Close your eyes and picture with me: it’s game 3 of the tournament finals. You need – NEED that one card. It MUST be in your opening hand, or you’re cooked. You draw your cards, and it ain’t there. But the rest of the hand looks pretty good, and those cards you’d rather have late game are still swimming in the draw pile somewhere. Is it worth the risk to hard-mulligan that decent hand to pray you nab the golden card?

It’s been discussed earlier in the Contender Series Mulligan article, but generally speaking if you’re taking the minimum deck size, you have a 25% chance to see a given card in either your power hand or your objective hand. If you are going to mulligan for a specific card, you can force it 50% of the time – unless it’s not in your opening hand, and now mulligan has only a 1/3 chance to deliver it to you. If the card is really that strong, if might be worth losing an otherwise good hand to take worse-than- coin-flip odds at picking it up. The question is, which cards are actually worth that risk? Today I’ll take a stab at identifying some cards that would be reasonable Hard-Mulligan candidates from each Rivals Deck.

Should you really ever hard mulligan? I mean, probably not, but if you were going to…

Maybe I should have named this ‘stuff you want to see early, or at least don’t want to see too late’. But that’s not very provocative! And besides, sound, reasonable competitive advice is not why people come to Spent Glory anyhow.

Blazing Assault

Objectives: Get Stuck In – you know they might not stay in their territory for long

Ploys: Determined Effort or Twist the Knife both are great for getting the early bounty rolling

Upgrades: Hidden Aid, Accurate, and Duelist are all 1 glory upgrades that boost your aggro output pretty well

Emberstone Sentinels

Objectives: Aggressive Defender is great, easy to nab early, and easier still when there are more fighters around to target. Supremacy and/or Iron Grasp are easier to do when you have more fighters alive and are big glory payouts.

Ploys: Confusion is great for denying enemy scores and for landing yours, both of which can give you the advantage in round 1 which helps snowball through the game.

Upgrades: Duelist helps you do so many things, and for 1 glory can be gotten midround. The longer it’s on, the more impact it has.

Pillage and Plunder

Objectives: Delving for Wealth, Share the Load, and Careful Survey are all smooth surges that are easier to do early game

Ploys: Trapped Cache is ‘aight and better early game

Upgrades: idk gloryseeker maybe

Countdown to Cataclysm

Objectives: Wreckers is almost a must-have in round 1 now that the tracker must advance at every opportunity. If it’s in your deck, you don’t want to see it late game.

Ploys: Sunder the Realm, while less accurate at lower Catalcysm counts, is better when there are more fighters bunched up midboard, which means round 1.

Upgrades: Desperate Rage is a 3 damage attack for 1 glory, and can be the early output you need to pull ahead.

Reckless Fury

Objectives: Best Foot Forward is easier at the start of the game and gets the ball rolling. Frenzied Rush is the same way.

Ploys: none, really, unless you need that charge token so bad that you want to fish for Braced

Upgrades: Headcase can be a make or break for some gameplans, and is almost always what you want to see early on. Headlong Charge is also quite important for securing those early attacks, and is also zero glory so it’s golden. Bladecatcher is nice to have earlier as well.

Wrack & Ruin

Objectives: Bloody and Bruised is easier to do when more fighters are alive

Ploys: Vicious Intent plays best when your opponent is undamaged, and guess when that’s true?

Upgrades: nothing here is a worth a hard mulligan unless you’re so desperate for cleave you’ll dig for Sundering Weapon

Edge of the Knife

Objectives: Aggressive defender is great early as discussed in Emberstone Sentinels, but you can also do well early game with Power in Numbers – the more people on the board, the easier it is to engineer with fighter placement, charges, or pushes.

Ploys: Opportunity Strikes helps hit those opening attacks (assuming you have a tempered fighter worth swinging with early), and I have done hilarious things round 1 with Spiteful Traps

Upgrades: Depending on your build, Dark Horse is awesome to start the game with and get a key fighter Tempered for scoring purposes. It’s harder to afford, but Mobbed! is an awesome thing to get out early so you can have it benefit more attacks – and the more fighters live, the more likely you’ll trigger its proximity clause.

Realmstone Raiders

Objectives: It will depend on your fighter stats, but A Sue Bet and/or Critical Risk can be good when you have a deeper deck and more potential Emberstone raids. If you took it, Hoarder’s Hovel can be a nice early get since you’ll have more fighters alive and therefore more potential bounty-treasure value matches.

Ploys: I quite enjoy Manipulated Fate, and it’s not an Emberstone Card so it’s even better to see in the opening hand.

Upgrades: Really any of them that aren’t Emberstone, but especially Keen Eye. I mean, you won’t be able to afford it, but you’ll want it to hit more raids.

Raging Slayers

Objectives: Best Foot Forward remains great as it does in Reckless Fury. If you took them, Into the Fire and Aggressive Expansion are easier to do early game, though who wants to hard mullgan for an end phase?

Ploys: Honed Reflexes is such a killer card. Venting Strike and Knife to the Heart are a solid starters too if you don’t need to stay Enraged. Slayer’s Aid works only if you have a living leader and another enraged fighter to push, so you’ll hate to see it at the end of the game.

Upgrades: While Gifted Vitality costs 2, it’s best to have in round 1, and maybe you can afford it in the end phase. United in Anger is great, costs only 1, and can potentially push you almost every activation and power step after you have it applied.

Hunting Grounds

Objectives: Man, there’s nothing here worth digging for. I suppose you’re happiest if you have Home Advantage so you have more time for them to miss you, and maybe you’d like to see Lead by Example early so your leader is more likely to be alive and have made 2 attacks.

Ploys: Deny Invaders and Keep them at Bay can help you lay down some pain. Mind Your Step and Paths Unknown are decent too

Upgrades: Hidden Aid and Hidden Traps are both solid offensive boosts that can reasonably be afforded round 1.

Deadly Synergy

Objectives: Most everything in this deck is best early, when you’ll have more fighters around to do Unity things. You shouldn’t Mulligan for end phases, but the two you’d like the best are Outmuscle and Aggressive Unity. Got Your Back and Infiltrate are probably your better early game surges.

Ploys: Brother in Arms lets you attack with your best weapon again, from another position. This works best if that big weapon is still alive to work for you. Out of Nowhere is a solid starter too since you’ll boost your accuracy which is often at its lowest in the early game.

Upgrades: Coordinated Deathblow is a great card, if you can afford the 2 glory for it. Duelist is probably another you want to see early, and if you’re in need of Titan of Combat, the earlier the better for your scoring ability.

Nexus of Power

Objectives: You always want your surges early, and some of them will get a lot harder the further along you get in the game. I’d hope for Claimed, Seized, and (if you took it) Break Out. The End Phases that you’d want to start with are Skin of the Teeth and potentially Domination and Close the Vice depending on if you can get the power cards to create more Covetous opportunities early.

Ploys: Pilfer and Move at the Opening are great for any playstyle, but the real gold is Unearthed Treasure. You opponent, unless they’re silly, is going to flip two treasures you really want, and this card will let you flip them back straight away, dramatically increasing your ability to score Objectives and get the benefit of the Covetous range increase.

Upgrades: Inviolate is great if you’re taking the hold approach and is only 1 glory so you’ll get the chance to take it. Opportunist is also great for flipping a token to treasure side, or at the very worst discouraging enemy charges which you’re still happy about. You’re probably smiling if you see Spiteful Defender, at least if you have pushes or range 2 attacks to open the game.

Wrap

So, in reality, don’t hard mulligan for any of these cards. You only have a 50% chance to get the one you need, and might draw a worse hand. But if the hand you got has NONE of those cards, well then maybe it’s worth tossing in hopes you dredge a couple of them up!

Whatever you do in the mulligan step, I hope you get a lot of glory to spend, and have fun while you’re at it.