Just to let all you know the card game in FF8 Is not as good as the card game in FF9, well that’s my opinion anyway. But like they say everyone has there own opinion.
Note: Rules change when you go place to place. Balamb and Balamb Garden carry the simple Open rule. When you go to Galbadia (Timber/Deling), players have the same rule. However, it combines both Balambs and Galbadia's rules, notice that when you first start a match in a new area, it says "Let's play with both area1 and area2's rules." This means, they are combining rules. After playing one or two games, a new message will come up, "The -Rule's Name- has been Spread (Can also be Abolished) in this region." This means a rule has been added to remove to your "Stock" of rules, or the Rules that occur when you play the game. You can change your "Stock" by playing others, or the Card Queen. Unfortunately, you cannot get rid of unwanted rules (such as Random), so it is best to SAVE before playing in any new region. You will probably start encountering unwanted rules in Trabia. I suggest never screwing around with them by playing ONLY in Galbadia and Balamb until you have defeated the entire Card Group. Make sure you do not lose the Open rule when playing Card Games in new areas. I hope you find this guide useful and can make more sense out of it.

T his rule is straight forward. Let's say you place a card on an open space, such that, it will be attacking two adjacent cards. If the attacking numbers are BOTH the same as the two defending numbers, SAME takes effect and you win the two additional cards. As a plus, those cards can attack nearby opponent's cards resulting in a combo. This can happen to you as well. Now, you are probably confused as hell, so here is my basic strategy: Don't bother doing it; it is better if it is not a rule. Try and only use high powered cards, as the enemy doesn't have cards with 8 or over (usually, sometimes it can be a special case, but normally most don't have boss cards, but for best safety, expose only 9 and over).

This forces you to take the game selected cards, and the game never gives you good ones. You may find yourself with 5 Geezards against Level 7 Boss Cards, yikes! However, you usually get slapped with same and Plus so you can utilize those to your advantage. There is one method of outdoing the random rule, kill of all those unwanted random cards! Yes, use Card Mod on all your monster cards (you will probably be stuck with some), and bad boss cards. Of course this means sacrificing having every card in the game, but if you want the high powered cards in your hand, this is your best bet.

This is a VERY evil rule. You'll be slapped with plusses alot in later games, and what's worse, they occur a lot in combos. This is the rule that makes open a necessity later in the game. You need to see if the enemy can plus you, otherwise you risk losing 3 cards in one shot. Plus is like same, there needs to be an attack card that will touch two adjacent cards, however, instead of the attacking numbers being the same, the sum of one attack connection must equal the sum of the other attack connection. Whoa, now that's confusing. Note that you should avoid this rule when possible (i.e. get all the rare cards you can w/o getting this card, I'll explain that later). However, when you do get a game with this rule, I guarantee you will get slapped with it many times. And also note, having super powered cards WILL NOT SAVE your ass. Even the lowly Geezard card can hurt you (or your opponent when it’s in your hands). Normally, you'll encounter Random along with Plus, so Plus will end up helping you rather than hurting you, but MAKE SURE YOU HAVE OPEN so you can anticipate your enemies moves.

This is a pretty dumb rule. This utilities those little symbols on the cards. Place a card on the table whose spot has a matching symbol, your card's numbers rises a point (though it won't show it, just a big +1). Place the card on an unmatching symbol, your cards weaken. Note that this rule does affect same and Plus, so you will really be bludgeoned with dumb calculations. However, alone their effects are not great when using high powered cards.

To tell you the truth, not even I know what the hell this rule does (sure, that does shame me). However, in my Card game exploits, I have yet to see its effects. Though, I think it has to do with the numbers on the ends (facing the edge of the table). That would explain the strange losses I been experiencing... Luckily this rule only pops up in select areas (in Esthar and space).