Starter packs in SGOTCG are always the same. Each starter packs always contain the same team characters, the same missions, the same villain cards and the same hero cards. In Sealed Deck, a player receives one starter and three boosters, each 11 cards with 1 rare, 3 uncommons and 7 commons or 6 commons and an ultra-rare. Therefore we can say that it is possible to expect to see certain cards with certain frequency, and it is possible for players playing Sealed Deck to prepare for what they are about to face rather extensively.

Note At times I will refer to the 'limited format' which are formats where you build your decks with what cards you are given in that event, rather with cards that you already own.

Twelve Mission Cards

It should already be clear how crucial correct mission cards play a part in making a good deck. Unfortunately, you are unable to change your twelve mission cards and therefore everyone in the sealed deck tournament has to play around them.

Developers have beautifully balanced the four starters by giving each decks' mission piles the following attributes.

Experience values: 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1
Difficulty ratings: 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3

Glyphs: 2 of each kind

This will come in handy in a short while.

While there is no other substantive point I will make here, it is important that this is the first thing mentioned.

Three Booster Packs

To really start off the article, let us begin with the one thing everyone gets that everyone else gets too. Three boosters! I can't tell you what you will get, but you don't have to be told that you are likely to see certain common cards more often than certain uncommon cards, for example.

Common cards require the most study because you get more common cards than any other cards. At the same time, certain cards are simply so good that there is hardly any reason not to include them - these cards are commonly called bombs in TCGs.

Team Characters

Before I start talking about the team characters in the Starters themselves, chew on this - ALL unmodified starter decks are flawed in this aspect. The missions clash with some team characters, the teams have too little cost and in some cases glyphs easily scored simply don't improve your team. It is thus imperative to update the team line-up if you want to win at all. I will talk about all team characters in this article because these essentially shape how you build your deck and play. This makes the section a little long, so do persevere!

Note I refer to the skills Culture, Science, Combat and Ingenuity in that order when I use slashes to seperate them below. (e.g. 3/3/0/1) refers to 3 Culture, 3 Science, 0 Combat and 1 Ingenuity.

• Charles Kawalsky (Good Soldier) - 0/1/2/2 6 cost
• Rak'nor (Rebel Convert) - 2/0/2/1 6 cost
• Aldwin (Tok'ra Agent) - 0/2/2/2 6 cost
• Ishta (Leader of the Hak'tyl Resistance) - 1/0/2/2 6 cost

These four team characters have a cost of 6 and are thus very powerful in the environment because all the starter decks start with an abysmal team cost of 14 and in a few cases the most expensive (with the lowest cost) character is also the least useful.

Charles Kawalsky and Aldwin have moderately useful abilities that work with any glyphs, and unless you really need glyphs on one character, for example, Joe Spencer or Seasoned Travelers, it is worth tossing it to them to make the 'free' (Serpent Guards and Lack of Experience) obstacles worse for your opponent as well.

Ishta should shine like a beacon of hope if you see her because her ability is just incredible in the format. You can consistently deal with bomby adversaries all through your 6 games without help from any other cards.

Rak'nor's ability fails to shine because of the glyph distribution, but he has the highest stats of the four characters.

• Balinsky (Insightful Archaeologist) - 2/2/1/1 4 cost

This common shines brighter than any other common/ uncommon team character. He's good, period. His ability allows him to have the strongest stats in the game and he is the perfect character to stack glyphs on, especially since the glyph distribution in starter packs means that most glyphs won't be required to activate abilities of other team characters. This means Balinsky synergises very well with Seasoned Travelers, another great common in the format. Fortunately for some players and unfortunately for others, Balinsky is included in two of the starters, meaning the two other starters get the shaft. The good news is he is easy to crack open. Look out for him.

Common 'Starter' Characters - 7 total skill each

The appearance of Teal'c, Samantha, Jack and Daniel as commons in boosters allow decks that already contain them to use extras as boosts, but starters that don't already have them can consider them to be used as team characters.

Teal'c (Enemy of the Goa'uld) and Daniel Jackson (Trained Fighter) are likely the best of the four. Since both of them use two different glyphs each, it means you are very likely to be able to activate these abilities.

Samantha Carter (Problem Solver) is worthy of use because she is the only character in the common range to have a Science skill of 3. In the common pool, everyone else's Science values suck, at maximum only 1 each.

Jack O'Neill (SG-1 Commander) is probably the least useful of them all because his ability is near impossible to activate in time to make a difference and he has 1 less cost compared with his peers. It is wise to skip him.

Cameron Mitchell (Eager Adventurer), the last common team character not yet brought up has just a terrible cost despite his decent stats. I would recommend something else.

Uncommon Characters

The two uncommon characters left unmentioned, Svetlana Markov (Brilliant Scientist) and Janet Fraiser (Field Medic), are almost strictly worse than Balinsky and Samantha Carter respectively, but become useful if you are able to use them to customize a team that balances 3 stats and ignores the last. This can make them quite useful for the Daniel Jackson starter.

Rare Characters

Don't expect to see these often, and many rare team characters are useless in Sealed anyways.

Teal'c (Warrior of Chulak), Jack O'Neill (Witty Explorer), Samantha Carter (Scientific Genius) are all worse than their common versions and Zukhov (Russian Colonel) is worse than Ishta unless you are lucky with glyphs. A case can be made for George Hammond (Front Line General) but Balinsky more or less obsoletes him. He is, however, worth inclusion if you are planning to ignore Science (which means no Balinsky in the first place). Jacob Carter (Man of Two Worlds)'s stats are great and can be considered easily.

• Thor (Asgard Ally) - 3/3/0/1 2 cost
• Makepeace (NID Mole) - 0/2/2/1 4 cost
• Daniel Jackson (Adventurer) - 3/1/0/2 3 cost

These three are worth building around for various reasons.

Thor (Asgard Ally) who is one of the archetypes in constructed, has really unique stats which makes teams including him have a innate skill total that is wildly different from other decks (especially if Balinsky is also used at the same time). Although he has a precarious cost, you will tend to be able to race your opponent more often than not with the edge he gives you.

Power Daniel Jackson (Adventurer) is another archetypal character in constructed. Essentially the most bomby bomb out there (since team characters don't need to be drawn before they can be used), his ability is strong and easy to build around around. Simply toss good high cost cards in and start winning.

Makepeace (NID Mole) is the hardest of the three to build around but can likely allow you to win slow and steadily once you have a 3 glyphs on him. Daniel and Jack starters are most likely to be able to put him to use because they have 7 and 6 gears respectively in the starter itself already, while Samantha and Teal'c starters only have 2 and 0 respectively. There are 8 gears out of 100 common cards, so more often than not with the first two starters you will be able to build a deck around Makepeace while with the other two, you would need to really get a lot of gears in your boosters.

Ultra Rare Characters

With 3 packs there is a 50/50 chance of pulling at least one Ultra Rare, but only one is worth writing home about.

Jack O'Neill - Foil (Team Leader) is used very heavily in constructed and without a doubt, his mission control ability is good in any format.

Teal'c - Foil (Staunch Defender), Samantha Carter - Foil (Invaluable Asset) are worse than their common counterparts, and while Mission Daniel Jackson - Foil (Linguistics Expert)'s ability is quite impossible to assemble reliably he has a slightly higher cost if that makes a difference to you. Cameron Mitchell - Foil (Keen Strategist) has a much better cost as well, but Jack O'Neill (SG-1 Commander) is more or less the same. Vala Mal Doran - Foil (Con Artist) has pretty unique stats for a good cost, but her ability is basically fluff in Sealed Deck.

Pay attention to what team characters are viable and you are surely first step towards a victory already.

Hero Cards

The bulk of the important things I want to say about hero cards are found below for each individual starter deck. Here I will just mention bomb hero cards in the various rarities, so make sure you ask yourself why you are not including them because chances are you should. Some cards I will not mention although they are obviously very good (say Nicholas Ballard (Outcast Scholar), Merrin (Orbanian Urrone), Artok (Impassioned Rebel), and Drey'auc (Of the Codai Plains)) because they are ultimately not auto-includes.

To be sure, all fat support characters that cost 4-5 are very strong if your team has only mid-ranged skills in those categories (6 and below, even 7) while small efficient support characters that cost 2-3 for the same amount of power or less are generally great as long as you are not ignoring the skill category they work in.

Common

Dialing Computer

This gear doesn't allow you to win faster, but allows your deck to have more inevitability. Its versatile cost means you can easily not drop it until the turn you need to recycle your first mission. If you have the lead, this gear will likely keep you in the lead in sealed.

Naquadah Reactor

There is almost no reason not to run as many of these as possible. Theoretically they are 5-cost Yeehaws! that cost an investment of 3 beforehand, but before the crucial turn they need to be activated they allow your to develop your board much faster as long as you drop them early enough.

R and R

Generally this allows you to complete 1 mission for sure, since you are not likely to run into stop-all failuire texts in sealed. Early game it makes it not too bad to run into a bad mission, while late game you can save one (or even two) to push through the final mission.

Zat Gun

I am including this gear in here although it is not necessarily game breaking. Brainwashing, Tight Rein, Fire Rain, Cloaked Ashrak and Troop Landing will be very commonly seen obstacles in the environment because they are found in the starters. Zat Gun will be useful even if you already have high combat skill thus. It also stops the failure text of cards such as Goa'uld Bomb and Endure the Test which makes many more cards dead in the opponent's hands, providing great card advantage.

Uncommon

Gairwyn (Cimmerian Ally)

Including a Gairwyn or two is never wrong. Saving her for the turn you expect to face a lot of opposition will really put the hurt on the opponent. If you can remember what obstacles each starter comes with, as well as pay attention to what obstacles your opponent has been playing so far, Gairwyn will hurt a lot.

Symbiote Poison

This gear is simply amazing in limited formats because your opponent WILL play something it can destroy.

Rare

Oma Desala (Guide to Ascension)

This woman is beyond fat. She is easily 4 Culture/ 4 Ingenuity for 4 cost and much more if you rely on support characters to carry you through in either of those departments. If you are ignoring either Culture/Ingenuity and already have a strong innate team skill for the other, then you don't need her. Otherwise, there's simply no reason not to abuse the cheap skill that she offers.

Walter Harriman (Technician)

This card is an auto-include in many constructed decks for players who have them and even if you are not keen on completing Science missions these should go into your limited decks as well. At his worst, he will draw at least one "Destroy a support character" onto himself. Being able to cherry-pick the order of your missions is just strong.

Thor (Friend of the Tau'ri)

This one wins games out of nowhere, allowing you to complete your final mission with just support characters with ease, or you can set up your next mission while using him in the current one. Either way, Thor has a tendency to end up as the last card you play.

Villain Cards

Obstacles are more or less a mixed bag. There are no must-include obstacles although two come very close (the rares Repeating Time and Carnivorous Creature), but having a well put together villain portion certainly does not require any particular obstacles.

On the other hand, some adversaries are truly great. Not only is it important to know which ones are bombs, it is also important for you to know what are the good adversaries are (especially in common) so that you do not suffer in their hands.

It is worth noticing while the four starter decks have diverse hero portions, their villain portions overlap. These villain portions are diverse skill-wise but are still weak in certain mission types because the obstacles are either on the curve or under the curve in those areas. This will come into play in the next section where I analyse each starter deck separately.

NoteThe 'curve' refers to how 1 power can be turned into 1 difficulty and 3 power can be turned into 2 difficulty most of the time via complications, so something that costs more power but give you less difficulty would be considered under (worse than) the curve while something that costs less power to give you more difficulty would be considered above (better than) the curve.

Starter

• Apophis (Threat to Earth) - Found in Samantha/Teal'c starters
• Anubis (Banished Lord) - Found in Jack/Daniel starters

These two cards are the reasons why decks who ignore low-cost support characters are going to suffer. Don't ignore low-cost support characters and you will be fine. For deckbuilders, there is no reason to remove these two adversaries when they can sometimes win games all by themselves, Apophis by slowing down the opponent a lot and Anubis by killing many of the opponent's support characters. While all adversaries contribute, Anubis can really abuse the slippery slope effect, so play them!

Note Slippery slope effect in games is when you lose in one situation it makes you more likely to lose another situation, and this causes your losses to snowball until you are at a much greater disadvantage than you were in the first place.

Common

Shak'l (Servant of Apophis) and Yu (The Great)

Shak'l works wonders for fixing your hand with Goa'uld adversaries which you will definitely have. Only the Daniel starter seems to gravitate towards avoiding combat, which means both these adversaries can usually be played and used above the curve, offering 2 combat for 2 power.

Robert Kinsey (Ambitious Senator)

He is above the curve for culture with two ways to increase his difficulty so he is very playable. That he can be deployed on the first turn makes him a good way to curve out the villain portion of your deck. Furthermore, all four starter decks contain either 2 Harsh Conditions or 2 Language Barriers which in tandem with Robert Kinsey is enough to stop your opponent cold in Culture or Ingenuity.

Uncommon

Fifth (Hardened Foe)

Fifth screams to be built around since there is a low chance of him being removed in the current sealed formats. To do so, sport a slightly bigger deck and don't be afraid of having a slightly lower team cost (say 14 to 16) in order to have better stats. It is, however, proven that some people simply do not have the luck to draw their Fifths, so don't be the one to be trapped into a bad deck just to abuse him. A slightly bigger deck won't work better just with an inclusion of a Fifth. It still requires the deck to be coherent.

Frank Simmons (Government Adversary)

Undoubtedly the bombiest adversary, this guy is the most punishing early game adversary out there and his dominance can continue into the mid game and even the late game with enough political obstacles. Once you assign him, your opponent will have to waste all his power to complete a Culture or Ingenuity mission, which means he will not be able to develop his board. Constructed decks already fear him. Limited decks are even less prepared to handle an adversary an adversary who wrecks their curve. A must include no matter which starter you get. Include political obstacles.

Tanith (Lurker)

This guy can really spell death for an opponent who starts off slow. He is slightly above the curve (4 power for 3 Combat or 3 Ingenuity, including his free complication), and beyond that he really shines. He is strongest in Daniel and Samantha starters because they each have 2 Serpent Guards to begin with. Look for Lack of Experience too, because these two obstacles pushes him over the top. He is hard to get rid of even in constructed, so in limited formats he generally makes the opponent's game more difficult all the way to the end.

Rare

Most rare adversaries tend to gravitate towards bomb status, but these following two can be used without any supporting cards unlike the rest (e.g. Hathor ultimately still needs obstacles to be played to be powerful).

Mollem (Duplicitous Diplomat)

Mollem is way above the curve. For four power he will net you about 5 difficulty on a good day and subsequently continue to maintain that difficulty. Even Anubis only goes above the curve on the turn he is played. In constructed it may be possible that the two power could allow your opponent to do something extra but in limited it is safe to asume that decks are not able to reliably put the 2 power to good use.

Mot (Servant of Baal)

This guy is one of my favorite cards. Not only is he under the curve for two categories, his ability gives you a second way to filter your hand (aside from complications), allows you to do something with your power when you have no chance of stopping your opponent from completing a mission and allows you to to save up for a big turn to play big failure effects. He is a must include for my constructed decks and has no reason to be ignored if opened in limited.

Continue on to Part 2