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 | 36 | |
| 2 | 45 | |
| 3 | 46 | |
| 4 | 35 | |
| 5 | 60 | |
| 6 | 28 | |
| 7 | 20 | |
| 8 | 2 | |
| 9 | 9 |
Of 281 costed cards revealed so far, 127 cost 3 or less (45%), 95 sit at 4–5, and only 59 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.
Colors
| Color | cards | |
|---|---|---|
| Red | 89 | |
| Yellow | 92 | |
| Blue | 96 | |
| Green | 94 |
The color split is close to even, which means none of the four is a default. Two-color 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 | |
|---|---|---|
| Merc | 68 | |
| Arasaka | 56 | |
| Corpo | 47 | |
| Ganger | 45 | |
| Cyberware | 29 | |
| Braindance | 27 | |
| Fixer | 24 | |
| Netrunner | 23 | |
| Maelstrom | 17 | |
| Drone | 15 | |
| Mox | 15 | |
| Quickhack | 15 | |
| Nomad | 14 | |
| Valentino | 13 | |
| Zetatech | 13 | |
| Weapon | 12 | |
| NCPD | 12 | |
| Vehicle | 12 | |
| Techie | 11 | |
| Samurai | 10 | |
| Militech | 10 | |
| Rocker | 9 | |
| Ripperdoc | 9 | |
| Tyger Claws | 8 | |
| Aldecado | 8 | |
| Voodoo Boys | 7 | |
| Trauma Team | 6 | |
| Doll | 6 | |
| Mystic | 6 | |
| Plan | 3 | |
| Raffen Shiv | 3 | |
| Medtech | 3 | |
| AI | 3 | |
| Netwatch | 3 | |
| Maine's Crew | 2 | |
| 6th Street | 1 | |
| Extreme | 1 | |
| Scavenger | 1 | |
| Animal | 1 |
Classifications, not colors, 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 color 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.
