Need help with a Tableau building game.

Another option i could try is that there is no starting card.

Normally players have 7 cards in hand, and each round play 2 and draw 1 (whittling down to zero cards during the game.)

The option I could try is players start with 6 cards, and go one less round.
(doing this would create a situation where players are creating a tableau of 10 cards rather than 12)
This wouldn't exhaust the deck, but would still exhaust hands.
Also, effectively, there would be enough cards left in the deck to have a starting card represented by a normal card in the deck.

I'm not sure of the math side of things as far as points and how "swingy" the absence of 2 cards from your tableau would be, but in a 5 player game, every player would be the first player one time, and that's pretty clean.

This is what I have so far:
1) each player starts with 7 cards in hand. Cards have a color, a numerical value, and a point value.
2) a rondel with 5 sections (colors) is on the table, with a single pawn moving around it.
3) a card is drawn from the top of the deck as a starting card (the color where the pawn starts, as well as establishing the starting numerical value of the "line", a row of cards on the table.)
4) an amount of cards equal to 2x the number of players is placed face up in a draft "pool"
5) turn order for a round is snake style, with player order working like: 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 1. And players have 2 tokens to mark their turn, as they will go twice.
6) starting with the first player, players play a card face-up, or face-down:
...face-up: place one of your tokens around the colored section of the rondel that matches the color of the card you played, and move the pawn clockwise if your card was higher in numerical value, or counter clockwise if it was lower.
...face-down: take one of the face-up cards in the line and put it directly into your scoring tableau.
(By the end of this step, all players will have played 2 cards)
7)after all players have played the round, the pawn starts from its current location on the rondel moving clockwise. Each player token the pawn passes, that player takes their token back, and gets to take one card from the draft pool and place it into their tableau.
8) once all tokens have been collected, discard undrafted cards, and move the cards played to the line to the draft pool. (Face down cards are turned face up)
9) at the end of the round, each player draws 1 card.
10) at the end of the game, (when players have no cards in hands) players will check, color by color, who has the highest numerical value of that color. That player will actually count the points listed on the neighboring colors instead of the points on that color.

With 70 cards, in a 5 player game, 7 cards in starting hands will through process of playing, end up with players having 12 cards their tableau, no cards in hands, and no cards in the deck (but only if there is a 71st "starting card").

i.e. Play 2, draw 1 will have 12 cards played total. Yes I understand that 12x5 is 60, so there should be 10 cards leftover, but step 8 shows that the ten leftover cards are already in play, and don't leave until the end of the round. I'm 1 card short, or else the final round will deal 4 cards to 5 players (this is thanks to step 3). I'd be looking for a 71st card, and it can't really be the same as the rest of the deck, because each color is identical. (Plus I have printing space for 2 additional cards, so I felt it was an opportunity to do something neat)

Thanks,
Ian