Cactus Game Design Message Boards
Redemption® Collectible Trading Card Game HQ => Redemption® Resources and Thinktank => Topic started by: EmJayBee83 on July 28, 2013, 11:40:19 AM
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Is there any interest in reviving a discussion about the possibility of including the option for a mulligan in Redemption? (The last discussion (http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/redemption-card-play/mulligan/) was from 3 years ago.)
FWIW, I would be in favor of an optional once-per-game mulligan of the initial draw without limitations or penalties.
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I could accept that.
Another idea is when you take a mulligan any Lost Souls you drew stay in play.
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Funny how this was brought up just now. I was thinking about it myself.
Another idea is when you take a mulligan any Lost Souls you drew stay in play.
This is how I would like mulligan to work.
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Ill mulligan everytime in Multi.
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If there is a Mulligan, I think that there should be 3 components:
1 - All LSs that were drawn stay in play
2 - The redraw would be the number of cards minus 1 so that it couldn't go on indefinitely
3 - The hand must be revealed to the other players
I'm not 100% committed to the 3rd point, but I want there to be enough disadvantage that people don't just do it all the time in multiplayer, but at the same time I don't want to go minus 2 on the redraw because that seems to harsh to a RLK that gets a terrible draw.
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2 - The redraw would be the number of cards minus 1 so that it couldn't go on indefinitely
once-per-game mulligan
A mulligan rule for a better hand is not a good rule imo.
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I think there needs to be a penalty that is severe enough that people would not do it unless their hand was really that bad. I would vote that the player would need to reveal their hand and remove one of those cards from the game. Or, better yet, have each opponent remove one of the cards from the game. :o
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I like the idea of having a mulligan for a couple reasons; I also think the game is better suited for a mulligan rule than it was two years ago for a couple reasons. First, with first round Mayhems no longer allowed, and Mayhem as a whole being used less due to the dominant cap (along with the addition of Vain Philosophy in the new set), people using Mulligans to try and pull out an early Mayhem is unlikely. Second, I think the major criticism of Top Cut in Redemption (from a competitive standpoint) is that we don't have the ability to install double elimination or best two out of three, which makes the luck factor skyrocket in comparison to other CCGs. Implementing a Mulligan system would help mitigate this by reducing the number of losses due to bad draws. The simple fact of the matter is there is no such thing as a deck that is completely bad-draw proof, and I would like to see a system that helps remove luck from the game. The problem is that if you start putting penalties like what YMT just suggested, at that point there's no point in installing a Mulligan option because no hand will be bad enough to utilize it. Thus, I'm in favor of a Mulligan system with the following rules:
- Lost Souls stay in play.
- Players who choose to Mulligan draw seven cards.
- If only one player Mulligans, the player who did not chooses whose turn will go first, regardless of who drew the most Lost Souls.
- One Mulligan per player, per game.
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Follow-up question: A majority of the posts seem to support the idea of a mulligan with the caveat that there needs to be a penalty associated with it (e.g., initial lost souls must stay in play). Why do the folks who posted feel that some sort of penalty is necessary?
Here is where I am coming from on this: I currently play Android Netrunner (in addition to Redemption). In that game after the initial draw each player is allowed to look at their hand and decide if they want to mulligan. If they decide to do so they shuffle their hand in and redraw a new hand with whatever they draw off the mulligan as their final hand (i.e., you can only mulligan once). In reading the various on-line forums associated with the game, mulligan abuse is not a topic that I ever see arise (which meshes in with my much more limited experience). The possibility of redrawing a worse hand and getting stuck with it is a self-limiting feature of the rule.
I understand that MtG has penalties for a mulligan and Pokemon has both a limitation (no basic in hand) and a penalty associated with it. Is Redemption closer (in spirit of play or whatever) to MtG and Pokemon than it is to Netrunner?
In 2010 when the last conversation took place, I can understand why penalties were required. The power of having a first turn Mayhem (and playing first) would have made people chuck otherwise perfectly good (or even exceptional) hands in an attempt to get Mayhem at the start, so the risk of drawing a worse hand would note serve as an adequate limitation against mulligan abuse. Are there any cards or strategies like this today that you could see someone abusing the mulligan rule for?
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I fully support a one use "free" mulligan, as in shuffle your hand and any lost souls you drew into your deck and draw 8, but you can only do it once. My suggestion of leaving Lost Souls in play was another option for if multiple mulligans were introduced. If there is only one, then, to me anyway, it is limited enough that I don't think it would be a problem to do a "free" one.
It works great in Android: Netrunner (although my experience is still very limited and my use of mulligans is even more limited).
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I agree with Matt. I think that if a mulligan system were introduced, then penalties would be unnecessary. If people could only do it once, then the only reason they would likely do it is if they drew LSs and no ways to block rescues, or no ways to make rescues either. Sure, we don't want people "abusing" the mulligan, but I think most people would also say Redemption is more fun when people don't have to give LSs away.
I would agree with all of Chris' rule proposals except for the drawing only 7.
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The point of having a penalty for a Mulligan is to keep people from having an average draw and trying to get just a little bit better. I firmly believe there should be some sort of cost associated with that.
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I think drawing 7 would be the minimum penalty for a mulligan. I could see leaving or shuffling Lost Souls going either way.
Kirk
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Are there any cards or strategies like this today that you could see someone abusing the mulligan rule for?
In my recent experience in both T1 and T2, a player who draws AutO (or Wheel with a Hero to play it) in the opening hand will have a huge advantage unless the other player does as well. I could see myself ditching an average hand in hopes of redrawing into AutO.
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The point of having a penalty for a Mulligan is to keep people from having an average draw and trying to get just a little bit better. I firmly believe there should be some sort of cost associated with that.
If your deck has an "average" draw then you should feel ok to play with it as is, otherwise you built the deck poorly. An attempt to get a better than average draw with a deck that needs a good draw would have a higher chance of having a bad draw and even a well designed deck would have at least an equal chance of being a worse then average draw.
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... but I think most people would also say Redemption is more fun when people don't have to give LSs away.
Redemption is also more fun when there isn't a soul drought. My fear is players drawing lost souls, even with defense, but still taking a mulligan hoping to get no LSs the next time. This ultimately comes down to deck-building. If you are not drawing a defense, then put more in your deck.
The game seems to be going more the route of combos and auto-blocks/rescues. Giving players more of a chance to draw these on the first turn just makes the game less fun for those who oppose them. Sometimes your only chance to beat them is in the first few turns.
INSTAPOSTED on my second point by Guardian (for the most part).
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I think drawing 7 would be the minimum penalty for a mulligan. I could see leaving or shuffling Lost Souls going either way.
Kirk
If we shuffle LS and only draw 7 replacement playing 56 and attempting to get soul drought will become optional.
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... but I think most people would also say Redemption is more fun when people don't have to give LSs away.
Redemption is also more fun when there isn't a soul drought. My fear is players drawing lost souls, even with defense, but still taking a mulligan hoping to get no LSs the next time. This ultimately comes down to deck-building. If you are not drawing a defense, then put more in your deck.
I agree, which is why I agree with Chris' rules for mulligans (except the draw 7) to leave all drawn LSs in play before the mulligan.
There will always be a cost associated with a mulligan; your opportunity cost of the cards you shuffle (and are less likely to redraw). Assuming that all the cards in your deck serve a purpose, which they should. That's in addition to the cost of giving your opponent the choice of who goes first and the possibility of drawing more LSs.
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I agree, which is why I agree with Chris' rules for mulligans (except the draw 7) to leave all drawn LSs in play before the mulligan.
Oops! You wrote that you agreed with Matt, and I thought he was suggesting no penalties. Sorry. :)
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I agree, which is why I agree with Chris' rules for mulligans (except the draw 7) to leave all drawn LSs in play before the mulligan.
Oops! You wrote that you agreed with Matt, and I thought he was suggesting no penalties. Sorry. :)
Ah, I see that now. Matt did give that as the example for his penalty I guess, I thought he just was opposing the draw 7.
I agree that trying to intentionally soul drought your opponent by way of mulligan would be a bad thing.
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I think a single mulligan rule doesn't need any kind of penalty (and shuffling all souls, or all but one, would be fine). MtG has even recently started allowing 1 free mulligan before starting to decrease the redraw by 1 (for certain types, at least). If multiple mulligans are allowed, then a similarly decreasing redraw should be sufficient, though I could see for adding a rule that all but one of any LSs drawn get shuffled back in with the hand thereby to keep an additional, possibly increasing, "cost" for subsequent mulligans.
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I think a single mulligan rule doesn't need any kind of penalty (and shuffling all souls, or all but one, would be fine). MtG has even recently started allowing 1 free mulligan before starting to decrease the redraw by 1 (for certain types, at least). If multiple mulligans are allowed, then a similarly decreasing redraw should be sufficient, though I could see for adding a rule that all but one of any LSs drawn get shuffled back in with the hand thereby to keep an additional, possibly increasing, "cost" for subsequent mulligans.
if we say the mulligan cost is d7 and ur opponent may search ur deck for an ls and put it in play after ur d7 then that would be an interesting penalty
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Shuffling all except one lost soul would be a good compromise but I would add that the opponent gets to choose which lost soul stays out if multiple are drawn.
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if we say the mulligan cost is d7 and ur opponent may search ur deck for an ls and put it in play after ur d7 then that would be an interesting penalty
Interesting all right but who would let their opponent see your entire deck before the game starts? I like the one mulligan per game, draw 8, lost souls stay in play idea. Another idea for a penalty would be to take certain cards out of the deck until you draw the mulligan, like not being able to redraw any cards from your first hand or remove all the doms from your deck, draw the mulligan, shuffle doms back in.
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How about this:
You reveal your original hand, shuffle that and all but one lost soul (opponent's choice) into the deck, and draw 7.
You can't abuse it to start with no lost souls and your opponent gets a preview of what's in your deck (and why you chose to mulligan).
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From my experience playing Battletech (old school!), you could only take a mulligan if you had no resources on your first draw (for the youngins, you need resources to build the mechs). Maybe we could place a restriction like that on it to prevent mulligan just to try and get a better hand (instead of necessity). I would suggest that in your initial draw, if you have one hero and one evil character, you can't mulligan. You should be able to start decent with at least those two peeps in your hand. If you do it that way, I would only suggest leaving one lost soul out (opponent choice) and shuffling the rest (plus the hand reveal since you have to prove that you don't have one hero and one evil character (though that rule won't affect speed much since they have so few evil characters).
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Redemption is also more fun when there isn't a soul drought.
Here's another idea. What if there was a mandatory mulligan at no cost if you drew an initial hand without any LSs in it? That way every game would at least start with one LS on the table for each player to go for. :o
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Redemption is also more fun when there isn't a soul drought.
Here's another idea. What if there was a mandatory mulligan at no cost if you drew an initial hand without any LSs in it? That way every game would at least start with one LS on the table for each player to go for. :o
I love this rule in a way.
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Redemption is also more fun when there isn't a soul drought.
Here's another idea. What if there was a mandatory mulligan at no cost if you drew an initial hand without any LSs in it? That way every game would at least start with one LS on the table for each player to go for. :o
Don't like it. Just gives people more incentive to play offense-heavy decks as opposed to more balanced decks.
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Redemption is also more fun when there isn't a soul drought. My fear is players drawing lost souls, even with defense, but still taking a mulligan hoping to get no LSs the next time.
Although I feel overcoming a horrible lost soul pull to be a legitimate reason for taking a mulligan, I had not considered taking one to cause a drought. That is a good point that I completely overlooked. What if--as a compromise of the two things--we said leave up to two lost souls of opponent's choice in play. Would this adequately defend against a drought seeker?
This ultimately comes down to deck-building. If you are not drawing a defense, then put more in your deck.
This past weekend I was playing a 51-card deck containing seven ECs and seven EEs. On my opening draw I pulled three lost souls, all seven evil enhancements, and Christian Martyr. I am open to your suggestions on how precisely to improve my deck-building skills to alleviate such draws in the future.
The game seems to be going more the route of combos and auto-blocks/rescues.
A part of the reason for character- and offense-heavy decks with tons of auto-blocks is because there is absolutely no way--within the current system--to overcome a draw like the one I experienced.
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Mulligans are inherently going to be abused when there isn't something forcing you to mulligan. There is not such condition to force mulligans in Redemption (unless, apparently, you are Mark Underwood and want to mulligan to draw more souls for the opponent to rescue, but I think we all know that was a joke) and therefore I am opposed to them.
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This past weekend I was playing a 51-card deck containing seven ECs and seven EEs. On my opening draw I pulled three lost souls, all seven evil enhancements, and Christian Martyr. I am open to your suggestions on how precisely to improve my deck-building skills to alleviate such draws in the future.
Out of curiosity, what shuffling method did you use, and during what round did it happen? I ask about the round to determine the proximity of the EEs before shuffling. What you have described is not a likely random draw. Now, mathematically speaking, this will have to occur with somebody at some point (or Nobody as the case may be) in the history of the game. But if cards are randomized effectively, this is too improbable. I would argue that the problem was with the shuffling, rather than the deck.
Which begs another question entirely. Does anyone sort their deck after each game? If so, how would that person's draw compare to someone who did not sort their cards between games? Just food for thought.
Back to the topic... I do not oppose mulligans. I think younger inexperienced players could use a lift to not lose hope too early in the learning process. I just think that there needs to be appropriate penalties in place to thwart misuse.
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Which begs another question entirely. Does anyone sort their deck after each game? If so, how would that person's draw compare to someone who did not sort their cards between games? Just food for thought.
I sure hope they don't cheat like that.
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What you have described is not a likely random draw. Now, mathematically speaking, this will have to occur with somebody at some point (or Nobody as the case may be) in the history of the game. But if cards are randomized effectively, this is too improbable. I would argue that the problem was with the shuffling, rather than the deck.
I have seen these types of shuffles using simulators of other CCG's, so I know they are in fact indeed probable even when using a completely random computer-assisted shuffle.
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This past weekend I was playing a 51-card deck containing seven ECs and seven EEs. On my opening draw I pulled three lost souls, all seven evil enhancements, and Christian Martyr. I am open to your suggestions on how precisely to improve my deck-building skills to alleviate such draws in the future.
Out of curiosity, what shuffling method did you use, and during what round did it happen? I ask about the round to determine the proximity of the EEs before shuffling. What you have described is not a likely random draw. Now, mathematically speaking, this will have to occur with somebody at some point (or Nobody as the case may be) in the history of the game. But if cards are randomized effectively, this is too improbable. I would argue that the problem was with the shuffling, rather than the deck.
This was the first round--so the deck started sorted. I did two pile shuffles--one with seven piles, the second with five (which are relatively prime). I followed this by six or seven "smoosh"
shuffles where you take your deck, split it in half, and "smoosh" the two halves together. In other words, my normal T1 shuffling procedure. So, yes, there could be a shuffling error of some sort, but I have no idea what it wouyld be and it has not manifested itself previously. I would attribute it to some bizarre subconscious double-nickeling except that the three souls were scattered among the seven ECs, and my first draw brought three cards whose card types were separated in the original sorted deck (a covenant, a fortress, and an artifact).
Mulligans are inherently going to be abused when there isn't something forcing you to mulligan.
As this does *not* appear to be the case in the one CCG I am familiar with that allows unpenalized no-fault mulligans (i.e., Android: Netrunner) I do not understand this statement. Would you please explain?
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As this does *not* appear to be the case in the one CCG I am familiar with that allows unpenalized no-fault mulligans (i.e., Android: Netrunner) I do not understand this statement. Would you please explain?
I would mulligan for numerous reasons such as:
-I don't a hero
-I don't have a dominant
-I have a hero with no support
-My opponent has no soul and I have no soul gen
-My hand is bad in general
-I don't have a way to search for my AUTO
I thought of those in about 10 seconds and I would consider mulligans in each situation. Mulliganing with souls drawn actually increases my deck speed potentially so that seems good too.
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As this does *not* appear to be the case in the one CCG I am familiar with that allows unpenalized no-fault mulligans (i.e., Android: Netrunner) I do not understand this statement. Would you please explain?
I would mulligan for numerous reasons such as:
-I don't a hero
-I don't have a dominant
-I have a hero with no support
-My opponent has no soul and I have no soul gen
-My hand is bad in general
-I don't have a way to search for my AUTO
I thought of those in about 10 seconds and I would consider mulligans in each situation. Mulliganing with souls drawn actually increases my deck speed potentially so that seems good too.
And you think that any of these reasons are abusing mulligans? I think they are perfectly legitimate reasons.
I have only heard of Mulligan abuse in 2 cases, in MtG with Elf decks when you could only Mulligan based on lands in your hand (the trick here was that you had no lands in your deck so you could mulligan as many times as you wanted until you got the right cards) and the old Mewtwo mill decks in Pokemon, (in Pokemon you can mulligan when you don't have a basic Pokemon, but caused your opponent to draw a card, so you would have 59 basic energies and 1 Mewtwo, if you drew all energies, mulligan,, your opponent draws a card, if you draw Mewtwo, you had Mewtwo). In both games the Mulligan rules changed to make those abuses not work.
I would suggest that a single, no penalty mulligan for any reason could very likely be good for the game.
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I'm suggesting that I'd be accused of attempting to abuse mulligans by the people who in this thread love mulligans.
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If we follow the guidelines of Battletech (where you can only mulligan under a particular circumstance (which, as mentioned before, was lack of resources)), then there will be close to zero abuse. What the requirements would be for Redemption is up to debate as Redemption is much different than Battletech. I suggested that if you have a hero and an EC, then you can't mulligan (I later realized, though, that offense/defense heavy decks can mulligan almost every game).
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This was the first round--so the deck started sorted.
That's interesting. I think I need to do some playtesting with just the first draw under a variety of circumstances. For others who have had the worst draw imaginable, how many of those were in the first round? And if it was a later round, did you sort your deck before shuffling?
I have seen these types of shuffles using simulators of other CCG's, so I know they are in fact indeed probable even when using a completely random computer-assisted shuffle.
Just to make sure that we are on the same page, did the draw include all of a certain card type in the deck? MJB's draw had all of his EE's, which is the part that I find improbable. I don't know his deck, but assuming a balanced spread of 7 EE, 7EC, 7GE, 7GC, 7LS, 7Doms, 7 Art/Fort (Farts for short), and 7 sites, a draw that includes all 7 of one type is incredibly unlikely based on sheer probability.
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If we follow the guidelines of Battletech (where you can only mulligan under a particular circumstance (which, as mentioned before, was lack of resources)), then there will be close to zero abuse. What the requirements would be for Redemption is up to debate as Redemption is much different than Battletech. I suggested that if you have a hero and an EC, then you can't mulligan (I later realized, though, that offense/defense heavy decks can mulligan almost every game).
That type of restriction has never come up because it's literally impossible to define anything in redemption like that.
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That type of restriction has never come up because it's literally impossible to define anything in redemption like that.
QFT
I agree with Alex that Redemption is not like the other games when it comes to conditional mulligans. Pokémon, as well, has an easy condition (no basics), but that is because you can't play without them. If we are going to have a mulligan rule in Redemption, it would not be conditional. I still think it would just have to have a penalty of some sort.
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I still think it would just have to have a penalty of some sort.
Maybe a non-game play related penalty. For example, we could require any player who takes a mulligan to wear a large crimson M for the remainder of the tournament. Then the other players players could whisper behind his/her back that "Old so-and-so is a lousy deck builder."
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I still think it would just have to have a penalty of some sort.
Maybe a non-game play related penalty. For example, we could require any player who takes a mulligan to wear a large crimson M for the remainder of the tournament. Then the other players players could whisper behind his/her back that "Old so-and-so is a lousy deck builder."
I propose Big Red shots.
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I wish we could just come to the obvious conclusion that mulligans are just going to be abused and the same people who want mulligans are going to hate them because it don't be fun when I mulligan a hand with good cards to get better cards.
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Or worse cards.
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I still think it would just have to have a penalty of some sort.
Maybe a non-game play related penalty. For example, we could require any player who takes a mulligan to wear a large crimson M for the remainder of the tournament. Then the other players players could whisper behind his/her back that "Old so-and-so is a lousy deck builder."
I propose Big Red shots.
Remember the root beer tablets Matt brought to MN state last year. They were even worse...... I didn't think that was possible at the time.
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Or worse cards.
No one will care when that happens. They'll care when I mulligan away a playable hand and get a hand that wins me the game and cry about how mulligans are broke.
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And both players have the option of doing that. Opening the nuts already exists in this game without mulligans. So what's the problem?
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And both players have the option of doing that. What's the problem?
I don't want to listen to this thread in reverse next year.
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Then the other players players could whisper behind his/her back that "Old so-and-so is a lousy deck builder."
And here I thought you wanted to have a serious conversation. If you are just going to make fun of the people who disagree with you, then don't be surprised when they don't support your ideas. I usually don't get suckered into these heckler threads because they normally only occur in Open Discussion, which I no longer can view (what a relief!). How silly I have become in my old age. ;)
Forget my endorsement of this thread. I no longer support mulligans, with or without a penalty.
He was making a joke, that's it. Calm down.
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Then the other players players could whisper behind his/her back that "Old so-and-so is a lousy deck builder."
And here I thought you wanted to have a serious conversation. If you are just going to make fun of the people who disagree with you, then don't be surprised when they don't support your ideas. I usually don't get suckered into these heckler threads because they normally only occur in Open Discussion, which I no longer can view (what a relief!). How silly I have become in my old age. ;)
Forget my endorsement of this thread. I no longer support mulligans, with or without a penalty.
He was making a joke, that's it. Calm down.
I read this as YMT making a joke of his own. (And a very excellent one at that.)
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I read this as YMT making a joke of his own. (And a very excellent one at that.)
LOL. It's amazing what you miss after being away for a few days. I'm glad you saw it before it became hidden from so many down votes. :o
I guess the winking smiley doesn't mean what it used to. In all fairness, though, after my post got a few downvotes (literally within seconds after I posted it), I then posted a snide comment in a different thread. I can see why that would lead so many to believe I was serious. That's my own fault. I rarely use sarcasm (which was supposed to be the irony of the joke), so using it here did not go over very well. We can just chalk it up to the fact that I am probably the longest tenured board member that most of you have never met. ;D
For those of you still wondering:
1. I used to post things like my "outrage post" in seriousness during heated threads in OD in the good ole' days, which was why I asked to have OD removed from my access.
2. I have already stated that I support mulligans each time that it has come up, as long as there is a penalty of some sort.
3. I will not be hosting a Nats anytime soon because I cannot afford the fees or supplies.
4. I would love to attend Nats this year, because Roy is one of only a handful of "true" friends that I have ever had in my life. However, I cannot afford to attend since I am already a month behind in my mortgage with no way to pay it this month either.
5. I am generally antisocial.
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Thanks for posting that Tim. That clears a lot of stuff up :)