Most first decks fail the same way: too many expensive cards, because the expensive cards are the exciting ones. The revealed pool tells you what a sensible curve looks like, and it is lower than instinct suggests.
What the pool actually offers
| Cost | cards | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9 | |
| 2 | 14 | |
| 3 | 17 | |
| 4 | 15 | |
| 5 | 14 | |
| 6 | 5 | |
| 7 | 5 | |
| 8 | 2 | |
| 9 | 2 |
Of 83 costed cards revealed so far, 40 cost 3 or less (48%), 29 sit at 4–5, and only 14 cost 6 or more. The designers front-loaded the set. A deck whose curve is heavier than the pool's is fighting the format.
A working ratio
Until the meta settles after the October release, the defensible starting point is to mirror the pool rather than out-think it: roughly half your deck at 3 or less, a third at 4–5, and a small top end you can actually cast. Every expensive card past the third or fourth is a card you will hold in hand while losing the Gig race.
Colours
| Colour | cards | |
|---|---|---|
| Red | 25 | |
| Yellow | 26 | |
| Blue | 23 | |
| Green | 23 |
The colour split is close to even, which means none of the four is a default. Two-colour decks are the natural shape — enough depth to build a plan, few enough cards that your curve stays castable.
Factions do the archetype work
| Faction | cards | |
|---|---|---|
| Ganger | 18 | |
| Merc | 17 | |
| Arasaka | 16 | |
| Corpo | 15 | |
| Netrunner | 9 | |
| Braindance | 8 | |
| Maelstrom | 6 | |
| Valentino | 6 | |
| Cyberware | 6 | |
| Zetatech | 5 | |
| Militech | 4 | |
| Drone | 4 | |
| Voodoo Boys | 4 | |
| Mox | 4 | |
| Quickhack | 4 | |
| Nomad | 4 | |
| Vehicle | 4 | |
| Rocker | 3 | |
| Weapon | 3 | |
| Ripperdoc | 3 | |
| Tyger Claws | 2 | |
| Samurai | 2 | |
| NCPD | 2 | |
| Aldecado | 2 | |
| Trauma Team | 2 | |
| Techie | 2 | |
| Doll | 2 | |
| Mystic | 2 | |
| 6th Street | 1 | |
| Extreme | 1 | |
| Scavenger | 1 | |
| Fixer | 1 | |
| Plan | 1 | |
| Raffen Shiv | 1 | |
| Medtech | 1 | |
| Maine's Crew | 1 |
Classifications, not colours, are where the synergies live. Cards that reward you for controlling other Arasaka, Ganger or Netrunner cards are how the set signals its archetypes. Building along a faction line gives you a deck that does something; building along a colour line only gives you a legal deck.
CHOOMDEX grades any deck you build against this curve automatically — cost distribution, consistency and castability, with a letter grade calibrated to the real pool rather than a generic formula.