I've been playing the Stargate Trading Card Game for since its release. I really enjoy it. I like it as a card game; I like it as collectibles; it's well-designed for online (being online it's more sophisticated than on paper although it has a paper card cousin); and it's Stargate, one of my most favoritist Sci-Fi/Action/Drama/Comedies.

Part of what makes the cards work so well is how Sony Denver was able to match the attributes of the cards to the character/item/event/mission so very well. If you know the show you know exactly why a card has the attributes and text it does. If you don't know the show, there's a likely chance you'll want to - they've included much of the humor ON the cards.

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The release of the first expansion, System Lords, allows the players the opportunity to builds specialized decks. Before now, if you wanted an all-Russian team, an all-Jaffa team or all-Tok'ra it simply was not possible. You also could not specialize your villains as anything other than Goa'uld. System Lords lets you build your strategies around the flavor of a race or culture.

After MUCH trading (and then giving up and begging Sony for a press deck because I was going broke), I've built a Russian team. The Russians are interesting - they earn their bonuses once they fail the first time. That's when they get their second wind. Also, they are horrible at providing their own support.

If you know the show at all, you'll understand why they occasionally get bonuses from NID characters (the NID were a secret rogue agency within the US gov't). But to succeed on the first try is simply hard. Also...they're short on culture points and low on ingenuity, but several earn more as they complete missions.

I have six cards to choose from but only a team of four that I can build. I'm going to attempt the following four in the hopes of a hero victory:

We shall see how it works out.