Before play begins each player shuffles his or her deck. The players then determine who will go first by rolling a die of some kind, or flipping a coin. Since a maximum of two people can play in any one game, flipping a coin is probably the simplest option.
Once this is done, each player draws a hand. The base size for a hand is 4 cards. For every 5x5 unit or part thereof added the the dimensions of the play zone an extra card is drawn. Thus, for a 20x20 game each player draws 6 cards at the beginning of the game.