What earns the double
Full Crew requires Brains, Muscle, Wheels and Face among the cards you have revealed in the current vault. When you bank, the whole bag is multiplied by two. Three roles receive no partial bonus.
The set resets between vaults. A Face revealed in Vault 1 does not help a Brains, Muscle and Wheels in Vault 2. The twelve cards in your selected crew also do not count until they appear.
This makes the fourth role unusually valuable, but its value is attached to an unfinished task. You still need to reveal it without busting and reach a banking decision.
Put a price on the chase
Imagine $15K in your bag, three roles revealed, and Brains missing. If a $3K Brains card arrives, you carry $18K with a Full Crew payout of $36K. If a $3K card of a repeated role arrives, you carry $18K without the double.
Those are two different rewards from the same printed Haul. Now add the third branch: a Tripwire or too much Heat loses the unbanked bag. Chasing the role risks the $15K already available, not just the extra card's potential Haul.
Reid Duke's essay on playing safely is useful context for this kind of choice: caution should serve the position. It should not replace evaluating it. A Full Crew chase can be sensible, unnecessary or impossible depending on the actual table.
Count candidates rather than wishing for the icon
Suppose your original crew has three cards of each role and your first three crew cards reveal three different roles. Nine ordinary cards remain, including all three cards of the missing role. Among ordinary cards, three of nine complete the set.
That is not the chance of safely banking the double. Some of those three cards may carry too much Heat. The Tripwire may appear instead. If the rival is still inside, their next action may interrupt you before you can leave.
Now imagine the crew started with only one card of the missing role. With that card still unseen and nine ordinary cards remaining, only one of nine ordinary reveals completes the set. “One role away” describes the tracker in both examples, but the opportunities are very different.
Check whether the role can fit
At alarm 16, only Heat 1 or 2 fits. If every remaining Brains card has Heat 3 or more, you cannot complete a missing Brains slot with the next safe ordinary flip. The bright empty icon does not override the alarm.
If some candidates fit and others do not, identify which are which. This is where knowing your crew helps without requiring you to memorize the whole 120-card roster. You need to recognize the relevant cards in the twelve you brought.
| Before chasing | Read this |
|---|---|
| Available payout | The amount you can bank now |
| Remaining candidates | Cards of the missing role still unseen |
| Alarm room | Which candidates fit without overflowing |
| Next turn | Whether the rival can still bust you first |
Let the score decide how much the double matters
If banking now wins against a rival who has finished the final vault, chasing the double introduces needless match risk. A larger winning margin is not required.
If banking now loses and a Full Crew is a plausible route to catching up, the same chase has a different purpose. You are accepting danger to keep a winning outcome available. In an early vault, balance the larger payout against the useful Take you could carry into the next two.
When the fourth role does arrive, reassess instead of automatically flipping again. You now have twice the bag available to bank. A successful chase can be the moment to end the vault, not the beginning of a new excuse to stay.