Card categories

Before card-by-card tiers, the family-level rules — because most of a card’s value is decided by which of these boxes it lives in and when you’re buying.

Card draw

Card-draw engines only pay when you’re card-poor (more money than playable cards). The community’s break-even math: a useful card is worth about 3 MC while you’re card-rich and about 7 MC once you’re card-poor — and the draw engines need 3-5 generations of running to pay for themselves. So: excellent bought early by a player whose engine will out-earn their hand (that’s most good players by mid-game), poor bought late, and wasted on a player already sitting on twelve cards.

Energy

Energy is the deck’s biggest synergy cluster — roughly a third of Corporate Era cards touch it (producers, consumers of production, consumers of energy). The working rule:

Get two of the three — energy production, a card that eats energy, a card that eats energy production — and the package breaks even. One alone is a promise; don’t pay for promises. Unused energy becomes heat, so it’s never fully dead, but then you should value it as heat, which is slower.

Heat

The community’s most-repeated warning, verbatim spirit: “the road to Martian hell is paved with heat production.” Heat production is priced at 6 MC a step and systematically overdelivers on feelings, underdelivers on points — a small heat engine can’t move temperature early, and by the time it can, the track is a race everyone’s in. Buy heat with a plan (a real volume of production, or cards that spend heat), not as a comfort blanket. Remember, too, that pushing temperature shortens the game — check that a shorter game is what your position wants.

Plants

Plant production is priced high (10 MC a step) because it’s points on a conveyor: every 8 plants is a greenery — VP + TR + oxygen, forever. In two-player it gets better still (less plant-hate in circulation), with one discipline attached: convert the same turn you hit 8. A banked pile is a target. Plant cards are the classic engine for a newer player because the conversion decision is simple and the payoff is visible.

Steel & titanium (building & space)

Both are only money through your hand: steel spends on building tags at 2 MC, titanium on space tags at 3 MC. Production of either is worth its price only while you keep drawing cards that spend it — which is why these lines want commitment (keep the tags, pass the off-plan cards) rather than dabbling. Titanium lines pair naturally with the big space events; steel lines with the Builder milestone.

Pure-VP collectors (animals, microbes)

Cards that accumulate a resource worth points at the end. The rule is the trigger count: most need 3-6 activations to break even, so their value is almost entirely a function of when you play them. Early — often excellent, especially the cheap ones. Late — dead weight wearing a cute animal. Also remember the requirement warning: many need oxygen/temperature levels, so they’re mid-game cards you keep only when the track will genuinely get there.

Events (red cards)

One-shot effects. Their honest price is easy to compute (what it does, once, vs. the price list), which makes them the easiest category to judge — and the easiest to overrate, because big numbers on one-time effects feel strong. Asteroid-family events that eat plants are a special case at two players: see below. Note that events don’t leave tags on the table for milestones/awards after they resolve (they flip face-down), which quietly lowers their side value.

Attack cards (the 2-player upgrade)

Anything that removes Matthew’s resources — plant-eating asteroids, production theft, Predators — is one tier better than general advice says, because head-to-head his loss is your gain with no bystanders. A card that eats 5 of his plants is most of a greenery denied, which is a 2-3 point swing for a few MC. Time them for maximum pain: the turn before he converts, not the turn you drew them.

Blue action engines

Rented value: uses remaining × value per use, most break even at 3-6 uses. Buy them in the first half of the game or not at all — and when one offers value every generation for free, it’s almost always worth its price early.

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Next: The premium cards and Trap cards — the specific names worth memorizing before tonight.