Get the crew legal first
A crew contains twelve distinct cards. It must use at least three different Heat values, and no more than seven cards can share one Heat value. Those limits apply before a Job starts; collectible rarity and slab grade have no part in them.
Four Heat 1 cards, four Heat 2 cards and four Heat 3 cards form a legal distribution if the cards are distinct. Eight Heat 1 cards, two Heat 2 and two Heat 3 do not. The second example includes three Heat values but breaks the seven-card limit.
Open the Roster to choose your twelve. Auto-build is a reasonable starting point; a legal crew saves automatically for your next Job. If you leave a manual change unfinished or illegal, the last saved crew stays in use.
For a complete list to work from, try one of the three teaching crews. Each names all twelve cards and shows its Heat and role mix. Pick one, play it, then use the comparisons below to decide what you want to change. These are learning examples, not a claim about the strongest deck.
Read cards in pairs
Consider two real Sable City cards: Agnes Thorne (#002), a Face with $2K Haul and Heat 1; and “Halo” Reyes (#004), a Face with $6K Haul and Heat 2. Halo brings more loot, but he spends twice as much alarm room. At alarm 17, Agnes fits and Halo does not.
Because both are Faces, swapping one for the other keeps that slot's role while changing its Haul and Heat. That makes the effect easier to understand than replacing several cards of different roles at once.
Do not turn the Haul-to-Heat ratio into an automatic ranking. It misses where the meter is when the card appears, which role you need, and how quickly you need to build a competitive bag. A card that looks efficient on paper can arrive when none of its Heat fits.
Give each role a fair chance to appear
Full Crew requires Brains, Muscle, Wheels and Face to appear within the same vault. If you bank with all four, the bag doubles. Simply including them in the deck does not earn anything.
Three cards of each role is an easy distribution to read while learning, provided the Heat limits also work. It is an illustration, not a tested best crew. If you include only one Wheels card, every Full Crew in that vault depends on finding that particular card before you leave or bust.
Conversely, filling the crew with one role because you like those characters gives you more repeat roles and fewer paths to the bonus. The card art can be a reason to enjoy a crew; the role distribution still determines what it can complete.
Choose a reason for the next change
Gavin Verhey's deck-building advice for Magic starts from having a coherent plan. For The Job, keep that plan small enough to test: “I want fewer cards that overflow at alarm 15,” or “I want more than one route to a Face.”
Now change one slot and check legality again. Replacing a Heat 3 with a Heat 1 might make the eighth card at that Heat. Replacing your only Heat 4 might leave only two different Heat values. A useful idea still needs a legal crew around it.
| What happened repeatedly? | What to inspect |
|---|---|
| The missing role was rarely seen | How many copies of that role are in the twelve, and how early you usually bank. |
| Late flips often looked dangerous | The remaining loud cards, not just the crew's average Heat. |
| Safe exits left very small scores | Haul in the cards you commonly reveal, plus your banking decisions. |
Keep a bad draw from rewriting the whole plan
A Tripwire loss does not by itself show that your Heat distribution failed. Nor does one large Full Crew prove a new list is superior. Play enough Jobs to recognize decisions that recur, and separate changes to the crew from changes to how you pilot it.
All 120 cards remain playable regardless of your collection. Build around Haul, Heat and role; keep the slab you love because you love it. When you are comfortable with those basics, try the banking scenarios to see how the same crew can need different exits.