Rad. We should make designated spots on our playmats for those.

Heh... and here I had my Ovoid Mentor deck all ready to rock...now he's obscure?!?!????????!!!!

What the heck am I going to Demo at my LHS now? Oh wait...... I don't have a LHS that gives a flying flip about VS. :disappoin

A good theme/starter deck could also fill the same role I find it does in magic(especially in the circle I played in before I converted to VS).

Player A hasn't played in a while. Maybe it was due to financial issues, maybe it was because he wasn't liking the sets when he left, or maybe he just didn't have the time to play any more. One day Player A and Player 1 are talking about when the played VS all them time and how much fun it was. This gets player A thinking about how much he misses the game and would like to play again, but as luck would have it he had sold off all his cards when he had decided to quit. He doesn't want to go through the hassel of buying several packs to build up his card base. He just wants a way to jump back in with a competent deck. Low and behold UDE has decided to do 60 card theme/starter decks. $10 later player A is back in the game with a deck that makes sense.

See starters can even bring people back =)

I also think that they could use starters to keep certain cards in the modern/silver age meta, by reprinting them in these theme decks without having to devote slots in an actual expansion set(hell they are doing this with EC Hellboy anyway).

Okay, follow up question: should the starters be like the origins starters in the sense that they are made up entirely of cards from the linked set, or like the new starters that have exclusive content?

both. there should always be generic reprints from early sets, but also original content with easy to manage mechanics, for the benefit of new players

My Local Comic Book Store bought VS starters. It's how I got started, actually, but I think me and maybe 2 of my friends were the only ones to pick them up. He bought 10 and sold 4. I spend a lot on VS product, but I don't want to buy any starters, and he's unwilling to invest more in a product he's lost money on. It's tough. They're important to have around, but often, they don't sell so great. I don't need any more SF or MOR uncommons.

They might gain you players (gained me!) but you often lose retailers, as they think these starter decks are something that people will buy.

That said, I think UDE is doing a good job with the new starters. If he had the X-Men starters, I'd likely buy two, because they're pretty cool. Putting good cards like Eye of the Storm and Colossus 5 are a great idea. If we can get a new Spider-Man one or Super-man one, I think that'd be a worthwhile investment.

Hellboy will be an interesting "starter" type product. It appeals to the VS kind of guy, which from most indications, is a 20-something geek. It's superior to the starters, because it's something you can play right out of the box and be somewhat competitive with. You won't beat good decks, or even good players, but if I play any deck built from non-starter cards and a new player plays his starter deck, you'll feel pretty discouraged by the end of it, as your cards are pretty much garbage.

B.

I made starters folr my local store. They sold out. Seriously, its what people want.

And starter might not be the right word here. "Theme Deck," might be better.

Just wanted to add that I am really not a big fan of the actual starter decks we have seen most recently. I think the lack of keyword mechaincs makes it difficult for a player to jump in once they have the basics down. If I would pick up a superman starter, I should expect to see cards that fit the themes of team superman, not just vanilla characters who happen to be on team superman. It is best to ease players into keywords, and the existing starters (the ones which were all new cards, not cards from DOR, MOR, or MSM) just did not do that at all.

Structure Decks / Pre-Cons made up of cards from the actual expansions are what this game needs desperatly.

The way sets are being designed (especially the case with MTU where every team needs 16+ rares it seems to work) you need these. I have a few players at the shop I play at who play VS and have a good grasp on the rules. The problem is their money is tight and they don't want to deal with going online, building a deck, then buying singles of that deck to play it. A majority of them play decks based on certain teams and themes.

The precons in MTG are a great example of this. I know a lot of people that after being taught the game by other players. They go out and buy a precon to play against friends with colors they like. Even an old player like me can buy a precon and at least join in with a functional deck even though I sold my cards to get into VS. Some of these MTG precons have power rares in them by default to encourage their sales. Yes it drives the price of the singles for these cards down, but overall there is a greater level of accesibility to the players.

The way VS starters are being designed and being sold to stores is just terrible. A bunch of generic, simple cards with no value outside of the starter itself is mostly pointless. The VS starters are honestly much more usefull in an online/free to access form then they are ever in a sold product. All they do is piss off store owners because they never sell.

I agree with Athrex. My local comic shop didn't even bother buying the X-Men starter because he still had a case of each of the F4 and Batman starters. Not to mention he still has Web, Marvel Origins, and DC Origins starters. Theme decks I think are the way to go. I know I would have loved to pick up a theme deck of the Heralds of Galactus.

Theme/PreCon/Structure... whatever you call them... they would be good for VS.

I like the way Magic does it because they explain the basics behind how each deck should be played.

I know UDE thinks that part of the fun is figuring how to use each team but if they want to increase their player base, they need to start doing some handholding because the game is already difficult enough without having to figure out how to apply the mechanics.

Examples of playable decks with only a few rares and contents exclusively from within their set:

Avengers Reservists
Squad No Hand
X-Men Energy Burn
Power Up Guys

The only thing is trying to balance each one if they release more than one each set. I know for MtG, usually one or two of the PreCons don't sell as well as the other ones.

As a way to get a friend of mine to try the game with a low entry cost, I bought the recent X-Men starter and told him if he liked it I'd sell it to him at half-cost. I hadn't looked at the spoilers for it, so I was a bit shocked to discover that the characters in it didn't have any Mutant traits on them. I searched for an explanation for this, and there was a brief mention in some Metagame article from back then saying they thought it would be "too confusing." Really?

Back in the day (1999) I played some TCGs where Starters were necessary because of the faction-based gameplay (The defunct 7th Sea and Doomtown and the still alive Legend of the Five Rings). Now, VS doesn't have a card that represents your "team" (although something like that could be cool for hobby league), but I think a 60 card starter for each featured team (or strategy) in a set would be useful.

Here's the current situation: Let's say you are a new player and you want to make a Spider-Friends deck from stuff in MTU. About 15-20% (guessing) of the cards in packs will be SF related. Maybe the same amount will be "generic" cards. So in a given pack, maybe 4-5 cards will be useful to you. To build a 60 card deck, you would then have to buy at least 12 packs just to have enough cards to make a feasible deck.

I understand this is a business. But the investment for a player should be:

$10-15 = Basic Deck = Fun
$3 = More cards = More Fun

instead of
$40 = 2-3 Basic Decks = Fun
$3 = More cards = More Fun

Basically, a decent single-deck starter would lower the barrier of entry immensely. You know how Sony loses money on each PS3 sold but makes money later on? That strategy has been shown to work with TCGs, I just don't understand why UDE chooses to ignore it.

Sorry for the ranty poorly-constructed post. But as a new player, this topic hits home for me.

the thing ilike most about magic theme decks is they recomend certain rares for your deck and show which cards to swap out. very beginer friendly but at the same time strong card are available in the theme decks.