by Evan "Heimlich" Lorentz

Many players of Stargate TCG came to it as existing fans of one or both of the Stargate television series. But there are some players out there who have actually started to watch Stargate SG-1 on DVD or in reruns only after having grown to like the game.

Sometimes a card like Suicidal Za'tarc comes along that really raises a question as far as those players are concerned. The image, title, and lore of this card all work together to essentially spoil the fact that the character of Martouf gets killed rather unexpectedly in an episode of the show. Originally, the designers planned not to reveal this on the card and selected an image of a different, minor character exposed as a "za'tarc assassin," even though the picture was significantly less impressive than the Martouf-as-assassin image. (Also a consideration was the fact the the only version of Martouf yet released in the game was a team character, not a support character.) Unfortunately, we were not able to secure approval for the other actor, and had to go with the Martouf image, whether it was a spoiler (or entirely accurate, flavor-wise) or not.

From a design standpoint, Suicidal Za'tarc is also interesting as one of the first cards to include "Success or Failure" game text. The idea of obstacles that get you, win or lose, was actually considered during SG-1 design, but the decision was made to put them on hold. The first set would have nothing but "Success" text for the good guys and "Failure" text for the bad guys. The second set was planned as the first time we would blur the line between those divisions.