TLDR
- Keep hands that can make useful plays during the first three turns.
- Two lands can work with cheap ramp or card selection. Three lands do not automatically make a hand good.
- Your opening hand should support your commander without depending entirely on it.
- Use the free multiplayer mulligan when a hand is questionable, but do not throw away a functional hand while chasing Sol Ring.
- Repeated mulligan problems usually point to deckbuilding problems.
A Commander opening hand can contain seven individually good cards and still be terrible.
That is the problem. Players look at recognizable staples, expensive finishers, or a card they have been waiting all night to cast, then convince themselves the hand will work. Three turns later, they have one tapped land, a mana rock they cannot cast, and several impressive cards serving as decorative hand accessories.
This Commander mulligan guide is built around a simpler question: What will this hand actually do?
A good opening hand does not need to be explosive. It does not need your best card. It does not need a perfect curve. But it should give you a realistic way to develop mana, participate in the game, and move toward the plan your deck was built to execute.
How Commander Mulligans Work
Commander normally uses the London mulligan.
You draw seven cards. If you choose to mulligan, you shuffle those cards back into your library and draw another seven. Once you keep, you put one card on the bottom of your library for each counted mulligan you took.
In a multiplayer game, your first mulligan is free. That first mulligan does not increase the number of cards you must put on the bottom. In practical terms, you can reject your first seven and still begin with seven cards.
After that, the cost starts to matter. Your next kept hand becomes six cards, followed by five, four, and so on.
Some casual groups use more generous house rules. A table might allow unlimited free mulligans as long as nobody appears to be hunting for a specific card. That can produce better games when decks are inconsistent, but it should be discussed before anyone draws an opening hand.
What a Good Commander Opening Hand Needs
There is no universal seven-card combination that every Commander deck should keep. A low-curve creature deck and a slow control deck are looking for different things.
Still, most playable hands provide three basic elements.
Usable Mana
Your lands and other mana sources must cast the spells in your hand.
That sounds obvious, but players often count lands without checking colors. A three-land hand is not functional if your first spell requires green mana and all three lands produce something else.
Tapped lands matter too. A hand with three lands that all enter tapped may technically have mana, but it can leave you one full turn behind the table. That may be acceptable in a slower deck. It may be disastrous when your commander needs to enter early.
An Early Action
Most Commander decks should do something useful before turn four.
That action could be:
- Casting a mana rock or ramp spell
- Playing a cheap creature
- Drawing or filtering cards
- Holding up relevant interaction
- Setting up the graveyard
- Deploying an engine piece
- Preparing to cast the commander
Passing the first three turns is sometimes correct for a control deck. But it should be intentional. “I have nothing to do” is not the same as “I am keeping mana open because my deck operates at instant speed.”
A Coherent Plan
The cards should work together.
A hand with ramp, lands, and a useful four-drop has a clear sequence. A hand with two sacrifice payoffs but no creatures or sacrifice outlet does not. A hand filled with equipment but no creature may become good later, but it is not ready yet.
Your opening seven does not need to contain your entire strategy. It needs to begin it.
Commander Mulligan Guide: Five Questions Before You Keep
Before keeping an opening hand, ask these five questions.
1. What Are My First Three Turns?
Read the hand as a sequence instead of a collection of cards.
A reasonable answer might be:
- Turn one: Play a land.
- Turn two: Cast a mana rock.
- Turn three: Cast a draw engine.
- Turn four: Cast the commander with protection available soon after.
That hand has structure.
A bad answer sounds like this:
- Turn one: Play a tapped land.
- Turn two: Hopefully draw another land.
- Turn three: Hopefully draw the correct color.
- Turn four: Maybe begin playing Magic.
Hope is part of every card game. It should not be your entire mana base.
2. Can My Lands Cast My Spells?
Check color requirements, not just total mana.
A two-color deck can still open a hand with the wrong half of its mana base. Three- and four-color decks have an even greater risk of producing plenty of mana without producing the mana they actually need.
Also check fetch lands, land-search spells, mana rocks, and cheap card selection. A two-land hand with reliable fixing may be safer than a three-land hand with awkward colors.
3. Does the Hand Work Without My Commander?
Your commander is always available, which makes it reasonable to keep hands that use it as an early play. But your hand should not completely collapse if the commander is removed.
Suppose your opening seven contains lands and four cards that only function while your commander is on the battlefield. That hand may look synergistic, but it is also fragile. One removal spell can turn it into a pile of delayed payoffs.
A stronger hand helps cast the commander while also containing ramp, draw, interaction, or another card that functions independently.
4. Does the Hand Fit the Table?
The pregame conversation should influence your mulligan decision.
Against fast combo decks, a slow value hand may not be enough. You may need cheap interaction or a faster clock.
Against creature-heavy decks, early blockers and removal become more useful. Against slower battlecruiser decks, you may be able to keep a hand that takes an extra turn to get moving.
This does not mean you need a perfect counter for every opponent. It means a hand should be judged in the game you are about to play, not in an imaginary average game.
5. How Many Draws Improve the Hand?
A risky hand is easier to keep when many cards in the deck make it functional.
Consider a two-land hand. It may be reasonable if any land, cheap ramp spell, cantrip, or draw effect moves the plan forward. That gives you many useful draws.
A one-land hand that only works after drawing an untapped green source is different. It does not need “another card.” It needs one narrow category of card immediately.
The more specific the required topdeck becomes, the more likely you should mulligan.
Stop Counting Lands and Start Reading the Sequence
“Three lands means keep” is one of the most persistent pieces of casual Commander advice.
It is also incomplete.
Three lands, a two-mana ramp spell, card draw, interaction, and a castable threat is an easy keep in many decks.
But three lands, two seven-mana creatures, a board wipe, and a spell that only works after your commander attacks is probably not a functional hand. You have enough lands to begin. You do not have enough action to matter.
The reverse can also be true. Two lands may be enough when your hand contains a one-mana card-selection spell and a two-mana ramp spell. The same two lands are much less convincing when every nonland card costs four or more.
Read the turns. Do not simply count the cardboard.
Those Games’ guide to MTG tempo explains why early turns matter even in multiplayer. Falling behind does not always mean losing life. Sometimes it means spending several turns trying to become functional while everyone else develops mana, cards, and board presence.
Sample Commander Opening Hands
These examples are intentionally generic. Exact decisions still depend on your commander, deck construction, and opponents.
| Opening Hand | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Three correctly colored lands, a two-mana rock, cheap draw, removal, and a four-drop | Keep | The hand has mana, development, interaction, and a clear sequence. |
| Two lands, a one-mana draw spell, a two-mana ramp spell, and several castable midgame cards | Usually keep | Multiple draws improve the hand, and the early spells help find or create more mana. |
| One land, Sol Ring, and five cards costing four or more | Mulligan | Sol Ring does not fix the missing colored mana or guarantee the second land. |
| Four lands, two expensive finishers, and a board wipe | Usually mulligan | The hand may survive, but it does little to advance a plan. |
| Three lands, an early creature, a commander enabler, protection, and card draw | Keep | The cards support one another without relying on a single topdeck. |
| Two lands producing the wrong colors and several otherwise strong spells | Mulligan | Card quality does not matter when the spells cannot be cast. |
| Three lands, two removal spells, a counterspell, and no proactive play | Deck dependent | Strong for control at a fast table, but poor for a proactive deck in a slow pod. |
Mulligan Based on What Your Deck Does
A useful Commander mulligan guide cannot treat every archetype the same way.
Aggressive Decks
Creature-heavy and combat-focused decks need early pressure.
A hand with lands but no creature before turn four is usually too slow. Aggressive decks also need to consider recovery. A hand that empties quickly without a draw engine may deal early damage and then disappear after the first board wipe.
Look for early creatures, reliable colors, and either card draw or a way to rebuild.
Ramp and Battlecruiser Decks
Large-creature decks often tempt players into keeping hands filled with exciting finishers.
Do not keep the payoff without the ramp.
A Dragon deck opening with several Dragons but no play before turn five has shown you the fun part of the deck without showing you how to reach it. Look for land development, mana rocks, cost reducers, or early draw.
Control Decks
Control hands are harder to judge because passing with open mana can be part of the plan.
Still, interaction needs context. Three removal spells are not automatically useful if they all answer creatures and the table is playing spell-based engines. A good control hand usually has reliable mana, relevant interaction, and a way to avoid running out of cards.
Control does not mean doing nothing. It means choosing when to act.
Graveyard and Synergy Decks
These decks need enablers as much as payoffs.
A reanimation spell is not useful if nothing can enter the graveyard. A sacrifice payoff does not help without creatures and a sacrifice outlet. Tribal support cards need actual members of the tribe.
Keep hands that begin the engine rather than hands that only reward an engine already running.
Combo and cEDH Decks
Faster decks can mulligan more aggressively because early speed and interaction matter so much. They may look for fast mana, tutors, card selection, protection, or a specific type of disruptive spell.
But aggressive mulliganing should still serve a plan. Throwing away functional sevens to chase the strongest possible opener can leave you with fewer resources and a hand that is only slightly faster.
Know what the deck is trying to accomplish and which opening pieces are genuinely essential.
How Hard Should You Mulligan?
The free multiplayer mulligan should make you less willing to tolerate a questionable first hand.
If the hand has bad colors, no early play, or no clear route forward, send it back. You are not losing a card.
But “free” does not mean you should reject every ordinary hand until you find something explosive. A functional seven is valuable. Chasing a perfect opening can turn a solid hand into a six-card gamble.
Once you reach six cards, the standard changes slightly. You still need a functioning hand, but it does not need to be elegant. At five cards, a realistic path into the game is often enough.
The command zone helps here. Unlike most Magic formats, your central build-around card does not need to appear in your opening hand. That gives a five- or six-card hand a dependable future play, assuming its mana works.
The older advice to look for a “realistic route” becomes more important as the hand gets smaller. The fewer cards you keep, the less useful it is to chase a textbook opening. You are trying to start the game, not win a deck photography contest.
Common Commander Mulligan Mistakes
Keeping Any Hand With Sol Ring
Sol Ring is powerful. It is not a permission slip to ignore everything else.
Ask what the extra colorless mana casts. Ask how you produce colored mana. Ask what happens after the first burst of acceleration.
Sol Ring plus one land and several expensive colored spells may still be a mulligan.
Keeping Expensive Cards Because They Are Good
A card can be excellent in your deck and poor in your opening hand.
Board wipes, finishers, large value engines, and expensive protection spells may be important later. That does not mean you need them before the game starts.
Planning Around One Perfect Draw
“I only need to draw a land” is not always reassuring.
Which land? Does it need to enter untapped? Does it need to produce a certain color? Do you need it on the first draw step?
A hand that needs one of twenty cards is different from a hand that needs one of five.
Ignoring Land Speed
A hand containing several tapped lands may have the correct colors while still producing a poor sequence.
Think about when each mana source becomes usable. A land entering tapped on turn one may not matter. Three tapped lands in a row probably will.
Keeping Interaction That Does Not Matter
Interaction should answer the problems your opponents are likely to present.
A hand filled with creature removal may feel responsible, but it does little against a table built around artifacts, enchantments, graveyards, or noncreature combos.
Flexible interaction is especially valuable when you do not know what the table will look like.
Your Opening Hands Can Diagnose the Deck
Frequent mulligans are not always bad luck.
Draw several sample hands when building or updating a deck. Play out the first few turns without giving yourself favorable topdecks. You will quickly notice recurring problems.
Common warning signs include:
- Too few lands
- Too many cards costing five or more
- Not enough one- and two-mana plays
- Too many lands entering tapped
- Poor color distribution
- Ramp that costs too much to fix early hands
- Card draw that only works after the deck is already established
- Too many cards that require the commander
The goal is not to make every opening hand perfect. Singleton decks will always produce awkward combinations. The goal is to reduce the number of hands that cannot participate.
And when a game still goes badly, the site’s guide to playing from behind in Commander can help separate a recoverable position from a game that requires a much riskier line.
Final Thoughts
A good Commander opening hand is not necessarily powerful. It is functional.
It produces the right colors. It makes early plays. It supports the deck’s plan. It gives you more than one useful draw. And it does not require the rest of the table to wait while you assemble the ability to cast a spell.
Use the free mulligan when the first hand does not work. Keep a solid seven when it does. As the hand gets smaller, focus less on perfection and more on finding a realistic route into the game.
Most importantly, stop asking whether the cards are good.
Ask what the hand does.
FAQs
How Many Lands Should Be in a Commander Opening Hand?
Two to four lands is a common functional range, but the correct number depends on the deck. Two lands can work with cheap ramp or card draw. Four lands can work when the remaining cards provide useful early plays. Evaluate the sequence and colors rather than using a fixed number.
Is the First Mulligan Free in Commander?
The first mulligan is free in multiplayer Commander. You redraw seven cards and do not put an additional card on the bottom for that first mulligan. Later mulligans reduce the number of cards you keep.
Should I Keep a One-Land Hand With Sol Ring?
Usually not. Sol Ring produces colorless mana and does not guarantee another land. Keep the hand only when your deck has enough cheap card selection, usable spells, and mana sources to make the sequence reliable.
Should I Mulligan Until I Find Ramp?
Not every deck needs ramp in its opening hand. Aggressive decks may prefer early creatures, while control decks may prioritize mana and interaction. Look for the kind of development your specific deck needs.
When Does Frequent Mulliganing Mean My Deck Needs Changes?
Repeatedly seeing the same problem is the clearest warning sign. If opening hands regularly lack lands, colors, early plays, or independent action, adjust the deck rather than assuming every poor hand is unlucky.