Deck of 52

The Deck of 52 as shown during the ExOps brief

The Deck of 52 represents fifty two people related to Choi Song targeted by the Allied Nations and prominently featured in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. The Deck of 52 are split into four suits; Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades, and bounties listed with greater importance receive a higher rating, with the Ace of the suit being the most important member of the suit, the face cards being very significant and the number cards being smaller, open bounties.

Overview

The Allied Nations and Global Satellite Reporting Network were responsible for creating the list after they were having difficulty finding all of the people responsible for the current state of North Korean and the nuclear threat. This caught the attention of many PMCs, one of which was ExOps who would soon send in a mercenary to capture the Deck of 52. All of them have a price bounty which is given to the mercenary upon successful capture of a high value target.

If, however, one of the HVTs is killed the mercenary must take a digital photograph of their face and send it to the AN upon which the mercenary will only be given half of the bounty, the reason being that a dead HVT is "bad publicity" and they are unable to interrogate him/her and therefore cannot gather as much intelligence as a live bounty. Most of them "open bounties," however all the face cards and one of the number cards have to be captured while doing contracts, with the Ace of the suit always being on a contract authorised by the Allied Nations. However, all of the other number cards in the deck can be caught without doing contracts as they are the open bounties and will be in their designated locations even without doing the corresponding contract that their intel email is received for.

When High Value Targets are verified, intel regarding the location of the suit's Ace is accumulated. After a certain minimum is achieved, the Allies will grant the mercenary clearance to hunt down the Ace. Killing or capturing all the number and face cards will result in maximum intel, however there is no difference in obtaining the minimal and maximum intel for a suit's Ace card, besides the monetary gain and unlocking the 'Cheat Weapons Drop' on a new play through.

If all number cards are captured/killed, only one face card is required to unlock the Ace contract. This is noteworthy for Playground of Destruction mode (new game+) after verifying Song and starting a new playthrough. In Playground of Destruction mode, all number cards (except the 2 of Clubs) are removed from the game and their status is what ever it was when the Ace of Spades contract unlocked. This way, you can choose certain factions to support and ignore others to see different game world changes and GSRN cutscenes.

Number cards all have the same bounty, determined by Suit:

• Clubs are $25,000 each.
• Diamonds are $50,000 each.
• Hearts are $75,000 each.
• Spades are $100,000 each.

Suits

The suit of a card delineates their relationship with Song:

• Clubs are financiers, businessmen and criminals who operate a state-sponsored mafia (Division 39);
• Diamonds are important officers and commanders of the DPRK army;
• Hearts are biological, nuclear, and chemical scientists and technicians, especially the Circle of Five who assists Song in his nuclear weapons program;
• Spades are tacticians and advisors for General Song and Song's personal bodyguards, along with Song himself.

Trivia

• The Deck of 52 is based on the Most-wanted Iraqi playing cards.