Half of all openers have no early body, so the mulligan is about whether the hand can act at all before turn three.
The opening four comes from the 39 shuffled cards. The Champion is separately available and is not part of these numbers, which matters: every hand effectively has a three-Energy four-Might play attached to it.
The ideal shape
A two-Energy body, a selector, and something the trash the selector makes is actually for. That is the whole template. The body contests the first battlefield, the selector digs and burns, and the third card is the reason you burned.
Premium keeps
or , plus , plus any Rhasa. The Merchant loots, the Rush burns two, and Rhasa is already cheaper by the time you can cast it.
An early body plus plus a two-Power spell. The Seal is free, and it is what makes the Power work on the turn that matters.
Two early bodies plus a selector. Only 10.45% of hands have two early bodies, and this deck is short enough on board presence that it is a real keep.
Champion-shaped hands: any two lands of development plus access, because the Champion supplies the three-drop itself.
Acceptable
Interaction-heavy hands with one body. 71.12% of openers hold at least one interaction spell, so this shape is common, and against the aggressive half of the field it is fine. Against control it is a hand with no clock.
Hands that look strong and are not
Payoffs without enablers. Rhasa and in the opening four is two cards you cannot cast and no way to make them cheaper yet.
with an empty trash. It plays a unit from a zone that currently holds nothing.
with no cheap spell anywhere yet. He is a three-Might body until the trash has a target.
Multiple . Selection stacked on selection finds cards and does not put anything on the board.
Gear-heavy openers. Three is Power fixing for spells you do not have.
On the play and on the draw
On the play, prioritise the body. You are contesting the first battlefield and a selector-only hand cedes it. On the draw, a reactive hand is more defensible: , and all want the opponent to commit first, and the extra card makes a selector-heavy keep functional.
Pilot noteThe question is never whether the hand contains the engine. It is whether the hand can do something on the first two action cycles that is not looking at cards.