Mulligan Charade - Who Shows First?

[Lawman]

The rules state that you declare your mulligan and the oppo continues on with their set up. It is clear. You seem to think it is clear as mud.

@Ditto: To state that I dont take game theory or dedication to this game seriously is a great insult to me and to 'Pop. I suggest you apologize. Knowing the area you come from (Vince's), I am surprised with this attitude. I have given years to this game, judging, being a PTO, involved in the Judge's Training Manual with 'snore and others. Please.....that is a new low for anyone.

Keith

---------- Post added 07/27/2010 at 09:53 AM ----------

And where does it say that the opponent should gain this advantage?



The DECLARATION of the mulligan is the PROBLEM itself. That's the knowledge that is causing the advantage.

And while your word is solid, your thinking about game theory and dedication to the seriousness of this game seems to be not. This is our job to nit pick the fine details of the processes used in this game. You always seem to take a whimsical hand wavy "it'll work out" approach, rather than addressing the issues you should address.

See above^

Keith

 

[Ditto]

The rules state that you declare your mulligan and the oppo continues on with their set up. It is clear. You seem to think it is clear as mud.

@Ditto: To state that I dont take game theory or dedication to this game seriously is a great insult to me and to 'Pop. I suggest you apologize. Knowing the area you come from (Vince's), I am surprised with this attitude. I have given years to this game, judging, being a PTO, involved in the Judge's Training Manual with 'snore and others. Please.....that is a new low for anyone.

Keith

The opponent continues from WHERE though? WHERE were they when this happened? Had they already laid their basic? Had they not yet? Had they even drawn their hand yet?

As for your dedication comment, please look through your posts and see how many times you have merely dismissed a problem as a non issue. At least in debates I'm interested/involved in, it seems to happen frequently.

I might also note that you just got done calling me an angle shooter. Pot and Kettler.

Also worth noting that the comment specifically calls out game theory and rule issues, not this game as a whole.

I'll come back to this debate later when I'm able to.

 

[vanderbilt_grad]

Keith the tactical choices one makes can have a significant impact on the outcome of a game. I deliberately chose GeChamp and LuxChomp as my examples because these aren’t classic “donk decks” with just one possible opening strategy. Given multiple options at the start of a game the player has to weigh the odds of doing one thing or another. Knowing you will have extra cards in hand to start the game can influence what Pokemon you use to start.

From the Rulebook

What if you don’t have a basic Pokemon card in your hand?
Then show your hand to your opponent, shuffle it back into your deck, and draw 7 new cards. Your opponent continues his or her set-up and can choose to draw an extra card after setting aside his or her Prize cards. If you still do not have any Basic Pokemon cards in your new hand, you repeat this process, but your opponent can draw an extra card each time!

The implicit understanding here is that your opponent could be at any point in setup when you Mulligan. They could be shuffling. They could have a basic out. They could be staring at the 7 cards they drew to set up.

From the Pokemon Organized Play Tournament Rules

21.1. Pregame Time Limit
Prior to each game, players have two minutes to shuffle their decks and present them to their
opponents for further shuffling or cutting. This two‐minute limit includes resolving mulligans.
The round should not begin until this two‐minute period has expired.

Again there is nothing here about when certain actions occur, just an expectation that the mulligan will be resolved in a timely fashion … which was ironically one of Rob’s points, that the “false start” made things faster.

It’s also obvious that the “staring contest” could result in issues if it breaks this 2 minutes limit.

 

[Lawman]

@Ditto: If you are trying to play the angle and keep that advantage to your side, when the rules state you declare your mulligan during the set up phase and you dont want to, then you are angle shooting.

You never did answer the Q on who should get the adv. when one mulligans and the other doesnt?

Keith

 

[xcfrisco]

Bottom line...the rules state that the player w/o the mulligan should garner that tidbit during their set up. They still dont get to see the oppo's hand until after they placed their active face down and lay out their prizes. The player not wanting to reveal the mulligan situation at all is the one trying to cull all the advantages back to them! The rules say that isnt the case.

Keith

I assume the non-mulligan player in not allowed to draw an additional card before he sets his basic then, correct? (And this basic is unchangeable once it has been set as the active?)


And I think the issue of both player stalling to put down their basics belongs in another thread. Moreover, since the mulligan players is supposed to IMMEDIATELY declare that he has a mulligan (ie after he draws his 7th) any stalling by said mulligan player to reveal his mulligan should warrant a judge being called over, and maybe a penalty imposed.

It appears that revealing that one has a mulligan is just apart of pokemon, and that the rulemakers of this tcg are penalizing the mulligan player for not putting enough basics in their deck and holding up the tourney, lol. (This seems pretty fair to me).

 

[Lawman]

I assume the non-mulligan player in not allowed to draw an additional card before he sets his basic then, correct? (And this basic is unchangeable once it has been set as the active?)


And I think the issue of both player stalling to put down their basics belongs in another thread. Moreover, since the mulligan players is supposed to IMMEDIATELY declare that he has a mulligan (ie after he draws his 7th) any stalling by said mulligan player to reveal his mulligan should warrant a judge being called over, and maybe a penalty imposed.

It appears that revealing that one has a mulligan is just apart of pokemon, and that the rulemakers of this tcg are penalizing the mulligan player for not putting enough basics in their deck and holding up the tourney, lol. (This seems pretty fair to me).

You have up to 2 mins for set up. Once you shuffle, offer oppo chance to shuffle/cut, you have used most of that time up. If you are "playing games" with the declaration of whether you have a mulligan or not is the issue. The game states you delcare the mulligan to the oppo.

The issue is the timing. Can/should this occur before or after the oppo places their active face down? To me, it doesnt really matter bc I will play MY deck to its best ability based on my opening hand. Yes, there is a slight advantage to getting an extra card in the opening hand. You still have to choose your active from the initial 7 cards. NOT the 8th or 9th card drawn. You may whiff on that "one card" to get you really going too. Decks fail you all the time at differing times. You still dont know if you will be going 1st or 2nd either. So, the BTS with 'chop, 'choke and 'champ in the hand does zippo for you if you go 1st.

Keith

 

[xcfrisco]

You still dont know if you will be going 1st or 2nd either. So, the BTS with 'chop, 'choke and 'champ in the hand does zippo for you if you go 1st.

Keith

The biggest trump to this is sableye based decks/starts (which are becoming extremely popular) and during the 2nd and 3rd rounds in a top cut match.



But I digress, the knowledge that one never knows what that 8th card will be makes it so its not such a HUGE advantage to the player who didnt mulligan imo.



*lets calculate for %'s sake though. assuming you have 8 cards in your deck that will aid in you getting your "donk" or fantastic start (with 8 being a pretty liiberally high #) and also assuming none of these cards have went into your prizes (a slightly fallous assumption but lets just keep it simple)

60-7 drawn cards-6 prizes=47 cards left in the deck

8 cards needed to donk ( lets say your looking for 1 of 4 rare candies or 1 of 4 BTS with the machamp example. Or better yet, using the sableye example, 1 of special darks or 1 of 4 basic darks)

8/47=17% chance of drawing into that amazing card you need to win the game outright. I don't think 17% is exactly something to get super worked up about.

But lets say you play 4 multi's too with the sableye (and have an astounding 12 cards you can draw, 1/5th of your deck, to complete your monster hand)

12/47=26%. Again, not a number i would go crazy over.

 

[darthtace]

The implicit understanding here is that your opponent could be at any point in setup when you Mulligan. They could be shuffling. They could have a basic out. They could be staring at the 7 cards they drew to set up.

Actually, the understanding is you and your opponent should go through each step of the process in tandem. Thus, since mulligan is under #3 (draw your hand), before playing basics, your opponent can know if you need to mulligan before playing their basic. But, it also states for your opponent to continue his set-up before showing your hand, so they have to do step 4 at least or they didn't follow that part.

Yes the wording is muddy, yes it could be changed to be much more precise, but in the meantime, just quit whining about it and play the game.

 

[NoPoke]

darthace: that isn't written down anywhere either. If it is correct that both players go through the steps together then the vast majority of games that I've observed start with a sequence of errors. In most games players set up independantly.


=============

In the limit there is a stalemate but only if both players push the interpretation of how the game starts to the extreme. It also requires both players to not cooperate in finding a way out of the stalemate. There are lots of places in the tcg where players don't follow the letter of the rules. The common one is when you are going to go into your deck again after a search [radar and bebes for example]

two extreeme players meet

E1: have you got a basic?
E2: I don't have to say. Well maybe I do but you have to as well.
E1: Ok that wont work unless we trust each other. {thinks: which we don't} Have you made a decision as to how to start?
E2: Yes. Have you?
E1: Yes.
E2: well...
E1: My decision changes if you have a mulligan.
E2: Mine too.
E1: so declare together?
E2: Sure, but how?
E1: I'm going to take a card from my hand. If it is a basic it will be my starting pokemon, if not then I have a muligan. You do the same.
E2: I see, that way we both make a decision and neither of us can change his mind.
E1: Nods.

Both players take a card and move it towards the active position on the board. Both are happy that they gave nothing away. Both cards are placed face down as neither player had a muligan.

Personally I don't have much of a problem with the invented procedure of a false starter being placed for a muligan. But... I do have a problem with the opponent not knowing what is going on. I do have a problem with it being a surprise for any staff watching when the false card is exposed.

 

[Box of Fail]

Regarding everyone complaining about the 'advantage' gained by knowing you are drawing another card: The question, really, is whether the advantage is intended.

And I'd wager it is.

 

[waynegg]

In these situations the player who needs just 1 card out of many that he runs gains a material advantage by waiting to see if his opponent has a mulligan or not before deciding to place his starter.

That person only gains a perceived advantage, not an actual advantage (above getting to draw an extra card) unless the opponent shows their hand before your basic is set. Knowing whether the player has a mulligan or not doesn't change the top card (which they are going to draw after setting out prizes) of their deck. It also doesn't correlate into what their opponent will draw. They could just as easily draw into everything they need. In these cases of over thinking, you are more likely to shoot yourself in the foot than to make the perfect strategic choice.

 

[PokePop]

Just stating that you haven't convinced 'Pop or I (and others) yet on why this is truly a problem.

Well, I am actually starting to see the point of the players that knowing that you will draw at least one extra card can change the math of what to start with.

However, under current rules, what I said above applies.
Unless you get both players to agree to place actives/announce mulligans simultaneously.
That's the best you can do with current floor rules.

It is time to discuss floor rules for next year, so this discussion has value for that.

But the "fake active" needs to be dead. It will be penalized.

 

[Rainbowgym]

LOL, you are talking about a national champion.

Indeed and what difference does that make, I live under a roof with 2 multiple National Champions and even they make wrong assumptions sometimes.
I will quote what was written

so I figured if he put out his basics first I would have a better chance of him not starting with an Ambipom if he had it in his hand. He laid his only basic, so I put down my Garchomp

Just tell me WHY the opponent should not start with Ambipom?
Tell me why this National Champion thinks his opponent has only 1 basic?
Untill the coinflip you have time to put down more basics, so what was there to figure out? NOTHING.
The same goes for immediatly placing your lone basic (Garchomp), your opponent still doesn't know if you have more (in this case there weren't) untill the coinflip.


Knowing that the opponent has a single basic is a good reason to start with Ambipom. As it is not a free retreater its not the best starter if you are not going to donk the opponent, so its a good assumption.

Again, you don't know if your opponent will lay down more basics after he/she laid down prizes so what are we talking about, I would say wrong mindgames.


Again, playing every legal angle is what separates champions from the rest of us.

No, that little part of luck is what seperates champions from a lot of us.

 

[Kayle]

Except the whole issue is that the opponent knows you have a mulligan before they play their pokemon. So TELLING them you have a mulligan before they play their pokemon doesn't solve anything.

Why would that possibly matter? If you're banking on whether or not to draw an extra card, wow are you trying too hard. (kidding)

I'm pretty sure that this is not an "unfair advantage" and in fact was the intent of the system. You should be able to know whether or not your opponent has basics before you bother laying any of your own.

 

[AyameHikaru]

I agree with Kayle.

Another angle to consider is that maybe the INTENT is to give the player who got a mulligan a slight disadvantage. I honestly don't think it's that much of a difference, but it is a difference, so maybe it's deliberate.

 

[Lawman]

Well, I am actually starting to see the point of the players that knowing that you will draw at least one extra card can change the math of what to start with.

However, under current rules, what I said above applies.
Unless you get both players to agree to place actives/announce mulligans simultaneously.
That's the best you can do with current floor rules.

It is time to discuss floor rules for next year, so this discussion has value for that.

But the "fake active" needs to be dead. It will be penalized.

'Pop: I understand the math too. Seems like the intent of the game is to give that slight adv. to the player that doesnt mulligan. His/her deck did what it was supposed to do....get a basic in the opening hand. There should be a slight disadvantage if you fail to get a basic in the opening 7 cards.

Look, if you play this game, no matter what deck you play, high or low or normal count of basics, you WILL mulligan at some point. That is the probability and statistics of a 60 card deck with restrictions on cards (4 of any one, except basic energy). In GA, I played dialga tank w/ a 1 ambipom G tech. One day, I started with the lone ambi 2/5 games. The odds on that happening are fairly low.

Keith

 

[Ditto]

'Pop: I understand the math too. Seems like the intent of the game is to give that slight adv. to the player that doesnt mulligan. His/her deck did what it was supposed to do....get a basic in the opening hand. There should be a slight disadvantage if you fail to get a basic in the opening 7 cards.

Look, if you play this game, no matter what deck you play, high or low or normal count of basics, you WILL mulligan at some point. That is the probability and statistics of a 60 card deck with restrictions on cards (4 of any one, except basic energy). In GA, I played dialga tank w/ a 1 ambipom G tech. One day, I started with the lone ambi 2/5 games. The odds on that happening are fairly low.

Keith

I don't see anywhere that directly shows that a mulligan should be an advantage or disadvantage for either player. A mulligan is simply the unfortunate truth to a game that uses randomness to determine it's start. As you've said, no matter what you do (short of playing 54 basic pokemon) you WILL mulligan at some point (or you may never, even if you only play 1 basic) and so it is just an unfortunate circumstance that the makers of the game had to figure out a way to deal with. No where do I determine any intent for this to be good or bad, but merely just a truth.

That being said, here are some questions that I think we need to sit down and answer.

1. Is getting a mulligan supposed to be disadvantageous?
2. Is your opponent mulliganing supposed to be advantageous?
3. Is the setup of both players supposed to be asynchronous?
4. When is the knowledge of whether the opponent has a mulligan or not supposed to be obtained?
5. When is the verification of the opponent's mulligan supposed to happen?

 

[Kayle]

1. Is getting a mulligan supposed to be disadvantageous?
2. Is your opponent mulliganing supposed to be advantageous?
3. Is the setup of both players supposed to be asyncronis?
4. When is the knowledge of whether the opponent has a mulligan or not supposed to be obtained?
5. When is the verification of the opponent's mulligan supposed to happen?

1. Why not? It's not what the game intended, it is - as you said - an unfortunate circumstance. It's violating the game's basic principle and you interrupt the game's flow. (Also see below)
2. Obviously, since you have the option of drawing a card when your opponent mulligans.
3. Asynchronous? No, it's actually supposed to be at the same time, but this is obviously impossible when people get picky about whether or not they get to draw an extra card.
4. As soon as the opponent draws their hand and sees that there are no basics.
5. See above.

 

[Ditto]

1. Why not? It's not what the game intended, it is - as you said - an unfortunate circumstance. It's violating the game's basic principle and you interrupt the game's flow. (Also see below)
2. Obviously, since you have the option of drawing a card when your opponent mulligans.
3. Asynchronous? No, it's actually supposed to be at the same time, but this is obviously impossible when people get picky about whether or not they get to draw an extra card.
4. As soon as the opponent draws their hand and sees that there are no basics.
5. See above.

1. I don't see how it's "violating" the game's basic principle. It's just something that happens. How are you doing something wrong by getting a mulligan? You're not.
2. I would sort of lean towards this, but I'm not really convinced.
3. And what says that it's supposed to be at the same time? With mulligans saying that the opponent continues their setup it's actually impossible to be at the same time. However, the question is about the game creator's intent, and whether rules need to be changed to reflect that or not.
4. So you're saying the opponent is supposed to know they will be getting an extra card before they place their active?
5. So you're saying the opponent gets to see the mulligan hand before they place their active?

 

[vanderbilt_grad]

'Pop: I understand the math too. Seems like the intent of the game is to give that slight adv. to the player that doesnt mulligan. His/her deck did what it was supposed to do....get a basic in the opening hand. There should be a slight disadvantage if you fail to get a basic in the opening 7 cards.

Look, if you play this game, no matter what deck you play, high or low or normal count of basics, you WILL mulligan at some point. That is the probability and statistics of a 60 card deck with restrictions on cards (4 of any one, except basic energy). In GA, I played dialga tank w/ a 1 ambipom G tech. One day, I started with the lone ambi 2/5 games. The odds on that happening are fairly low.

Keith

I want to note that the highlighted section of your comments Keith. At hand is the question of what sort of advantage is the game supposed to give? Knowlege of your opponent's hand? Check. An extra card? Check. More intelligence on which of several cards in your hand to start? Mmmm. Probably not, but that's exactly what some players are using it for now.