complex answer: Not in any case
Mulligan is entirely dependant on
a) your deck
b) your opponent’s class
Also: The game has a lot of cards that are let’s say 2 mana cards that aren’t really 2 mana (rogue’s combo cards and echoe cards being an example). You can play them on the turn they are priced for (2 mana f.e.), making them totally useless tho.
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I just had a refreshing loss to a Druid.
What was refreshing about it? A deck I had never seen before.
Quest Druid with Ixlid the Fungal Lord. He was in control of the board the whole game even though I was playing Odd Paladin.
What was unrefreshing about the game was the Oh he we go the same cards from the get go. Tarcreeper turn 3, I have to burn a +3 might to get it out of the way. Turn 4 Swipe clears my board I have to rebuild.
This is what I meant by putting a deck together with the reliable generator. You’re going to have a Tarcreeper or a Stonehill defender on turn 3. You just are.
After that however was the rediscovery of 2/6 taunt that gets healthier each time you put out a minion. Okay that’s annoying and I hope I get a Sunkeeper Tarem while I have a full board before he can chip away the plebs to nothing. Nope, so now I am stuck having to burn a Leroy Jenkins to take out the 2/8. But now Ixlid can hit the board and suddenly 2 Harrison Jones, 2 Charging Bears, 2…you get the picture.
All nicely ungraded because of another reliable 1 2 3 RNG card,
Keleseth. Yep the Druid dripped Keleseth on turn 1 with the coin.
But there is no evidence of this. Assuming a hard mulligan, and that the deck plays exactly 2 3-drops that they really want by turn 3, the probability of getting them is very close to 50%. If they run 4 3-drops that they are happy to get by 3, the probability is now 76% that they get one.
If the actual odds in HS were different from the above, the discrepancy would be easily detected by looking at 1000 random replays and calculating the appearance rates. Are you saying you think nobody has done that? It isn’t a hard test to perform.
Then your opponent made a bad play. Coining Keleseth is wrong practically all the time. What was their follow-up play, hero power?
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Nay, there are many exceptions.
In an Aggro deck, especially versus a control deck, 1-3 drops are plentiful enough that it can be worth throwing back low cost options to hunt the perfect ones. If I had an Odd Paladin and I have a Stonehill Defender, a Blessing of Might, and Arcturus Veteran, I might chuck the whole hand in the hopes of getting a Lost in the Jungle, Argent Squire or Dire Mole. Pre-nerf Odd Rogue might have tended to throw back Cold Blood if they did not receive a 1 drop among their other cards, whereas they might’ve kept a Fungalmancer if they did have many 1s.
There’s also aggressive decks who run expensive but important power cards. In a Hunter, I would usually toss 3+ cost cards, but I would keep an Emerald Spellstone and often keep DK Rexx (unless I had both in hand). As an Evens Shaman in Wild, Thing From Below is an auto-keep, whereas Primalfin Totem is hit or miss and I will tend not to use it if the opponent might be aggressive, and I mostly only keep Maelstrom Portal against Rogue, Paladin, and Hunter - Mael Portal has little use against Priest or Mage, so I often toss it back.
In Big Priest, chuck everything that’s not Barnes. The Barnes opening is significant enough that there is no other hand worth keeping, and it’s safer to try for Barnes than to keep a Spirit Lash or Shadow Essence.
The best thing you can do is ASK. Target one topic that you have problem with, and keep asking (need to apply it as well) until you understand.
Then move on to the next question in mind.
example: If you are lost in a forest, and you move around aimlessly, you get more confused and lost. Plan and have one direction in mind, your chances of finding a way out increases much more.
I would say 1,2,3 is a good start and you can’t go too wrong with it. Since as you noticed: cards that you can play are better than cards that you can’t play.
My reasoning is that in general all cards will be good cards if they made it into your deck. (If you don’t like having a specific card in hand (or don’t want to play it) on multiple occasions then that can be a hint to swap out that card.)
I think I’m doing quite well with that general rule. I would start from there as a basic rule and deviate from the rule only if there is a good reason, i.e. if you get more experienced with matchup specific keeping and mulliganing of cards.
Example for that could be: as warlock keep hellfire against Hunter spell stones (though maybe outdated now)
Since you are motivated enough to post here I assume that you are also motivated enought to reflect about your plays. So I think you would do well with that approach.
OP, the general rule of thumb I’ve followed is that you should mulligan any card in your starting hand that costs 4 or more, unless it’s a really important card like a 4-5 mana board clear.
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What everyone else says, but ALSO- if you think you are facing a particular type of deck, and you draw your answer for that in your opening hand (for instance, if you’re up against a priest, and Skulking Geist is in your opening hand, or if you’re up against Odd Pally, and you have an AoE effect in your opening hand) keep it.
Keep a taunt minion, as they can buy you some breathing room.
If your win condition relies on one card of which you only have one copy, and you draw it in your opening hand, keep it.
Never keep three expensive cards- if you’re going first, you can keep one costly card; if you’re going second you can keep two.