I did say "to see" and from what I am seeing I don't like it especially the reasoning behind it.
Quote "
The goal of this new "London" mulligan is to make games where one or more players mulligan more competitive, especially in cases where players mulligan an unequal number of times. In particular, greater selection of the starting hand will reduce the number of "non-games" where a player's deck is unable to function due to not having a reasonable mix of lands and spells."
Here we go again with competitive stuff but I will get to that later on.
However unable to function? Apparently they have never heard of this thing called "Variance". It is in every card game and in every card game players learn to adapt to variance. With variance
X is supposed to happen only a certain percentage of the time. Variance includes mathematics which is hardly ever talked about. Yet the mathematical part is accepted for example the 60 card deck has 24 lands and the 40 card deck has 17 lands. That is the normal for lands but do people know why? besides they are told that is the normal. I would go on but don't want to long of a ramble on this part lol.
We, as designers, strive not only to provide new card content but also to continue to update the game's rules and systems to
provide the most enjoyable and competitive experiences we can. I'd like to share some
insight as to why we're making this change and what
we expect the results will be.There is that word again "competitive". What you expect or what you desire is entirely 2 different things.
the goal of each change has been to give players a better chance of having a reasonable opening draw leading
to a competitive game where either player might win. Again the word competitive rears its head.
As more and more games of Magic are being played these days across both tabletop and digital platforms,
we've gathered data that shows that even the current Vancouver mulligan
isn't doing as good of a job as it could be in providing a competitive starting point for both players.
I
wonder how incomplete the data is and again the word competitive comes back into play. But this sentence also brings back variance and apparently they don't like variance and completely understand the concept variance brings into a card game.
A player who mulligans once against an opponent who keeps seven cards, in general, is at more of a disadvantage
than we're comfortable with
First it is an entire Magic community and not just the "we" aspect. Again not comfortable with variance? Do they again know what it is?
We also dislike that some of
those games play out in uninteresting ways where it's clear that the game was nearly over before it began based on starting hands alone. Again it is variance, you are going to have uninteresting games and you are going to have very interesting games. You are going to have blow out games and non blow out games. Again this is called variance and it is going to be part of any card game.
We've tested the new London mulligan internally for more than six months and are pleased with how it closes the gap between a player who mulligans and an opponent who doesn't, and also how it greatly reduces the number of games where a player's deck and strategy simply don't function at all.Is there something about variance you just don't like??
We still want mulliganing to be something a player prefers not to do if they have a reasonable hand, we just want it to be a little less punishing when a mulligan is necessary.Again this is part of variance, some games will be punishing while other games it will not.
The question is whether the
metagame will adapt to those changes and come to a new, healthy
equilibrium. So far, all signs point to yes, including for Modern. So the meta aspect not the entire Magic as a whole.
We expect the London mulligan to be almost all upside for Standard and Limited. In those formats being down a card in the starting hand is enough of a penalty that we don't
anticipate players mulliganing much more aggressively than under the current Vancouver mulligan.
It'll just make for more enjoyable games when mulligans do need to happen. Now I will get my boots on because the shite is getting deep with this paragraph. Enjoyable?? Thought you were aiming for competitive, so don't drop enjoyable now into the equation when you have been constantly spouting competitive.
Our approach for all formats will be to
allow players and metagames to adjust and to gather data and feedback before considering any banned and restricted list changes. Didn't you just say you gathered data already?? So admitting you have incomplete data and it is just your way of trying to control this thing called variance??
But why should the metagame and players gather data for you? Since when does it become their job?
But in the end,
the goal of this change is to make Magic more fun, and we have confidence that it will!
Stop tossing the shite around again, you said competitive so stop trying to say it is to make it fun when the clear intention is competitive