Has there been any thought to getting rid of he partial Paris Mulligan? I personally think it's too powerful with combo decks since if you get one piece, you can pitch the other six for five more shots at the other piece or a tutor? I just find it's highly abuse-able and leads to too many decks being consistent in a negative way.

This topic crops up every now and then. The best I can remember from the previous threads, a lot of groups just don't use partial paris anyways. I'd have to say of all the (O)fficial rules of EDH, this is the one that is adhered to the least.

This is probably the most ignored rule in the format along with the ten card sideboard. Of all the playgroups I've played in not a single one uses the partial-paris mulligan. If your playgroup does and you don't like it just talk to them about it, most people are pretty ok with it.

I can see why it's part of the official rules; because shuffling 100 card decks is super annoying, and with partial paris you only shuffle once. Just do what's best for your playgroup.

Sure, lots. But the most common candidates to replace it tend towards more forgiving, more casual approaches, so partial paris represents a reasonable compromise.

The only change my main group makes is that the first one is free.

There was one night where I was playing and the guy running the store told me I couldn't use Paris. I ended up only having two lands for the first eight turns of the game and it wasn't very fun.

Most people I meet insisting on not using Paris because of combos are the ones running those combos.

Its a shame you weren't playing against me, I would've told you to just go grab a couple of basics out of your library. And if you didn't, I would've gotten depressed and making sub-optimal plays until you got back into the game.

Partial Paris is amazing. Letting you quasi-sculpt your opening hand by not re-drawing the exiled cards at first is bonkers. It's really, really popular around here but we're a pretty dedicated tourney group. Generally among friends we just get one free mulligan and go from there.

My group just uses Gis mulligans, but we also tend to eschew combos that involve fewer than three cards from the library.

I personally don't like it because it makes people rely on it too much.

Oh you have a 29 land deck with 71 non-lands meant to abuse paris to get a good hand of lands while drawing fewer throughout the game? How lucky for you! What? Regular mulligan rules means your deck sucks arse with 2 lands by turn 5? How convenient!

I know 100 card decks aren't mean to be truly consistent, but boy does it piss me off when I try to add 37-45 lands so I can always get a good amount of lands starting hands while other people simply abuse paris in order to run more non-lands.

I would be okay if it dissapearedand normal mulls were used.

Those decks still end up getting punished... either they go down to 5 cards to keep a hand, or they miss land drops and get stuck on 5 mana all game. I don't like playing them either, but it's because they sit around and do nothing while they get beat to death, so it's usually a boring game.

...

Edit: I forgot what I actually came to say, which is that I don't believe the Partial Paris mulligan helps combo decks as much as you might think. With all the tutors and cantrips you can pack into a deck, it's easy to make a combo deck extremely consistent (assuming that's the kind of game you want), regardless of which mulligan method the group decides on. The big difference is that the Partial Paris makes it easier to mull into your answers (ie, Force of Will, Strip Mine, whatevs).

The partial paris rule is incredibly abusive. Being theoretically able to go through 28 cards in your opening hand is insane. You get just over 33% chance of getting a specific card.

The most obnoxious thing I've seen is combining partial paris with the normal free mulligan rule. So one free Paris Mulligan, then the partial Paris. This provides just over a 40% chance of getting a specific card. And given essential duplicates and tutors, we slowly get to a much better percentage, getting easily over 75% of the time.

It has been presented here, and I like it- rather than setting aside some number of cards from the hand to draw one less, set aside the entire hand and Paris Mulligan as normal. 1 free for being multiplayer, then one less for each additional time you need to set your hand aside. Cuts out the excessive shuffling and the ability to craft a hand, while preserving the ability to dig for a specific card.

Theoretically is the key word there. Going under 6 cards puts you at a rather large disadvantage. Going under 5 generally takes you out the game. Even a guarantee of getting a particular card would not be worth having only 4 cards, and it's far from a guarantee.
The realistic 10-15 cards you actually see isn't nearly enough to look for individual cards. It generally *is* enough to look for one out of a class of cards (like Land, mana ramp, or counterspells for example) if you have a fair number of cards that match that class. But that's not really a downside IMHO.

Partial Paris is quite good at letting people actually play the game, (at least the early game... after that no mulligan method will help though) and isn't nearly as easy to abuse as it's critics like to pretend.
Is it "easier" to abuse then a normal Paris mulligan? Sure... but it's also a lot better at letting people play the actual game... and in a format that's supposed to be about fun, that has to have more weight then mostly theoretical abuse.

There are methods that eliminate Early Bad Hand issues even better then Partial Paris, and there are methods that make abuse harder or impossible. But Partial Paris is, at least in my experience, the best compromise between the two for a casual format.

I'd disagree there. You're at a disadvantage, sure, and if your group is big on brutally fast decks you're dead. You aren't going to be a frontrunner, but given the prevalence of big card advantage spells in every color, you are definitely still live for catching up.

Those would have to be an amazing 5 cards to keep pace with the rest of the table. A decent 5 card hand relies HEAVILY on top decking as is.