"So what's this extra card for, anyway?"

If we had a dollar for every time we’d heard that over the past few months, we could honestly take a break from selling decks for a while and simply coast on that solid investment; seriously. In each and every Untold deck, you’ll find a nifty little card that we affectionately refer to as the "Deck ID" card. What is it, exactly? Looking at one should give you the answer, but, yes, I will say it once more.

"The Deck ID card is a listing of everything that’s inside your Untold deck!"

Yup, that's it. Depending on the type of deck you’ve bought, the flip side may hold one of our QRC's (or Quick Reference Cards), or if you’ve bought a really big deck (like maybe Gifts of Oaze or Gifts of Marou), then you'll see all the cards we could not get on the front listed on the back. Simple enough, ya?

Many folks might see this as a wasted card. In fact, to promote COMPLETE transparency with our customers, we don't even count the card in our deck numbers, since it’s not technically a "playable" card. That’s why you see all of our decks have odd numbers (i.e. 17, 35, 71, etc…). However, while it might not be playable, to call it a "useless" or "wasteful" card is a gross misnomer. The Deck ID card has multiple uses and we're discovering new ones all the time!

First of all is the original card's intent: to help the Player or GM to quickly reassemble their decks without any sort of outside or additional tool. If you’re playing an Iconic Sarge, then slapping the deck back together after a night of furious, card slinging role-play is as easy as can be – just gather back together all the cards on your Deck ID and you're done. Further, the concept of the Deck ID card has been catching on for custom decks as well – as we've been to cons, demos, and other Boost Events, we’ve seen Untold GM's creating their own Deck ID cards for their custom-built characters, just like it was second nature.

Secondly, we've found that first time players of Untold (who, in our demos, always get to play one of our Iconic Characters) really like the Deck ID cards as it provides them a quick and handy reference of everything their character "can do" in a small and compact area. No longer are these new players faced with a large, complex and confusing character sheet to look over and digest while their GM and fellow players look on expectantly, wondering what their Character is about to do! Everything is right there in front of them in a tidy list – awesome!

Another handy and unexpected use we've found for the Deck ID card is a quick reference tool for GM's. Let's say you have several decks "behind the screen", as it were: Flux Horrors, Flux Horror Powers, Undead Infection, Undead Infection Powers and NAU Defenders. By themselves, that's a lot of decks to keep track of! However, we've seen organized GM's keeping their cards in neat, separate piles, with the Deck ID on top of each. With all of the cards arrayed beneath the Deck ID in the same order as they appear on the Deck ID card, they can quickly nab the pile of cards they need, and almost instantly produce the card they require for the game!

Box-carrying GM's also have started using their Deck ID cards as index-type reference cards for their sheaves of cards inside their boxes. We’ve even seen GM's creating "long card" holders to lift their Deck ID cards above the rest of the cards so with just a casual glance across their impressive armies of orderly Untold cards, they can quickly spot their "Races of New Earth" cards and produce them for game play.

Honestly, when coupled with this level of sophistication and organization, we’ve truly been wondering when we're going to see Vegas-style dealing tricks coming from our Untold GM's! Regardless of when we will (or will not) begin seeing cool "card tricks" from players and GM's of Untold; one thing you can rest easy knowing – the guys from Wandering Men Studios are definitely NOT trying to play a trick on gamers. We're not trying to push a "useless" or "worthless" card on anyone. As a matter of fact, with the utilization of our card backs, the invention of Double-cards and Quad-cards, as well as the creation of the Deck ID card, we're pushing the envelope when it comes to providing quality and quantity for every gaming dollar spent!

So check out those Deck ID cards tonight when you go home, or nab one of our cool new QRC Decks. Let us know what you think of them; they're just as important and useful as all those other cards you have – maybe even more so! Let us know if you have a unique or unusual way you use your Deck ID cards – we want know and you just might earn some UP!