Mulligans & Game Setup

Commander · beginner

This page covers how a Commander game begins: seating, starting player, opening hands, and the mulligan process.

Setting up

1. Each player shuffles their 99-card library and places their commander face up in the command zone.
2. Each player sets their starting life total to 40.
3. Decide a starting player. A die roll or any agreed method works.
4. Each player draws an opening hand of 7 cards.

The starting player skips their first draw step, so they do not draw on turn one.

The London mulligan

Commander uses the London mulligan, the same mulligan used across modern Magic.

1. Look at your opening hand of 7 cards.
2. If you do not want to keep it, you mulligan: shuffle your whole hand back into your library and draw 7 new cards.
3. You may mulligan as many times as you like.
4. When you finally decide to keep a hand, put a number of cards from it on the bottom of your library equal to the number of times you mulliganed. You choose which cards.

So if you mulliganed twice and then kept, you start with 7 cards in hand but put 2 on the bottom, ending up with a 5-card hand.

Common house rule: the free first mulligan

Many casual Commander tables use a house rule where your first mulligan is free: you do not have to put a card on the bottom for it. This is not part of the official rules, but it is widespread because the format's high variance makes a too-strict mulligan feel punishing. Agree on it with your table before the game.

Deciding what to keep

A keepable Commander opening hand usually has:

• Enough lands to function (roughly two to four in a typical hand), and
• Things to do in the early turns.

Because Commander games are long, a slightly slow but stable hand is often fine. A hand with no lands, or with nothing castable for many turns, is a clear mulligan.

Source

• Official Commander rules: <https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/rules/>