This came up in a thread over at reddit where several people seem to think that we force the player to take a mulligan also claming that they've had judges enforcing this remedy. The IPG however states:

If the player has drawn too few cards, instruct them to draw up to the correct number. If the player has drawn too many cards, the judge will remove one more than the number of excess cards from the hand at random. If the game has not yet begun, shuffle them into the deck and the player may continue the mulligan process from that point if he or she wishes. If the game has begun, put the cards randomly on top of the deck.

Do we need to address this, are newer judges getting this mixed up? I can see how someone first learning this remedy could get confused as the player does end up with one less card then they would normally have; however, it is a big difference in execution and the end result. (On further searching this seems to have changed somewhere around 2007 from a forced mulligan to the current phrasing)

Edited Kaylee Mullins (March 22, 2013 01:32:35 PM)

I haven't run into this problem, but it would certainly be a good area for education if this is happening. Generally, Comp REL events where this remedy is in effect will staff more experienced judges, and they should know better, or can consult with others to be sure.

The policy changed to address the potential for abuse if a player just decided to “accidentally” draw an extra card after seeing the other cards in an attempt to get a free mulligan. Also, the current policy saves time.

Just to be sure, sometimes people refer to the correct fix as a “forced mulligan” when in reality it's just taking two cards and shuffling them in (because as you note, the end result is as if the player had mulliganed again by having one fewer cards). I didn't read the thread, so I don't know if that's what's happening, but it's something to consider.

I have seen cases where Judges do “force” the mulligan by having the player
redraw a hand of completely new cards (one fewer than they had).

Even though the correct fix is written in the IPG, it seems that there are
quite a few Judges that think there's a different fix.

I'm not sure if it's just a terminology issue but the instances I was seeing seemed to indicate an actual mulligan and a couple of these were at a GP and an SCGO.

One instance is internet personality Sean Plot (Day9) talking about his San Diego GP experience, both from a tweet (“I accidently drew too many cards and had to mulligan to 5.”) and a video (“and he says ‘don’t worry about this it happens all the time… you get a warning and … you have to mulligan down to 5'”).

and a couple quotes from the thread.

“I also had the same thing happen to me last year. Drew an extra card and had to mull to 5. Unless they changed something that seems to be the standard ruling.”

“I saw this happen at SCGO Indy, but it was actually because he accidentally drew 7 when mulling to 6. He called the judge on himself, and he got a warning and a forced mulligan to 5.”

Edited Kaylee Mullins (March 22, 2013 01:59:45 PM)

It probably has to do with the way the whole paragraph is written. You get instructions on how to deal with too few, then too many. If you are just skimming it the third sentence could reference “them” as the randomly removed cards, or the whole hand. I know it sounds kind of stupid when you actually read the whole thing carefully, but how many times as a new judge have you scrambled to get a ruling out and just tried to look for the important part of the sentence?

Also consider that the “forced mulligan” just feels more intuitive than having then have to randomly take cards from the hand.

I'd guess that it's because, years ago, the remedy WAS to force a mulligan. Now, we just remove the extra card(s), plus one, and have them continue the pregame from there. Saves time…

As for internet reports, a player saying “had to mull to X” might really mean the Judge removed cards down to X - which feels a lot like a forced mulligan. We weren't there, so it's hard to be sure … and kind of pointless to speculate.

One quick addition, I recommend removing the 2 random cards (when they draw one more than they should have in hand at start of game) and then asking them if they want to keep that hand of cards without the 2 prior to having them shuffle. If they would mulligan the hand without those two cards then they will shuffle anyway and having them shuffle 2 cards before shuffling the whole hand just wastes time. If they decide to keep have them shuffle the 2 into their library, if they mulligan shuffle the whole deck and make sure they know how many they should draw next.