Mulligan with Serum Powder
Asked by Mill2Kill 8 years ago
Ok, say I draw my initial hand of seven cards and I decide to mulligan with Serum Powder. And than after that I am still unhappy with my hand so I decide to mulligan again without Serum Powder. Would I mulligan to five or six cards after the first mulligan with Serum Powder?
It indeed doesn't count as a mulligan. Serum Powder is different from a mulligan in that it's an ability that allows you to exile cards and draw that many new cards, much like Incendiary Command's last mode. Whether you go down a card when drawing new cards doesn't matter, though - for example, 2HG rules let you mulligan to your starting hand size the first time (and it's still a mulligan). Cards like Dark Deal also don't count as a mulligan or affect the game in any other way than by what's written on the card.
July 19, 2015 4:03 a.m.
"Whether you go down a card when drawing new cards doesn't matter, though"
Actually that's incorrect. The full mulligan rule is:
103.4. Each player draws a number of cards equal to his or her starting hand size, which is normally seven. (Some effects can modify a players starting hand size.) A player who is dissatisfied with his or her initial hand may take a mulligan. First, the starting player declares whether or not he or she will take a mulligan. Then each other player in turn order does the same. Once each player has made a declaration, all players who decided to take mulligans do so at the same time. To take a mulligan, a player shuffles his or her hand back into his or her library, then draws a new hand of one fewer cards than he or she had before. If a player kept his or her hand of cards, those cards become the players opening hand, and that player may not take any further mulligans. This process is then repeated until no player takes a mulligan. (Note that if a players hand size reaches zero cards, that player must keep that hand.)
You can see here that a mulligan is actually defined as drawing one card fewer than you had in your hand. The fact that you go back up to 7 in two-headed giant and other multiplayer variants is covered by the exception to that rule covered in:
103.4c In a multiplayer game, the first time a player takes a mulligan, he or she draws a new hand of as many cards as he or she had before. Subsequent hands decrease by one card as normal.
And:
800.5. In a multiplayer game, the first time a player takes a mulligan, he or she draws a new hand of seven cards rather than six cards. Subsequent hands decrease by one card as normal.
Nitpicky, I know, but when you start getting into the nitty gritty of the comp rules it's nice to have set definitions.
Also Dark Deal and Incendiary Command have so little to do with mulligans I'm wondering why you even mentioned them. You can't even cast spells during during the mulligan process.
July 19, 2015 4:47 a.m.
Nitpicking is good, and I might've put it a bit misinterpretably... what I meant is that the act of "shuffling (or discarding or exiling) all cards from your hand, then draw that many cards minus one" doesn't mean it's a mulligan, and that there's a lot of similar effects that - like Serum Powder - might do something similar, but don't "raise" your mulligan count somehow. I didn't mean to say that you can cast anything during starting procedures.
I'm aware that 2HG creates an exception to existing rules, but in the same way, Serum Powder might. That's why I thought explaining that looking at the number of cards you draw after a mulligan isn't a reliable way of determining whether you just took a mulligan or not.
I imagine that's why the discussed mulligan rule of scrying doesn't say "if you took a mulligan", but "if you have fewer cards in your hand than your starting hand size".
July 19, 2015 5:18 a.m.
"looking at the number of cards you draw after a mulligan isn't a reliable way of determining whether you just took a mulligan or not."
Now all I can imagine is a magic player with the worst A.D.D. imaginable.
But whatever, it sounds like we're pretty much saying the same thing.
sonnet666 says... Accepted answer #1
You go down to six. Serum Powder's effect doesn't count as a mulligan, so there's no reason you should go down to fewer cards. Also the act of taking a mulligan is defined as drawing one fewer cards than the number you shuffled into your library (rule 103.4), so the game's not actually paying attention to how many mulligans you've taken, just the number of cards that were in your hand when you mulliganed.
July 19, 2015 3:52 a.m.