Keywords: Mulligan

Love them or hate them, taking a mulligan is often the most important decision you make in a card game. But what is a mulligan, and why do we call it that? Deren Ozturk finds out 

You don’t like your starting hand, so you put some cards back and draw new ones. You took a mulligan. Many games have their own versions of this rule, but of course, the first was the great TCG progenitor, Magic: The Gathering.

Magic actually released in 1993 without a mulligan rule. One was discussed, but playtesters were concerned that allowing mulligans rewarded poor deckbuilding–a point raised with every subsequent mulligan update! However, after a year of frustrating starting hands, in 1994, the first TCG mulligan rule was introduced: once each Magic game, with a hand of all lands or no lands, you could reveal it, shuffle it into your deck, and draw another.

But in Keywords we delve deeper! The first tabletop game I can find that included a mulligan was the 1982 update to the 1980 fantasy, battle boardgame Titan, released by Avalon Hill. It included a “first move mulligan” not for starting cards, but for a starting dice roll.

However, the first mention of mulligans dates to the 1900s. A legendary, fictional American baseballer known as Swat Mulligan could whack a ball so hard you wouldn’t see where it landed! The character became so popular that not only could you buy Swat Mulligan merchandise, but hitting a ball real hard became known as a mulligan. Here’s a 1919 issue of the Colorado Springs Gazette, comparing cricket with baseball:
“An Englishman does not care for games that make any demand upon his mental faculties… If it is a bad ball, ‘off the wicket,’ he may take a ‘mulligan’ at it and knock it over the fence, ‘out of bounds’ they call it.”

Ouch, cricket catching strays! Then, in a friendly game of golf, a “mulligan” came to mean the second whack at the ball after a poor starting hit. This idea of a second hit can be seen in a 1931 issue of the Detroit Free Press: “His first drive barely missed carrying the creek and he was given a ‘mulligan’ just for fun.”

And there we have it! A mulligan is a second whack at it, named after the mythical baseball player, Swat Mulligan.

But what is “Mulligan”? Well, Mulligan is a surname that comes from the old Irish “Maelecan,” meaning “shaven one,” likely used for monks. And now we have it, shave your head and take a second whack at it. Mulligan!

Bio: Award-nominated game designer, TCG veteran, and the founder of Adder Stone Games. Deren lives in Cardiff, Wales, and frequently visits the USA and Japan for gaming adventures. His favourite card combo is Sneak Attack Gandalf!