Lesson 1 was over basic CCG Terminology with Tyler yesterday if you missed reading that!

Today, we’re going to explore what we look for in an opening hand and when to mulligan. This will directly play into your deckbuilding process, as you need an idea of what you want in the early game when designing your deck.

Let’s start with the most basic decision: do you need a Round 1 play? I’d argue definitively “yes,” but as more cards come out and archetypes develop further, decks will experiment with skipping Round 1. If you decide to skip, then you must keep that in mind.

Future Editor’s Note: There are decks (especially that run Energy Conversion lab) that can get by without a Rd 1 play and leveraging going first in Round 2. These decks typically still want to run 6-9 1-2 drop cards that fit their model, but they won’t necessarilly jam 3-6 more copies just to up their odds for Round 1.

Let’s crunch the deckbuilding numbers for a turn 1 play. In the left column, are number of cards in a theoretical 50-card deck that are 1-2 resource cost. The middle column shows the percentage chance of having one of those cards in your opening 6-card draw- and the far-right column shows the percentage that you would find one in your opening draw or after a mulligan.

Cards	Opening Hand	Opening Hand or Mulligan Hand
1	12%	22.56%
2	22.78%	40.36
3	32.43%	54.34%
4	41.06%	65.25%
5	48.74%	73.73%
6	55.58%	80.27
7	61.64%	85.28%
8	66.98%	89.10%
9	71.70%	91.99%
10	75.85%	94.17%
11	79.47%	95.78%
12	82.63%	96.98%
13	85.37%	97.86%
14	87.74%	98.50%
15	89.79%	98.96%
16	91.54%	99.28%
17	93.03%	99.51%
18	94.30%	99.67%
19	95.37%	99.79%
20	96.26%	99.86%

Based on those odds (97%), I’m content with 10-12 cards slots dedicated to round 1 play. Keep in mind you may not want to include cheap cards like Leia Organa in that total. Unless you have Luke Skywalker as your leader, her ready-a-resource ability will do nothing Round 1. Looking for a Round 1 play will sometimes force us to keep an Opening Hand that isn’t exactly what we’re looking for- but has enough tools to compete in the early game.

What else are we looking for? The ideal opening hand for most decks will have an On-Curve Round 1-3 play. That means a 2 cost, 3 cost, and 4 cost unit, typically. There will definitely be decks (like a few outlined below) that are looking for other things, but this is a good rule of thumb. I will generally keep my opening hand if it has a Round 1 play and a Round 2 or 3 play in order to avoid the risk of mulligan-ing into something worse. Anything better than that is welcomed with open arms!

Other Rules to Follow

Let’s take a look at one of our favorite decks right now, Han Aggression.

Leader Han offers a unique ability to play 3 Resource cards Round 1 thanks to his Leader ability. This gives us flexibility and less need for 2-drop units. It also means, there are functionally 22 Round 1 options available (if we ignore Leia Organa) since we’re fine playing any of the 3-cost cards. This means we can concentrate on having Han’s biggest advantage in hand: a 7-cost card for Round 4.

If you haven’t played with Han Solo yet, his best play is with 5 resources on Round 4, using his leader ability to get to 6, and then deploying as a unit to attack and get a 7th resource to drop a high value card like Mace Windu or the other Han Solo to take control of the board and the game! With this in mind, a goal for our opening hand is to have one of those cards to guarantee that play. With the high Round 1 play %, we can almost exclusively focus on that Round 4 play in our mulligan choice.

Another time you may value the Round 1 play a little less is when facing a non-aggro deck and you draw a ramp card in your opening hand. Cards like Superlaser Technician, Resupply, or Command let you cheat ahead in resources and play bigger, better cards. If your opponent isn’t presenting an immediate threat, ramping is the way to go!

Another curve to consider would be when you run Luke Skywalker as your leader or anyone else with a 1 resource cost ability on the leader side. With this ability always in play the first few rounds (until you deploy Luke Round 5), you are more happy than you would normally be to see cards slightly below your resource curve (1 resource cheaper than your resource level). This is a situation where you have to be aware of what you are playing against though. If you see Darth Vader as your opponent’s leader, this ability loses a lot of value as he can just ping your shields off and get through them much easier than anyone else.

One valuable tool to help you work through different opening draw scenarios is the deckbuilder tool on SWUDB. Navigate to the bottom of the view deck page after building a deck on SWUDB and press the Draw 6 button. This will simulate a 6-card opening hand and allow you to walk through different situations. You can then press Mulligan to gauge your decision making.

Those are basic strategies for tackling your opening hand & mulligan. Don’t be like Han Solo! Learn the odds and count on them to help you make good decisions.