In This Guide

• → 1. How the Mulligan Works
• → 2. The Free Mulligan Rule
• → 3. Why It Matters More in EDH
• → 4. The Three-Question Test
• → 5. What a Keep Looks Like
• → 6. What a Ship Looks Like
• → 7. Sample Hands Walkthrough
• → 8. What to Put on the Bottom
• → 9. Mulliganing by Deck Type
• → 10. Where Players Misplay
• → 11. FAQ
• → 12. Quick Cheat Sheet

1. How the Mulligan Works

Commander uses the London Mulligan, the same system every Magic format has used since July 2019. The procedure is simple once you've seen it:

1. Draw your opening hand of seven cards.
2. Decide whether to keep or mulligan. If you mulligan, shuffle your hand back, and draw seven new cards.
3. Repeat until you're happy. When you finally keep, put a number of cards on the bottom of your library equal to the number of mulligans you took.

The crucial wrinkle that makes London different from older systems: you always draw a fresh seven, no matter how many times you mulligan. You only pay the price — bottoming cards — once you decide to keep. So a hand mulliganed twice means you look at seven, keep, then bottom two, ending on a five-card hand of your choosing. This lets you dig for specific cards (a land, your ramp, your combo piece) far more reliably than the old "draw one fewer each time" rules did.

2. The Free Mulligan Rule (Read This)

Here's the single most important rule for Commander specifically: in multiplayer games, your first mulligan is free. That first mulligan doesn't count toward the cards you bottom — so you can ship a seven-card hand, draw a new seven, and keep all seven with no penalty.

Two caveats worth knowing. First, Duel Commander (1v1) does not get the free mulligan — it follows the standard London rule, so your first mulligan already costs you a card. Second, many casual pods layer on house rules (more on those below). But the default for a normal multiplayer game is: one free, then pay one card per mulligan after.

3. Why It Matters More in EDH

In a 60-card format you'll see your opening hand hundreds of times across a night of games, so a single mulligan choice feels low-stakes. Commander is the opposite. It's a singleton, 100-card format — you have exactly one copy of each card, games run long, and you often play just one or two games an evening. That changes the math in three ways:

• A bad keep can sink your whole night. With one game on the line, a non-functional hand isn't a minor variance hit — it's potentially an hour of doing nothing.
• Consistency is harder. Singleton means you can't lean on four copies of your best card. Your opener is a more random slice of your deck, so curating it matters more.
• The games are long, so a slow keep can recover. Conversely, because Commander games go many turns, a hand that's merely slow (rather than broken) is more keepable here than in a fast 60-card format. You have time to draw into the rest.

4. The Three-Question Test

Forget rigid land-count rules for a moment. Almost every keep/ship decision in Commander comes down to three questions. If you can answer "yes" to all three, keep. If you whiff on the first two, ship.

Question one is the hard filter. Questions two and three are about how good the keep is. A hand with great lands but no plan is a soft keep; a hand with a plan but shaky mana is a gamble; a hand that hits both is a snap keep.

5. What a Keep Looks Like

The classic guideline is to keep hands with roughly three to five lands (most Commander decks run 36–38 lands, so that's your expected range), plus something to do with that mana. A strong keep generally has:

• 3–5 lands, ideally producing the colors your early cards need.
• At least one ramp piece or early play — a mana rock, a dork, or a cheap relevant spell.
• A reason to be excited — card draw to refuel, a key engine piece, or a threat that advances your plan.

You do not need your commander in hand — it waits safely in the command zone, so a handful of lands and a plan is plenty. A hand of four lands, a Sol Ring, and two playable spells is a dream keep in almost any deck.

6. What a Ship Looks Like

Send it back when the hand fails the hard filter or clearly does nothing. Reliable ship signals:

• Zero or one land. The most common ship. You're betting on drawing into a functional mana base, and the odds are bad. (One land is keepable only with cheap ramp or card draw to find more.)
• Six or seven lands. The opposite problem — you'll flood out and do nothing. A hand of all mana and no spells is just as dead as no mana at all.
• Wrong colors. Enough lands, but they can't cast anything in your hand for several turns.
• No play until turn five-plus. Even with good lands, a hand of only expensive cards leaves you a passive target early.

And remember the free mulligan: shipping a marginal hand in multiplayer costs you nothing the first time. The bar to keep should be "this hand does something," not "this hand technically has lands."

7. Sample Hands Walkthrough

Three illustrative hands for a typical midrange Commander deck (36 lands), to make the framework concrete:

8. What to Put on the Bottom

When you do pay for a mulligan, choosing what to bottom is its own small skill. The principle: bottom the cards you need least and latest.

• Excess lands first. If you kept six cards with five lands, bottoming a land usually costs you nothing.
• Then your most expensive, situational cards. The turn-eight haymaker can wait; you want early-game function.
• Protect your ramp and early plays. A turn-one or turn-two play is worth more than almost anything else in your opener.
• Keep at least one source of card advantage if you have it — it's how you rebuild from a smaller hand.

9. Mulliganing by Deck Type

The three-question test is universal, but how aggressively you mulligan shifts with your archetype:

• Ramp / big-mana decks: Mulligan hard for an early ramp piece. Your whole plan is accelerating ahead, so a hand without ramp is below average even with good lands.
• Combo decks: You can dig more aggressively for a specific piece, since London lets you keep looking — but respect the cost of going low. A five-card hand with your engine beats a seven-card hand without it.
• Aggro / go-wide: Prioritize a fast, curve-out start. A slow, do-nothing keep undercuts the whole point of the deck.
• Control / midrange: The most forgiving. You want mana plus interaction or card advantage, and you can afford a slower hand because your deck wants to play the long game anyway.

Worth a brief mention: many casual pods use house-rule mulligans to smooth out games — the most common being some form of "mulligan freely until you find a workable hand." Variants like Partial Paris (set aside any number of cards, draw that many minus one) or a Brainstorm-style mulligan exist too. These make games more consistent — which helps precons, but, as experienced players note, helps tuned combo decks even more. Always confirm your table's mulligan rules before game one; it's a genuine power-level lever, not just a courtesy.

10. Where Players Misplay

11. Frequently Asked Questions

Is the first mulligan really free in Commander?

In multiplayer Commander (three or more players), yes — your first mulligan doesn't count toward the cards you bottom, so you keep a full seven. The exception is Duel Commander (1v1), which uses the standard London rule with no free mulligan.

How many lands should I keep?

As a rule of thumb, three to five lands in a typical 36–38 land deck, plus something to do with them. Zero–one or six–seven lands are usually ships. But land count alone isn't the whole story — a two-land hand with ramp and card draw can be a fine keep.

Do I need my commander in my opening hand?

No. Your commander starts in the command zone and is always available to cast, so you never need to draw it. Evaluate your hand on lands and plan, not on whether your commander showed up.

How low is too low to mulligan?

There's no hard limit, but each mulligan past the free one costs a card, and the value drops fast below five. Most players stop at six or five unless they're digging for a specific combo piece. A functional five usually beats a digging-to-four gamble.

What if my pod uses house mulligan rules?

Common ones include unlimited mulligans until you find a workable hand, Partial Paris, or a Brainstorm-style draw-and-bottom. They make games smoother but also boost consistency-reliant decks. Always confirm the rule before the first game — it affects everyone's expected power level.

12. Quick Cheat Sheet

Keep building: see our budget dual lands guide (a smoother mana base means fewer mulligans), the Golgari budget staples, and the budget lifegain guide for more Commander building.

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