My Name is C.J. and I was on the Prototype Podcast with Ian and Dan episode 7 talking about this theory, so here it is. Every newer to moderate player in Magic, has to deal with mulligan’s now and again. Many times, this is the very thing that holds an average player from being good and taking down a FNM. I’ve read many things on how to mulligan and it still leaves me at knowing the deck. This is a process that can take a while to learn and become good at. Once you get comfortable with a deck, the meta changes and your off on a new deck, and a new learning curve. The experience you gain is slow, but in time you’ll learn what a good hand is.The Rule of 14 came to me and my play group as a way to teach a player how to judge a hand without saying” let me see, yeah I’d keep that”. It starts out by applying a number system to each card in your opening hand. After learning the value system for the cards in your opening hand, you want to be around the 14 points. Your opening hand is 7 cards and you should average 2 points per card to get a 14. If the points tell you to mulligan it now becomes The rule of 12 with a 6 card hand so on and so forth. Now how to come up with the numbers.We will start out with lands. Every player knows you need land to play cards, but many of us fall into a trap of keeping those one or two land hands or those hands with 5 lands thinking we’ll get there. This pans out sometimes but most times we hear “I got mana screwed or flooded”. Look at the lands in your hand and apply this point system to them. For the first 2 lands give those 3 points each and descend the value after that. So if your opening hand has 5 lands in it, the points look like this. For the first land and second land add the value 3 to them, 2 for the third land, 1 for the fourth land and 0 for the fifth. This gives you a total of 9 points towards your 14. This applies to Basic and Duels. Man land and lands that come into play with an ability add value to your hand. For instance; if you have Rootbound Crag in hand with a Forest ,mountain, Khalni Garden and Raging Ravine in hand your value would be: both the forest and mountain get 3 points, Rootbound Crag= 2 points, Khalni Garden= 1 point and Raging Ravine gets a 0 as a land. Both Raging Ravine and Khalni Garden get and added value to your hand. Khalni Garden gets you that token and puts a body on the field adds a =2 to the value. Raging Ravine can turn into a body for a value of 2. With these 5 lands in an opening hand you would have 13 for the five lands here. Only count man lands if you have the current mana in hand to activate it for this value. Lands that don’t produce a body such as Halimar Depths with its draw power give it a 1 towards the 14. Never count anything you can’t pay the activation cost using only whats in hand.Now to the creatures we go. Creatures are a major part of magic and nothing gets more frustrating then have a creature in hand without the mana to get him in play. All creatures count as vanilla when they are in your hand as 2 points, only if you have the mana in hand to cast them out. If a creature has a come into play ability, like Tidehollow Sculler, it gets an added value of 1 for a total of 3. So in a hand of Plains, Swamp and Tidehollow Sculler you get a 9 points value. Bloodbriad Elfhas the cascade effect when cast and gets a bonus 1 for that effort. Creatures that have a kicker only get the bonus if the mana for the kicker is in hand. Gatekeeper of Malakir and 3 swamps get you a total of 11 points. 8 for the land 3 for the gatekeeper. Creatures with tap abilities get this bonus as well. Llanowar elves and a forest get you 6 points. Although you can’t count that mana for use in another creature’s casting cost.Spells such as instants, enchantments and sorcerys get a value of 2, and get the added value much like the creatures if they give you a little more beyond the casting cost, such as cascade and kicker. Planeswlakers get a value of 3 with no bonuses to add to them. If you have more than one of the same planeswalker the rest get a 0 towards your 14. Of course, all of these spells must be able to be cast using only your opening mana for the points to be added. So lets look at a full hand…Here is an opening hand for a Red Black deck:Dragonskull summit, Swamp, Blightning, Goblin Ruinblaster, Earthquake, Terminate and Malakir Blodwitch. The values would look something like this. Dragonskull summit=3, Swamp=3, Blightning=0, Goblin Ruinblaster=0, Earthquake=2, Terminate=2 and Malakir Blodwitch=0. This hand gives us a 10 point value,which misses the 14 and should be sent back for another try. Now if we change just one card in this opening hand, swap out the Bloodwitch with a Mountain and you get this value: Dragonskull summit=3 , Swamp=3 , mountain=2 , Blightning=2 , Goblin Ruinblaster=2 , Earthquake=2 and Terminate=2. This hand gives us 16 and a hand we can work with, as it made it at or over the 14. Lets take a look at one of the best decks in standard right now, “Jund”, and apply the Rule of 14 to it and see what we come up with.Swamp=3 , Raging Ravine=3 , Lightning bolt= 2, Blightning=0 , Bloodbraid Elf=0 , Broodmate Dragon=0 and Siege-Gang Commander=0. This hand comes up short on the rule of 14 and gets sent back in the muck. Now we are going to show the vaule in a 6 card hand after the first mulligan. Remember the value we are looking for in a 6 card hand is 12.Savage Land=3, Mountian=3, Dragonskull Summit=2, Rampant growth=2, Maelstrom pulse=2 and Great Stable Stag=0. This hands gets there with 12. Even though the stag will get out with the rampant growth, try not to count it as value when you’re looking at a hand like this.This system takes a little bit of practice but once you get it, adding up the points is quick and easy. This system does not mean if you hit a high value hand like 17-20 you’ll win the game… only that you have options and a solid starting hand.

chewie

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