TLDR: Good Commander mulligan strategy asks whether your opening hand can make relevant mana, take useful early actions, and begin your deck’s actual plan. Do not keep merely because the hand contains seven cards and three lands. Commander’s multiplayer free mulligan gives you room to reject a technically playable hand that is functionally asleep.
The best opening hands form a short sequence rather than a pile of individually good cards. You should be able to describe the first few turns without inventing convenient topdecks: play these lands, cast this setup spell, hold this interaction, or deploy the commander on schedule. If the explanation starts with “assuming I draw,” the hand is asking the top of your library to finish building it.
How the Commander mulligan works
Magic uses the London mulligan procedure: after choosing to mulligan, you shuffle your hand into your library and draw a new hand equal to your starting hand size. After all mulligans are finished, you put cards from the new hand on the bottom of your library according to the number of counted mulligans. Wizards introduced this draw-full-then-bottom system to reduce non-games while retaining a cost for repeated mulligans. Wizards’ London mulligan announcement explains that design.
In multiplayer Magic, the first mulligan is free. That means your first replacement hand remains seven cards. If you mulligan again, you draw seven and bottom one; mulligan a third time, and you draw seven and bottom two. The free mulligan is a multiplayer rule, not a special Commander-only favor.
Some playgroups use more generous house rules, but do not assume an unfamiliar pod does. Commander explicitly accommodates pregame discussion and mutually agreed expectations, so clarify any house mulligan before hands are drawn. The official Commander rules page provides the broader social-play context.
The four-question Commander mulligan strategy
Evaluate an opening hand by asking four questions in order. A hand that fails early in the sequence should need an unusually strong reason to survive.
- Can this hand produce the colors and total mana my early plays require?
- Can it take at least one relevant action before the game has substantially developed?
- Does it advance this deck’s plan rather than merely contain generically powerful cards?
- Is that plan appropriate for this pod’s expected speed and threats?
Notice what is missing: “Does this hand contain three lands?” Land count is evidence, not a verdict. Three lands that all enter tapped, miss a crucial color, and support no spell before turn four can be worse than two untapped lands accompanied by reliable selection or inexpensive acceleration.
Judge mana as a sequence, not a quantity
Start by mapping what each source can actually cast. A four-color land base may produce plenty of theoretical mana while still failing to supply the two specific colors needed by your first meaningful spell. Conversely, a two-land hand may be stable when both lands produce the right colors and the hand contains inexpensive selection that sees additional cards.
Ask these questions while mapping the first turns:
- Which lands enter tapped, and what does that delay?
- Can the opening sources cast the acceleration or selection in the hand?
- Does the mana rock improve the sequence, or merely replace the land you are missing?
- Can a land tutor be cast before the color problem matters?
- If a modal double-faced card must be played as a land, is the remaining hand still worth keeping?
- Does the sequence depend on drawing another land immediately?
Mana rocks deserve particular skepticism. A two-land hand with a two-mana rock is not automatically a three-mana hand. You must first make both land drops, produce the rock’s casting colors, and accept any timing limitations. If missing the second land prevents you from casting the object that was supposed to fix your mana, the hand has drawn a small circular diagram of its own failure.
A one-land hand can occasionally be defensible when the deck has abundant one-mana selection, the source casts that selection, and multiple draws can rescue the sequence. It becomes much less defensible when the land enters tapped, the selection costs a missing color, or the deck’s next useful plays cost three or more. Similarly, two lands may be enough for a low-curve deck but dangerously optimistic in a list built around expensive ramp and a six-mana commander.
Keep a plan, not a collection of card types
A hand can check conventional boxes—lands, ramp, removal and payoff—without functioning as a unit. The useful question is what those cards accomplish together.
Suppose a hand contains three lands, a mana rock, a board wipe and two expensive finishers. It looks balanced in a decklist spreadsheet. In play, it may do nothing consequential for several turns, with the wipe serving as the only bridge to the late game. That can be acceptable for a reactive control deck at a measured table. It is poor for a proactive counters deck whose commander must arrive early and begin generating momentum.
Your commander matters here, but it should not become an excuse. If the commander supplies cards, mana or a repeatable engine, an opening hand can reasonably prioritize casting it. If the commander requires an established board to become useful, “I can cast my commander” is not yet a complete plan.
This is where mulligan decisions expose deckbuilding problems. If hands repeatedly contain ramp but no productive follow-up, examine the balance discussed in how much ramp a Commander deck actually needs. If otherwise reasonable hands repeatedly lack the right colors, early plays or redundancy, use a broader Commander deckbuilding checklist rather than blaming a long streak of bad luck.
Different archetypes need different opening promises
There is no universal Commander keep because archetypes buy time and convert resources differently.
Aggro and tempo
Prioritize early board development and clean sequencing. A hand full of powerful four- and five-mana threats may already be too slow if the deck wins by establishing pressure before opponents organize. Tapped lands carry a larger cost when they erase an entire early deployment window.
Ramp and midrange
Look for a bridge from mana development into something that uses it. All-ramp hands can empty quickly and accomplish little; all-payoff hands can stare longingly at six-drops. The keepable version connects its acceleration to a commander, card-advantage engine or relevant threat.
Control
Control hands need mana stability and answers aligned with likely threats. Keeping one narrow removal spell is not the same as being interactive. Consider whether the answer reaches the permanent type or combo axis that matters and whether holding up its mana prevents all other development.
Combo and reanimator
Judge whether the hand assembles, searches for or protects a coherent line. A tutor is not automatically a plan if the mana cannot cast it promptly or if fetching one piece leaves no route to the rest. Reanimator similarly needs a useful relationship among its enabler, graveyard target and reanimation effect—not simply one card from each category somewhere in the deck.
Commander-centric engines
Ask how vulnerable the sequence is to one removal spell. If the hand spends every resource casting the commander and becomes inert when it dies, it may be functional only in a goldfish. A small independent play, protection spell or recovery route can matter more than an additional flashy synergy piece.
Let the pod change what counts as functional
Opening-hand quality is contextual. Known commanders, turn order and the table’s stated expectations can all change which resources matter.
At a faster table, an opening hand may need cheap interaction or a genuinely quick proactive line. At a slower battlecruiser table, stable colors and sustained development can matter more than holding a narrow answer from turn one. Going first makes a fragile mana sequence slightly more attractive because you begin developing before the rest of the pod, but it does not repair missing colors or transform an inert hand into a plan.
Use commander information as a clue rather than a screenplay. An opposing commander may suggest graveyard, artifact or creature-based play, but the hidden ninety-nine cards still matter. Mulliganing a solid hand solely to find one perfect hate card can leave you with a weaker hand against the other two opponents—or against a version of the deck that is not built as expected.
What changes when you go to six or five?
The free mulligan should usually be used decisively. Trading an inert seven for another seven has little downside beyond revealing that the first hand failed. Once mulligans reduce your starting resources, however, perfection becomes expensive.
At six, prioritize a stable sequence over a hand that does everything. Keep the mana and cards central to your first useful line; bottom expensive redundancy, situational interaction or a payoff you cannot cast soon. The right six often looks less exciting than the discarded seven but participates in the game earlier.
At five, seek a compact engine: sufficient mana plus either early development, selection, or a commander that replenishes resources. Do not chase an ideal seven-card pattern by repeatedly throwing back playable hands. Commander provides more opposing resources and more time between your turns than a duel, but neither fact makes a nonfunctional five better than a modest, executable one.
A quick keep-or-mulligan checklist
Keep more confidently when the hand has the following qualities:
- The first several mana sources produce the colors your actual sequence needs.
- You can take a useful early action without relying on a specific topdeck.
- Ramp or selection connects to a meaningful follow-up.
- The hand supports your deck’s primary plan or a sensible backup plan.
- Your interaction matches a plausible early threat at this table.
- The hand remains useful if the commander is answered once.
Consider mulliganing when any of these warning signs appear:
- The hand is described as good only because it contains a conventional number of lands.
- Multiple spells require colors the available sources cannot produce.
- A mana rock, tutor or draw spell is being counted as guaranteed rescue even though it cannot be cast on time.
- Every relevant card costs four or more mana and the hand creates no early bridge.
- The hand contains exciting payoffs but no setup, or setup with no productive destination.
- The entire sequence collapses unless the next one or two draws are exactly right.
Turn mulligan failures into deck data
After several games, review why hands were rejected and why kept hands stalled. Recurring color failures suggest source problems. Repeated hands with nothing below four mana point toward the curve. Hands overloaded with acceleration but short on action may indicate too much ramp or too little card advantage. If the deck always needs one specific effect, it may need additional functional copies rather than more optimistic mulligans.
The practical next step is simple: draw sample opening hands and narrate the first three turns using only the cards present. Record whether each hand has colors, development, a plan and resilience. Commander mulligan strategy improves quickly once “this looks keepable” becomes “this hand does these specific things.” Keep the sequence, not the seven-card illusion.