Arena Mulligan Guide

 

Written by: Savjz - Find him on Twitter

Introduction

Mulliganing is a very important, yet simple part of the game. Having solid early plays sets the pace for the game, and board control snowballs heavily from first four turns letting sometime even weaker decks gain advantage and win games. Playing first or playing second affects the decisions on what to keep and what to replace greatly, so I’ll address both scenarios separately.

The most important part of mulliganing is to make sure that you don’t miss drops on turns 2 and 3. When playing as a Rogue, Shaman or Paladin, missing a drop on turn 2 is not as devastating as it is for the other classes, as you always still have a somewhat relevant play. Warrior, Priest and Hunter are hero power-wise at the other end of the class spectrum: on these classes missing a t2 play is pretty much a wasted turn. Mage and Druid can often either take down an enemy 1-toughness creature or weaken the enemy 2-drop, and whilst not as strong as dropping a 2-mana guy of our own, it is at least something. As a Warlock, getting an extra card is useful, even though it gives the opponent an early lead.

The 1-drops

Right now in arena, 1-drops should not be played very often because arena is a slow-paced format, and having 1-drops in the deck will very often lead to a card disadvantage. Warlock is an exception to this, as blood imp and flame imp are great cards, and also because warlock can make up for the card with hero power later on. If you were forced to pick a 1-drop anyway, then you should keep it in the opening hand as they are (almost all) 2-1s, and dropping it on the first turn often allows it to trade with an enemy 2-drop, as most of the 2-drops are 3-2s. However, against Mage, Druid and Rogue I would just mulligan the 1-drop away and hope to not draw it at all. This is because of how efficiently their hero powers deal with it.

Going First

When going first, the best possible hand would usually be a 2-creature (3-2), 3-creature (3-3), and a low cost creature removal(wrath, frostbolt, fiery war axe etc.). Also a fine hand would be 2-drop, 3-drop and a 4-drop. These should be kept. Note that creatures such as raid leader do not count as a 3-drop as it cannot fight any 3-drop our opponent might play. Turn 3 creature should have stats of 3-3 and nothing less. The turn 2-creature can almost be anything. Cards like dire wolf alpha are obviously not optimal empty board plays, but it still is OK if the deck is low on 2-drops and/or you are playing as warrior/priest/hunter and have to make sure to play something – it does still trade with a 3-2.

4-drops should not be kept as the first player, unless you already have both a 2-drop and a 3-drop to go with it. Even if the 4-drop would something awesome like a Chillwind Yeti, if keeping it would endanger turns 2 and 3, it is usually correct to throw it away. There are some exceptions to the Yeti – it might be a worthy keep if we have a good hero power (rogue, paladin, shaman) and at least one of the other cards is an early play. Another one really powerful 4-card that should be kept is a Truesilver Champion – same requirements as for the Yeti though. There are some other special cases like a twilight drake as warlock, but almost always 4-drops are not keep-worthy unless we have early plays already.

2x 2-mana creatures in the hand? Now when going first, in most cases one of those should be thrown away. The situation would be slightly different if they have useful abilities or stats that differ from each other, so if opponent coins a 2-drop, we can play the one that fits the situation better. If the hand is 2x bloodfen raptor, just throw one away. You won’t miss it. With double 3-drops the situation is the same. If they serve somewhat same purpose (i.e. both vanilla 3-3), just throw one away. You want to maximize the chance of a more powerful play after t3. A 3-3 on t3 is great, but you can only play one of the guys, and 3-3 on t4 just sucks.

Going second

Playing second is slightly more complex, and it offers more decision making due to the coin and having one more card you can replace. The most powerful hands here would be a solid 2-drop, into a solid coined 4-drop (Yeti is the best one), or a 2-2-3-4 with coin used on the first turn.

In situation of being the second player, a double 2-drop like 2x bloodfen raptor is actually often a keep, as you can coin one on t1, and play the other one turn 2. The first one often gets traded for an enemy spell or 2-drop, but that is ok as we do get the upper hand on the board. With double 3-drops, the weaker one should usually be ditched unless you have something awesome like a harvest golem into shattered sun cleric with coin on t2. Now if you have a solid 2-drop and a solid 4-drop, it actually might be a good option to just ditch all the 3-drops as the turn 3 play will actually not be a 3-drop.

Coining 3-drops aside of harvest golem is generally a poor strategy if we have a 2-drop we could play. If the 3-drop takes a frostbolt/wrath or similar, the coin is wasted. Some notable exceptions are Raging Worgen and Acolyte of Pain – these guys can be awesome if the opponents 2-drop has power lower than 3. They might still die to a removal, but the reward in case he doesn’t have it, is big enough.

4-drops are way better starting hand cards when going 2nd, because coining one is very powerful. Cards such as Dark Iron Dwarf, Chillwind Yeti, Twilight Drake, Violet Teacher, and class cards such as Truesilver Champion and Lightspawn should almost always be kept. Even a Dragonling Mechanic, or a Novice Engineer can be okay. This is mostly because as I have noticed and as I mentioned earlier, coining 3-drops sucks and if we aren’t coining a 2-drop on t1, then coining a 4-drop is usually the way to go. Coining on later turns than 3 does not usually provide board pressure comparable to earlier plays with it.

Cards with mana cost of 5 or more should not be kept. I used to keep & coin Venture Co. Mercenary against druids quite often as it is bound to at minimum get 2-for-1, but I still think that coining a 4-drop is better even against druids. Sometimes I have saved the coin for guys like Boulderfist Ogre, but these situations might present themselves on later draws and keeping such high mana guys would just be bad play.

The AoE

Area of effect damage spells such as Consecration and Holy Nova allow you to win games that you otherwise would lose. If you know you only have 1 spell like these in your deck, it might be a good keep at least against Paladin, Shaman and Warlock (Blood Imp) .Whether to keep or replace an AoE, requires taking the other cards in the hand and in the deck into consideration. If you have multiple AoEs, then replacing those from the starting hand is probably the right play. If you have multiples, and a solid plan provided by the other cards, you might want to keep it at least in some matchups. If you only have 1 or 2 AoE, but you are forced to replaced the other cards and risk missing t2/t3 plays, replacing might be the way to go also. Tough decisions!

TLDR:

• Going first, with only a few exceptions, replace cards with mana cost of 4 greater.
• Going second, replace unnecessary 3’s and try to either coin a 2-drop on turn 1, or a 4-drop on turn 3.
• Keeping AoE is generally good if you only have 1. Replacing AoE is generally good if you have 2+ copies