The upcoming Magic: The Gathering Arena War of the Sparks Chronicles Singleton event will feature the new London Mulligan format. Wizards of the Coast is testing out the new feature for matches during the event in preparation for its full implementation next month in July.

This testing will only last for a week as the Singleton event will be the latest of the five week long Chronicles event taking place this month. There are five separate events that are happening during the event, each one lasts for one week and it all began last month in May and will conclude in June.

Wizards of the Coast is using this as an opportunity to test out the new London Mulligan match feature that is going to replace the old Vancouver Mulligan next month. For those who don’t know, a “mulligan” is when a player decides to redraw their starting hand.

How London Mulligan Changes Everything

Under the current Vancouver Mulligan format, a player can redraw their starting seven cards but at the cost of one card for every time that they choose to use the feature. So, for example, you start with seven cards in your hand but if you choose to redraw your cards, you’ll end up with six the second time and so on.

While the Vancouver Mulligan has worked thus far for standard matches, this will all change beginning next month as every single match format will transition to only using the new London Mulligan. This new format stands out for its added benefit that serves to make it more advantageous than the current mulligan.

You still lose a card each time you decide to use the feature but it works a bit differently. You still start out with the traditional seven cards in your starting hand but each time you use a London Mulligan, you shuffle and redraw a new set of seven cards.

From there, you choose one card to discard depending on how many times you have mulliganed. It’s a great change for the feature since it allows players to have more of a say in what their starting hand looks like and what cards they have to remove.

Players who are intrigued by the new feature and want to get adjusted to it before its full implementation next month can check it out during the Singleton event as part of the War of the Sparks Chronicles event.

The week of Singleton play will begin this Friday on June 7 and will run through next week to June 14. For those who don’t know, the Singleton format is where players can only have one copy of a particular card in their deck at any given time minus exceptions like Persistent Petitioners.

London Mulligan Release Date

It makes a lot of sense that London Mulligan would make its appearance during the War of the Sparks Chronicles Singleton event since players are already limited in what they can use. This allows players to redraw their starting hand as much as necessary to ensure a great start to each match.

As for the official launch of London Mulligan, it will begin early next month and vary depending on the platform. Magic Online and Arena players will receive it on July 2 meanwhile physical card players will have it enacted with the pre-release of Core Set 2020 on July 5.