Heat Garage Draft: How to Pick Upgrade Cards

The Garage module is the first big step from the core game toward how experienced drivers race. You put the Starting Upgrades back in the box and draft three Upgrade cards instead, so every car on the grid is a little different. This lesson covers the draft, the card families, and how to judge a pick. It follows the Advanced Play and Championship System booklet, version 1.1, and assumes you have read the modules lesson.

How the draft runs

After the cars are on the starting grid, and before anyone draws a hand, you draft three rounds.

• The market is one card per player, plus 3, face up.
• Round one picks from the back of the grid to the front. Round two goes front to back. Round three goes back to front again.
• Leftovers are discarded after each round, and a fresh market is dealt.
• Everyone shuffles their 3 Upgrades into their deck.

If you play with Weather and Road Conditions, set them up before the draft. That way you build your car for this race’s conditions.

The booklet suggests using only the 34 Regular Upgrade cards for your first few Garage races, and adding the 62 Advanced ones once you know the system.

What you lose

The Starting Upgrades leave your deck: the 0, the 5, and the extra Heat card. So your Garage deck is your 12 Basic cards, your 3 Upgrades, and your Stress cards. Losing the 0 matters more than it looks; you no longer have a free filler card for high gear near corners, so a drafted card that helps you slow down has extra value.

The card families

The booklet groups Upgrades into families. In plain terms:

• Extra Heat: works like a normal Heat card, but starts in your deck.
• 4 Wheel Drive: high Speed or Cooldown, with added random symbols.
• Brakes: a choice of Speed values, picked when you reveal.
• Cooling System: Cooldown.
• Body: lets you discard Stress cards.
• R.P.M.: help with slipstreaming and overtaking, best in and around corners.
• Tires: faster corners, or a lot of Cooldown at the cost of grip.
• Wings: faster corners, but they require Heat.
• Turbocharger: the highest values, at a Heat cost.
• Fuel: the “illegal” super fuel cards.
• Gas Pedal: cards you can play on top of your planned ones.
• Suspension: cards you can reuse round after round.

Mandatory symbols are the price

Some symbols on an Upgrade are optional. Others are mandatory, marked with their own icon, and you must apply them. They are the price of a strong card:

• Heat: pay that many Heat from your Engine. If you played the card by mistake and cannot pay, you discard it and flip a random Basic card instead.
• Scrap: discard the top card of your deck that many times.
• Adjust Speed Limit: corners you cross this turn have a higher or lower limit for you.

Before you take a big number, translate its cost into Heat and Spaces. A card that adds a lot of Speed but costs Heat is a Boost you chose in advance. It is great on a long straight and a liability right before a tight corner.

Scrap has a hidden upside: like flipping for Boost or Stress, any Heat card scrapped from your deck goes to your discard pile instead of into your hand.

Four questions for every pick

1. Does it help on this track? Corner-heavy tracks reward cards that raise your limit or cool you down. Tracks with long straights reward raw Speed.
2. Is it good whenever it shows up? Three Upgrades in a deck of about 18 cards means you will see each one only a few times. A card that is fine anywhere beats one that needs a perfect moment.
3. What does it cost? Count mandatory Heat and Scrap, and remember Heat comes back as a dead card later.
4. What does the rest of my car need? If your first pick costs Heat, a Cooling System or Tires card that gives Cooldown balances it.

Reading the market

You see the whole market before your pick. If a rival behind you on the grid is building a corner car, the card that fits it best is worth noting. In a full six-car race, a market of 9 cards leaves room for a pick that is good for you and denies someone else. Do it only when the two picks are close; your own car comes first.

Draft position

The car at the back of the grid picks first in rounds one and three. That is a small reward for a bad start spot, and it also means the front car often gets what is left. In a Championship season, the order follows the standings, and you draft one card per race instead of three, so each pick matters more. The endgame lesson covers how that season plays out.