Card Club

The Card Club, also known as CC Group, is a school-based club of skilled Triple Triad players in Final Fantasy VIII.

Made up of Balamb Garden's students and staff members, the identities of the club are not publicly known, and the player must scour the Garden to find them. The club members will only acknowledge their membership once the previous member down on the rank has been defeated. Though there is no reward in particular for beating the Card Club, their members hold many rare cards. In the Steam version defeating every Card Club member in Triple Triad earns the player the achievement Cards Club Master.

Members and Membership
While it is unclear how actual membership into the club is handled, a challenger must challenge each member by order of card value (i.e. Jack, Club, Diamond, Spade, Heart, King). Joker, as is fitting to his card value, can be challenged any time, and is considered separate from the Card Club's hierarchy.

The members of the Card Club are as follows:

Dr. Kadowaki also mentions she once served as Master King, but was defeated by an unspecified student (presumably Quistis) four years prior. She does not hold any rare cards.

Story
While not publicly known as Card Club members, the group members interact with Squall at various times. The most notorious involvement of a Card Club member in the game would be Quistis (Master King) who is involved with Squall from the beginning, but never lets on that she is a member of the club.

The first time the Card Club is mentioned is by Jack in casual conversation, but only after Squall has gained some skill with 15-20 games. After going through the members, when in search of the Master King, Dr. Kadowaki reveals she was once a club member.

Card Club Members on Disc 4
During disc 4's Time Compression the Card Club members survive by boarding Ragnarok, where the group members, including Quistis, will wander the airship's halls waiting to challenge Squall with rules from around the world. Joker will also sell items and provide weapon remodeling.

During this time, not only do they each provide dialogue for their own take on the current situation, the Card Club members will play with all the LV8-10 rare cards the player doesn't currently have in their inventory, regardless of whether they were missed or modified into items. At this stage, it is possible to modify the rare cards into items and then win them back from the group. If, however, the player started the Queen of Cards side quest, the cards available in said side quest cannot be won from the Card Club group, but the player must find Queen of Cards on the escape pod crash-site south of Tears' Point.

The left girl of the CC Diamond is known for playing with all the high level rare cards in the game the player doesn't currently have, and will use them in order. The other CC players will use rare cards at random.

Trivia

 * In Japan, each school has a variety of clubs ranging from the practical (sports, class-room oriented) to the mundane (anime fangroups) and traditional (tea ceremonies, origami), all created and run by the student body. As Final Fantasy VIII was designed with a school theme, this is reflected in Balamb Garden with the Trepies, the Garden Festival Committee, the Library Committee, the Balamb Garden Disciplinary Committee and the Card Club.