Make sure you read Part 1 first -- editor.

The Four Starter Decks

Now to actually examine the four decks in question. Sealed deck can in fact comparable to making your first deck when you have only a starter and a few boosters. To be concise, I examine all four decks in the same systematic manner.

1. I will summarise the good and bad points of the starter in point form.
2. Following that I will talk about what directions the deck could probably take and how some of the problems could be fixed, as well as pointing out cards to keep an eye out for to include in the deck.
3. Finally, I will summarize the general strategy of how to modify the starter in point form.

Science, Samantha Carter Starter

Team Members

• Samantha Carter - Foil (Problem Solver)
• Martouf - Foil (Tok'ra Liaison)
• Jack O'Neill - Foil (SG-1 Commander)
• Balinsky - Foil (Insightful Archaeologist)

Skills: 5/8/8/5
Cost: 14

Mission Pile

Mission Name	Culture	Science	Combat	Ingenuity	XP	Glyph
Retrieve Artifact	5				4	Orion
What Fate Omaroca?	4				2	Triangulum
Investigate Disappearance	3				2	Gemini
Cure the Vorlix		5			4	Libra
Loop of Kon Garat		5			3	Scorpius
Research Advanced Races		4			2	Orion
Evacuate Village			5		3	Pisces
Fall of Earth			4		3	Gemini
Prison Break			3		1	Scorpius
Locate Renegades				4	3	Pisces
Antarctic Rescue				3	1	Libra
Training Exercises				3	2	Triangulum

Hero Portion	Villain
2x Top Minds 3x Receiving a Go 3x Seasoned Travelers 2x Galaran Memory Device 3x Nyan (Bedrosian Archaeologist) 2x Malek (Outpost Commander) 2x Osbourn (Antartic Researcher) 3x Drey'auc (Of the Codai Plains)	2x Apophis (Threat to Earth) 2x Robert Kinsey (Ambitious Senator) 2x Language Barrier 2x Water-Based Life Forms 3x Telekinetic Mutants 3x Red Sky 2x Salish Spirits 2x Serpent Guards 3x Parasitic Insects 3x Cloaked Ashrak
Total: 20	Total: 24
Total Decksize: 44

What is Good

• The deck has Balinsky
• The deck has a great combo with Galaran Memory Device, Seasoned Travelers and Balinsky
• The deck has great science missions
• If Samantha's ability comes online, it synergises well with Balinsky
• Malek allows one glyph to be placed on another character first then be transferred later onto Balinsky to work with the combo

What is Bad

• Martouf is a low cost character whose ability we won't be able to use most of the time
• Jack is another low cost character whose ability we won't be able to use most of the time
• Jack clashes with the mission Antarctic Rescue
• Training Exercises clashes with Balinsky who wants to hog the glyphs
• Evacuate Village clashes with Balinsky who wants to hog the glyphs
• Retrieve Artifact is almost impossible to complete with only Nyan
• Investigate Disappearances really hurt because we have so few support characters
• Top Minds has only 4 support characters to work with

To be sure this sinks in, the combo of Galaran Memory Device with Seasoned Travelers and Top Minds is great. It allows the deck to aggressively revive its adversaries, thin the deck, then constantly put Top Minds and Seasoned Travelers back into the deck to push through the last few missions. This combo ensures that once the deck gets a few glyphs and a bunch of support characters down, the mid to end game would take care of itself with the combo.

The big fix is obvious - load the deck with tons of low cost support characters that could push in the first 2-3 glyphs. It doesn't matter what type of missions they are because in the late game, Seasoned Travelers buff all skills at the same time. There are a whole lot of cheap common and uncommon support characters which means this portion is easily taken care of. Extra copies of Top Minds and Galaran Memory Devices as well as Ill-Gotten Gains to search for the devices would increase the consistency of the combo.

The deck seems to be unsure of whether it wants to complete Ingenuity missions or Culture missions. Training Exercises and Retrieve Artifact are plain hard to complete. A good way to increase the deck's consistency could be to focus on either one, making Dialing Computer a stronger inclusion as well.

Because Samantha and Balinsky, who are crucial to completing the deck's difficult science missions have only 1 ingenuity, the other two team characters must both have decent ingenuity for Antarctic Rescue to be able to be completed. Removing Martouf for Ishta, Aldwin or Charles Kawalsky are all good for this. The other direction the deck can take is to ignore ingenuity which apart from Locate Renegades's failure text, has no other disadvantages. Rak'nor and Teal'c can both substitute Jack quite efficiently. Depending on your mix of available support and team characters, combinations without Samantha could end up working too. As long as the deck can complete a few glyphs, set up its combo and thin its deck out fast, the hero side will work.

Fall of Earth and Prison Break clash in what they want you to do. The former wants you to deploy support characters beforehand because it doesn't allow you to deploy any while you are trying to complete it, while the latter wants you to hold them in your hand because it stops all support characters when it is revealed. You reliably only want to focus on one while keeping the other at the back of your head. As much as possible, you want to play your combat support for Fall of Earth, which provides more experience, but if you have enough combat support, leave a unique one in your hand for Prison Break, which is a great mission to reveal as a second mission of the turn. Investigate Disappearances should be kept at the back of your head. Remember to keep an expendable support character on the board at all times to sacrifice to it.

Since the recycling effect of Galaran Memory Devices works best when you have fewer cards in your deck, your deck size should be based on the number of good cards you can put in and the total number of adversaries. Having 40-50 good cards with 4-5 adversaries gives good consistency. If you have many good cards to include, 50-60 could work as well if you can also increase the number of adversaries to 6-8 or so to reliably draw at least one to thin the deck with. Cut down on cards that are unnecessary - Receiving a Go can be removed since the deck wants to play as many support characters early as possible. The third copies of Nyan and Drey'auc could also be removed to thin the deck.

In the villain portion, Telekinetic Mutants is a pretty weak obstacle because most players run enough support characters to counter it. Water-Based Life Forms and Cloaked Ashrak are also a weak obstacles because they are merely on the curve. The deck lacks other Ingenuity obstacles above the curve so both of these are generally very weak so you want to at least remove one or the other, if not both.

Salish Spirits and Parasitic Insects are great combat obstacles above the curve and can be handy for a few extra points of difficulty and failure effects in their other categories. Since only the Daniel starter is leaning towards cutting combat and these two missions already punish it for doing so, more good combat obstacles with punishing effects are good. These include Forced Labour Camp, Endure the Tests, and Brainwashing. Finally, political obstacles such as Stonewalled and Loss of Fundings are good to work with Robert Kinsey.

Yu is a very good adversary to include in the deck to further improve the use of Language Barrier and Red Sky (Yu and Red Sky also cover a lot of ground together). The deck is not afraid to use adversaries with high revive cost. Fifth comes to mind for single-handedly making missions other than combat really difficult, but you already have that covered. Tanith is also able to reduce your decksize (by giving you a free complication every mission) and works well with Serpent Guards.

How to Fix the Deck

• Add in lots of small support characters
• Add in other cards that make the combo work
• Focus on three mission types, mostly choosing between Culture and Ingenuity
• Remember Investigate Disappearances is in your mission pile, so play a fodder out early to sacrifice to it
• Play your combat support characters and as much as possible to prepare for Fall of Earth and hold a unique one for Prison Break
• Thin the deck by removing weaker cards, fill it up with good cards and small support characters to a level where it is still possible to get your adversaries out to further thin the deck with.
• Keep an eye out for good above/on the curve combat obstacles that provide failure texts
• Political obstacles are also good with Robert Kinsey
• Use adversaries with high revive cost to allow your combo to go online as required

Combat, Teal'c Starter

Team Members

• Teal'c - Foil (Enemy of the Goa'uld)
• Bra'tac - Foil (Jaffa Master)
• Samantha Carter - Foil (Problem Solver)
• Daniel Jackson - Foil (Trained Fighter)

Skills: 8/4/7/6
Cost: 14

Mission Pile

Mission Name	Culture	Science	Combat	Ingenuity	XP	Glyph
Cultural Exchange	5				3	Triangulum
Uncover the Stargate	4				3	Orion
Disclosure	3				1	Gemini
Explore Genetics Labs		4			3	Libra
Brief Candle		3			1	Orion
Investigate Plague		3			2	Scorpius
Search and Rescue			5		3	Scorpius
Repel Cronus			5		4	Gemini
Stall Enemy			4		2	Pisces
Wormhole X-Treme!				5	4	Libra
Expose Blackmail				4	2	Triangulum
Escape the Keeper				3	2	Pisces

Hero Portion	Villain
2x Receiving a Go 3x Loyal Sacrifice 3x Special Training 3x Drey'auc (Of the Codai Plains) 3x Artok (Impassioned Rebel) 2x Gerak (Leader of the Jaffa) 2x Tolok (Jaffa Elder) 2x Osbourn (Antartic Researcher)	2x Apophis (Threat to Earth) 2x Yu (The Great) 2x Language Barrier 2x Water-Based Life Forms 3x Red Sky 3x Team Compromised 3x Tight Rein 3x Brainwashing 3x Cloaked Ashrak 2x Out of Your Depth
Total: 20	Total: 24
Total Decksize: 44

What is Good

• The mix of the three starter heroes gives the team a high chance of putting the glyphs to use. Teal'c and Daniel already cover 4 out of the 6 glyphs while Bra'tac covers the last two.
• Culture missions are great as they provide glyphs for Teal'C and Daniel.
• The rest of the missions are also good. Combat missions all have useful abilities, Science and Ingenuity missions are appropriately low in difficulty.

What is Bad

• Bra'tac has a really low cost and his ability is not very strong
• Special Training only adds +1 Science
• Loyal Sacrifice is difficult to use effectively
• Gerak clashes with Uncover the Stargate

This starter has safe team characters and missions but the Jaffa strategy doesn't really work out of the box. Even in constructed, Bra'tac is difficult to build around. His ability is only powerful useful when more than two Jaffa characters are out. For example, if I assign Drey'auc with his ability active, I have 3 Ingenuity, but assigning both her and Bra'tac I have 4 Ingenuity instead. You would not be able to activate his second ability because those glyphs are good for Teal'c and Daniel so generally Bra'tac is a weak link in the starter.

The three events that comes with the starter are lacklustre although Receiving a Go is probably better in this starter than any other, since we already have three team members who distinctly need certain glyphs. Also, since Daniel develops his Combat skill later, you can afford to wait to complete the red missions.

Because the missions are relatively easy, the deck can easily replace Bra'tac and go for a balanced team and hero deck that tries to get the glyphs on the correct characters, which by itself makes late game missions easier. Increasing the total cost on the team by replacing Bra'tac will not hurt the deck's strategy. With a balanced team, Samantha and Teal'c becomes really strong because their skills can be put to use regardless of what mission type it is, and being able to try all mission types gives you more chance to use both their abilities.

Balinsky or Svetlana provides very balanced stats and makes Science missions much easier to complete and although you lose some combat, this is not a pressing issue as both Daniel can increase his combat. Taking the Balinsky route, Quick Study can make up for the ingenuity loss and Receiving a Go also becomes much stronger. Without a Balinsky or Svetlana, it is less clear how the team can be improved. If you have two or three Haikon, Jolan and Rya'c, keeping Bra'tac can be desirable but otherwise, removing him for a higher cost character (such as Rak'nor or Ishta) that provide more or less the same skills would be recommended. If Bra'tac or Ishta is used, Nice Shot would fit into the deck nicely as well.

The deck already has four support characters spread out in four skills which is nice. Gerak can be afford to be removed if you do not use Bra'tac as he is otherwise inefficient. Loyal Sacrifice and Special Training should be removed in any case because they aren't really strong. The deck will benefit from more support characters as will any other and especially from boosts.

Since this is the only starter which will likely cut its starter character and leave the common characters in, the deck will likely be able to use more boosting cards than any other. They will fit in really nicely because the deck has no inclination towards ignoring any mission type.

The villain portion of the starter is able to deal with Science very well, while it slows down Combat without being really able to stop them with Apophis and Tight Rein. The Culture and Ingenuity portions of the villain deck stands a very good chance to be improved. The two starters which are strong in ingenuity have no team characters with 0 Ingenuity which means Team Compromised always nets 2 difficulty for 1 power against them, which is well above the curve. Language Barrier and Yu give the deck a little defence against Culture.

Water-Based Life Forms has a very good potential to be used but Cloaked Ashrak should be removed. Ingenuity or Culture obstacles such as Harsh Conditions, Lack of Experience, Sabotage or Interdimensional Creatures replace Cloaked Ashrak really well.

Overall, the villain portion does not scream to be edited too much. 3 Tight Reins could be too many, though. Since three out of the four starters are have a good chance to have a bad amount of Science in their team line-up, three Brainwashings is really a blessing. Look for cards such as Nittri, Ja'din and System Overload to properly punish the opponent's lack of Science.

The deck does not seem to require much size, although the balanced team and the ability to use specific glyphs does mean this starter requires a little time to develop itself properly. It could be a good idea to have a slightly larger portion for the villain deck to slow your opponent and just focus on support characters with good stats in the hero portion for a tighter development.

In short, get the glyphs on the corresponding characters in this starter and you are well onto your way to victory.

How to Fix the Deck

• Forget the Bra'tac/Jaffa strategy unless you get 2 or more uncommon Jaffa support characters
• Try to create a balanced team by removing Bra'tac
• There is no need to rush to complete red missions
• Remove Loyal Sacrifice and Special Training
• Look for boosts
• Look for above-the-curve Culture/Ingenuity obstacles
• Look for punishing Science obstacles
• Have a slightly bigger villain portion of a deck
• Put the glyphs on the correct characters rather than try to complete many missions in a row

Ingenuity, Jack O'Neill Starter

Team Members

• Jack O'Neill - Foil (SG-1 Commander)
• Teal'c - Foil (Enemy of the Goa'uld)
• Harold Maybourne - Foil (Ally of Opportunity)
• Cameron Mitchell - Foil (Eager Adventurer)

Skills: 6/3/9/9
Cost: 14

Mission Pile

Mission Name	Culture	Science	Combat	Ingenuity	XP	Glyph
Infiltrate Summit	4				3	Gemini
Convert Jaffa	3				1	Triangulum
Time Loop	3				2	Orion
Salvage Technology		5			3	Orion
Survey Goa'uld Pleasure Palace		4			3	Scorpius
Pandemic Containment		3			1	Libra
Destroy Minor Goa'uld			5		4	Pisces
Supply Raid			4		2	Gemini
Beneath the Surface			3		2	Scorpius
Seek and Capture				5	3	Pisces
Establish Communications				5	4	Triangulum
Attend Triad				4	2	Libra

Hero Portion	Villain
3x Sense of Adventure 3x Special Training 2x Ill-Gotten Gains 2x Galaran Memory Device 2x Dialing Computer 2x Naquadah Reactor 3x Nicholas Ballard (Outcast Scholar) 3x Merrin (Orbanian Urrone)	2x Anubis (Banished Lord) 2x Yu (The Great) 2x Loss of Funding 2x Harsh Conditions 3x Fire Rain 3x Team Compromised 3x Troop Landing 2x Brainwashing 3x Tight Rein 2x Out of Your Depth
Total: 20	Total: 24
Total Decksize: 44

What is Good

• The deck is already properly inclined towards ignoring Science missions which provide very little experience anyways
• The deck is geared to take Science missions by surprise
• 2 Naquadah Reactors, 2 Dialing Computers and 2 Ill-Gotten Gains
• Three of Merrin and Nicholas Ballard who die really often
• Great Combat and Ingenuity missions

What is Bad

• The Science missions in this starter are probably the hardest Science missions in the game
• Harold's ability cannot be reliably activated with only one Scorpius glyph outside Science
• Cameron's ability cannot be reliably activated with only one Orion glyph outside Science
• The deck is seriously lacking in support characters

First things first, the deck seriously requires a few more support characters to make sure it does not get screwed by Apophis and Tight Rein which all the other three decks have. A few support characters in Combat and Ingenuity can really help push the two mission types through. Look for Cross if you are keeping Harold since he is essentially 3 Ingenuity for 3 power with Harold around. Naquadah Reactors's free power needs a way to be spent to be useful, so you can use mid range support characters with some confidence.

With Dialing Computers this starter fares well against obstacles by default, therefore having protection against adversaries as well would make the deck very strong. Staff Weapon and Roundup are easily auto-includes in this starter. Remember to aggressively dig into the mission pile with Dialing Computers to find those Combat and Ingenuity missions.

Sense of Adventure is not as strong without having the ability to activate Harold so you should reduce their numbers or cut them if there are a lot of better cards to put in the deck. The two Galaran Memory Devices have combo potential if you are running a somewhat small deck, so look for cards that work well with it, such as Symbiote Poison.

You do not want to compromise Combat and Ingenuity for the two other skills since the deck inherently works best with with a high Combat and Ingenuity skill count. That said, the deck seems to be very flexible when it comes to substituting one member of the team. To increase the total cost of the team, Charles Kawalsky, Ishta or Aldwin are all worthy replacements. Daniel Jackson (Trained Fighter) is also a great choice.

Ultimately, you want to choose between Culture and Science. Science is likely to be the choiec since cutting Teal'c for someone with better Science is easy as both Samantha Carter (Problem Solver) and Aldwin replace him perfectly and Charles Kawalsky can replace Cameron Mitchell (Eager Adventurer). Samantha/Charles/Jack/Harold is a very strong 3/7/7/8 for 18 total cost. With Merrin and Special Training the difficulty of the Science missions can be negated. In this case, cutting Nicholas Ballard is obvious.

The other route that can be taken would be to cut Harold and the ability to complete Science completely. Daniel Jackson (Trained Fighter), Ishta and Rak'nor fits this purpose well, especially Daniel Jackson (Trained Fighter) who can use the Gemini and Tringulum glyphs that are on two of the culture missions.

The villain portion is actually already very cohesive and can easily be improved even further. Fire Rain works with Team Compromised and Out of Your Depth, and Brainwashing makes the deck good at against Science. Harsh Conditions, Troop Landing, and Team Compromised punishes Ingenuity well.

A few low cost Combat obstacles will give the deck very good defence against combat as well, since it already has Yu, Brainwashing, Troop Landing and Fire Rain. If this is possible, Tight Reins should be cut to make the deck tighter. Only Loss of Fundings does not work with other cards and will most likely end up cut.

For adversaries, Ja'din can punish opponents more than Anubis especially if it relies gears heavily. Leave Anubis to slow the opponent down in Culture and kill some support characters. Because you have Yu, it should not be likely that the opponent can continue into a Culture obstacle and complete it without being challenged, just remember to keep him ready for such an occasion.

A large portion of this starter is usable, so it is likely you will find that after you add everything that is good, you will likely have a deck that is approximately 60 cards. This will make your deck slightly more resilient than decks with less than 50 cards so you would be able to afford to play a defensive game. If your deck is above 60 cards, cutting Galaran Memory Device can make your deck tighter.

How to Fix the Deck

• Add both low and mid range support characters to allow your board to develop
• Dig aggressive for Combat and Ingenuity missions with Dialing Computer
• Look for anti-adversary cards
• Look for cards to work with Galaran Memory Device
• Choose Science or Culture, but do not compromise Combat and Ingenuity
• Look for low cost combat obstacles
• Remember you need Yu to stop culture missions
• A bigger deck is ok for this starter

Culture, Daniel Jackson Starter

Team Members

• Daniel Jackson - Foil (Trained Fighter)
• Cameron Mitchell - Foil (Eager Adventurer)
• Balinsky - Foil (Insightful Archaeologist)
• Vala Mal Doran - Foil (Probationary Member of the SGC)

Skills: 8/4/5/9
Cost: 14

Mission Pile

Mission Name	Culture	Science	Combat	Ingenuity	XP	Glyph
Seek Assistance	5				3	Gemini
Pursue the Harcesis	5				4	Triangulum
Contact the Asgard	4				2	Orion
Offworld Research		5			4	Orion
Conduct Repairs		4			2	Scorpius
Avert Disaster		3			2	Libra
Destroy Battleship			4		3	Scorpius
Aquire Specimen			3		1	Pisces
Prevent Invasion			3		2	Gemini
Defeat Ashrak				5	3	Libra
Relocate Advanced Civilization				4	3	Triangulum
Rescue Operative				3	1	Pisces

Hero Portion	Villain
3x Seasoned Travelers 2x Transport Rings 2x Dialing Computer 3x Zat Gun 3x Merrin (Orbanian Urrone) 2x Bill Lee (Engineering Specialist) 3x Artok (Impassioned Rebel) 2x Nicholas Ballard (Outcast Scholar)	2x Anubis (Banished Lord) 2x Robert Kinsey (Ambitious Senator) 2x Loss of Funding 2x Harsh Conditions 3x Fire Rain 3x Troop Landing 2x Salish Spirits 2x Serpent Guards 3x Parasitic Insects 3x Telekinetic Mutants
Total: 20	Total: 24
Total Decksize: 44

What is Good

• This deck has Balinsky
• All the starter's 5-cost missions are really good
• The deck is already properly inclined towards ignoring Combat missions which provide very little experience anyways
• The deck has a very obvious direction

What is Bad

• Vala's ability will likely not come into play
• The combat missions are really tough to complete
• This is the starter with the Avert Disaster mission card

It is almost imperative for this deck to quickly search for ways to avoid Combat already. Acquire Specimen and Prevent Invasion are very difficult Combat missions for teams with poor Combat total. It is a good thing, though, that these missions provide very little experience. Artok should be quickly removed, thus. On the other hand, Science should not be ignored because the mission mix is much better there and the deck really cannot afford to fail Avert Disaster.

Since you want to ignore combat, you do not need any glyphs on Daniel Jackson (Trained Fighter) which is convenient since you can dump all glyphs on Balinsky to use with Seasoned Travelers which this starter already has 3 of. Because of this, it is possible to make deck very similar to what we talked about for the Samantha starter. Just look for Galaran Memory Devices.

Because of the missions, Daniel Jackson (Trained Fighter) should not be replaced except by his other versions, which will all be strictly better than the common version in this starter. Vala is also the only 3-Ingenuity character without a high combat value, therefore she should generally stay as well. Cameron must be replaced for someone with higher Science, because it is really painful if the team is unable to complete Avert Disaster.

The best choices to replace Cameron is Janet and Svetlana, although Samantha Carter (Problem Solver) works in a pinch as well. Without these three, Aldwin and finally Jack O'Neill (SG-1 Commander) would be your last ditch choices.

With the team line-up out of the way, the hero portion is easy to fix. The first step is to put in a lot of support characters for Culture, Science and Ingenuity, putting in more variety of Science characters to take advantage of Offworld Research. Between Culture and Ingenuity, it is better to focus on Ingenuity for the metagame because two out of the four starters have Team Compromised which tend to hurt this deck, especially because you do not want to block Balinsky whom the glyph wants to be on.

Although this deck has Dialing Computer, be wary of revealing missions before you know exactly where Avert Disaster is. Being careless with that mission could ruin a well developed board. Zat Gun is a 'combat card', but in fact it is actually a very strong card in this environment. It is able to remove Brainwashing, Tight Rein, Fire Rain, Cloaked Ashrak and Troop Landing, so while 3 is a pretty hefty number to run, you do want to keep at least one or two in the deck.

Transport Rings are probably the least crucial in this deck, so I would recommend taking them out if you have better things to include although it does come in handy against Stonewalled which is a really strong common obstacle against this deck.

The villain portion of the deck is probably the strongest of all the four starters. Troop Landing, Salish Spirits, Parasitic Insects and Serpent Guards work really well in tandem with each other and Fire Rain tops it off to prevent an opponent from completing a Combat mission in the late game. Harsh Conditions further increases the impact of Troop Landing while working well with Robert Kinsey. Loss of Fundings provides a starting point to improve the starter's political obstacle base. Only Telekinetic Mutants are lacklustre and should be removed.

To top off the villain portion of the deck, Culture and Ingenuity obstacles which are good on the curve fit right in. Water-Based Life Forms and Yu are two common cards to look out for and Tanith will be a very strong inclusion as well.

How to Fix the Deck

• Cut Cameron
• Focus on Science, ignore Combat
• Look for Galaran Memory Devices
• Do not risk haphazardly passing into an Avert Disaster
• Look for good Culture and Ingenuity obstacles, especially political ones

Gameplay in the Metagame

There isn't much I can say here, but everyone uses the same starters so here are some tips that could help in the gameplay.

• Assign your Science support characters first if they are already out. Otherwise, try to match the difficulty of the mission before playing your science support characters. This is because against Brainwashing (or Advanced Technology), you want to avoid letting them block a Science character you play on that turn, which will force you to commit to try save the character, usually ending in a messy loss for you
• The same is true for Ingenuity support characters to a certain extent because of the common Lockdown, although assigning your best team character could be important as well against the uncommons Endless Scenario and Making an Example.
• For Combat missions (and to a smaller extent Ingenuity missions), try to assign your characters with glyphs and your support characters before you assign characters without glyphs as much as possible. Two of the starters have Serpent Guards, and since both Serpent Guards and Lack of Experience are common your opponent likely has them.
• If your opponent suddenly starts to play a bunch of Culture, Science or Combat obstacles before you reach the difficulty, chances are he will be playing a Fire Rain. You should either quickly assign your characters with most skill or assigning support characters first (unless you are facing Parasitc Insects, which means then it doesn't matter anyway).

You may not know which Starter you get in the end, and I leave it to you whether you got the lucky starter or the unlucky one, but if you are prepared to work with as well as face all four, you'll have a better chance of surviving no matter what you open. Good luck!

Sooty scored a 7-0 victory in the first ever beta sealed deck tournament, a gruelling undertaking he hopes he won't be able to try again, which was possible only because Gordish (*smile*) allowed one single tournament to start with 80+ players when the queue claimed that 64 was the maximum number of players.