‘Pro is different from us’, guide Mulligan

In the series ‘Where is Pro different from us’ this time, SK Gaming’s Esteban “AKAWonder” Serrano will help us learn more about mulligans – which cards to keep early in the game, and which cards to return to the deck to receive another card. (Knowing which cards to hold and which cards to throw is always difficult, even for the best players in the world!)

If you don’t know AKAWonder, you probably didn’t follow Hearthstone Spain, or missed the 2016 ESL Legendary Series tournament in Katowice, the tournament he won. Priest fans often remember AKAWonder’s teammate, Dawid “Zetalot” Skalski in the current SK roster. Before Hearthstone, AKAWonder was not a card game player, he preferred to play more strategy games like Poker or chess. As a top Hearthstone player, AKAWonder focuses on mulligan as a way to improve Hearthstone!

The mulligan strategy is complicated, as no two games or situations are alike. For example, if you use a deck of 30 different cards – with cards like Raza, or Kazakus – you can mulligan up to 837,000 cases. And that’s just thinking about your deck!

Seeing such a horrifying number would probably shock you, so AKAWonder analyzed it. “The factors that can affect your mulligan are: whether you have The Coin or not, predicting your opponent’s archetype, what cards you have left in your deck and the curve of the cards in your hand at first.” The archetype here is about the opponent’s deck speed – faster and more aggressive, or slower and more control-oriented – and the curve is about the increasing Mana cost of your cards (because you want every turn to come out). effective post).

How to choose the archetype is the challenge in the mulligan stage. AKAWonder said that how much you mulligan depends on your archetype, as well as how you predict the opponent will hit. “If you play an aggro deck, you will always mulligan the cards that come out right away – especially the cards that help you get in the game early,” he said. If you are up against a control deck that can be countered [những lá yếu], you can mulligan the more expensive cards.” For example, AKAWonder points out Rogue, hitting back and having The Coin can strongly influence whether you keep the Combo cards or not.

AKAWonder says mulligan is also very different if you go to the tournament. “In a competitive environment, you know what your opponent is going to hit, so you toss the cards in your mulligan for more valuable cards to hit your opponent more,” he said. However, this tactic is not used against Ranks: “It’s very difficult to get the mulligan right – not only against the opponent, but because you never know which archetype you’ll be up against.”

To improve over time, AKAWonder recommends focusing on one deck for a certain amount of time. “Once you get used to a deck, you realize what you need to do to win different archetypes,” he said. “Experience will teach you what to keep and which cards to trade, and how much you are willing to risk.”

The biggest lesson that AKAWonder can teach you is, knowing how to mulligan is only part of getting you in control. “In the phase of the game when you have the power and all the decisions in your hands, you need to make sure you do everything right,” he said. “There are many kinds of mistakes. Some people just mulligan the same no matter what the opponent is. The amateurs don’t catch the big moment, and their mulligan improves with more play.”

Additionally, he says, “Your Mulligan is always changing.” Treat each match as something new, special and different, it helps you focus on what you have on hand!

You can refer to the previous tutorial in the series ‘Where is the Pro different from us’:

Source: Playhearthstone