An opening hand can lie to you. That is one of the oldest problems in Magic.
A sketchy seven looks fine because it contains spells you like, lands you sort of need, and maybe one card that makes you feel clever. Then turn three happens, your hand still does nothing, and now you are behind for reasons that were visible from the start. A good MTG mulligan guide is not really about luck. It is about honesty. You are trying to answer one question before the game even starts: does this hand actually play Magic, or does it just technically contain cards?
I think newer players usually mulligan too little, and experienced players sometimes mulligan for the wrong reason. The newer player sees a hand with lands and spells and says, “good enough.” The experienced player sometimes ships a playable hand because it is not pretty. Both mistakes cost games.
What the London Mulligan Actually Gives You
The current mulligan procedure is generous by old Magic standards. You always draw seven, then put a card on the bottom for each mulligan you took. That matters because it changes the goal.
You are not trying to protect raw card count at all costs. You are trying to start with a functional hand. Six good cards beat seven clunky cards all the time. And five cards with a clear plan can still beat six cards that are half setup and half nonsense.
That is the first thing this MTG mulligan guide needs to get across. A mulligan is not a punishment. It is a repair tool.
If your opening seven cannot cast spells on time, cannot produce your colors, or cannot affect the early turns in a meaningful way, you are often better off taking the redraw and trusting yourself to bottom the weakest card later.
Why An MTG Mulligan Guide Starts With Your Deck, Not Your Hand
A hand is only good in context.
If your deck is low to the ground, full of one-drops and two-drops, and built to pressure early, a two-land hand with action is usually fine. If your deck starts at three mana and wants to double-spell later, that same hand may be a trap. Commander makes this even more obvious. A seven with two lands, a Signet, and four haymakers might technically function, but only if you actually draw into help on time.
That is why mulligan decisions are really deckbuilding decisions in disguise. Your curve, your land count, your fixing, your ramp, and your actual win conditions all shape what “keepable” means. If your deck is top-heavy and slow to start, the answer is usually not to pray harder. It is to fix the list. That is also why pieces like Commander Win Conditions in MTG That End Games Without Feeling Random matter. A hand full of expensive closers feels a lot worse when the deck has no clean path to the stage of the game where those closers matter.
And if your deck is built to use the graveyard as a resource, some opening hands that look thin on paper can actually be quite strong because they are setting up future value. That is where Graveyard Value in MTG: How to Turn Your Discard Pile into a Second Hand changes how you evaluate a keep.
How Many Lands Usually Make A Keep
There is no universal land-count rule that solves every format. Still, some heuristics are worth keeping in your head.
In Limited, a hand with two to five lands is often the starting point for a keep. That does not mean every hand in that range is good. It means hands outside that range need a very good reason to stay.
In 60-card Constructed, two or three lands with a clean curve is usually where you want to live, especially if your deck has cantrips, cheap interaction, or strong early plays. One-land hands are the classic “i can get there” trap. Sometimes you do get there. You just remember those games more than the ones where you died holding spells.
In Commander, land count gets fuzzier because ramp changes the equation. Two lands plus a cheap ramp piece can be better than three lands and no acceleration. But Commander players also keep some wildly ambitious hands because the format feels slower. Then they spend four turns pretending everything is under control.
I believe the right question is simple: if I miss my next land drop, is this hand still functional? If the answer is no, your keep needs to be doing something very strong to justify the risk.
When The Rest Of The Hand Saves A Risky Opener
A hand is not just a land count. Texture matters.
Two lands and five four-drops is a mulligan. Two lands, a one-drop, a two-drop, a cheap draw spell, and a removal spell is a hand you can often work with. One land plus multiple cheap cantrips might be keepable in some very specific shells. One land plus optimism is not a strategy.
This is where people get too rigid. They hear a rule like “never keep one landers” and apply it like a machine. But Magic is messy. Some decks are full of card selection. Some decks have eight virtual copies of a cheap accelerator. Some decks only need one color early. Others absolutely do not.
The goal is not to memorize a slogan. The goal is to ask whether your first three turns are real. If you can spend mana, deploy pressure, or interact meaningfully, your hand deserves a closer look.
How Format Changes Your Keep Decisions
Format matters more than people admit.
Limited punishes stumbles hard because your cards are generally weaker, your fixing is less reliable, and falling behind on board can snowball fast. In Constructed, synergy can rescue some odd hands if the hand lines up with your deck’s actual plan. In Commander, the extra time and multiplayer pace can justify slower keeps, but only up to a point.
The play-draw split matters too. On the draw, a land-light hand can become more reasonable because you get an extra look immediately. On the play, you need a little more respect for missing.
And matchup matters whenever you know it. A reactive hand with removal and countermagic might be excellent against a fast deck and terrible against a slow value pile. A hand that races well might still be awful if the opponent’s plan is to gum up combat and go over the top.
That is why any real MTG mulligan guide has to stay flexible. You are not asking, “Is this hand acceptable in the abstract?” You are asking, “What is this hand trying to do in this actual game?”
Common Mulligan Mistakes
The first big mistake is falling in love with one card. A hand with your best spell is still bad if the rest of the hand does not support it.
The second is confusing “contains lands and spells” with “functional.” That hand might technically cast something on turn three. Cool. What about turns one and two?
The third is overvaluing the perfect seven. Players throw back solid hands because they imagine a cleaner one. Then the six is worse, the five is desperate, and now the game starts with damage already done.
The fourth is ignoring color requirements. A two-land hand can be fine until you realize both lands make the same color and every spell in your hand asks for the other one.
The fifth is refusing to adjust to your own deck’s fail cases. If your deck repeatedly mulligans because it is too slow, too light on lands, or too dependent on one type of opener, that is not a mulligan problem. That is deck construction tapping you on the shoulder.
A Simple Opening Hand Checklist
When i am unsure, i like to run through a short checklist:
- Can I spend mana in the first two turns?
- Do I have the colors I actually need, not just lands in general?
- If I miss my next land drop, do I still function?
- Does this hand line up with my deck’s real plan?
- Am I keeping this because it is good, or because I am afraid to go to six?
That last one hurts a little. It is also useful.
Final Thoughts On The MTG Mulligan Guide
The best mulligan decisions feel boring. That is usually a good sign.
You are not trying to be a genius before turn one. You are trying to give your deck a fair chance to do what it was built to do. A strong MTG mulligan guide helps because it strips away the little lies we tell ourselves about “almost there” hands.
Keep hands that function. Ship hands that do not. And when the same bad opener keeps showing up, fix the deck instead of blaming fate.