Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Definitely get the latest starter decks (the 4th edition starter set, which has the I/J decks). There is a discussion about adding some cards to those decks at http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/deck-building-and-design/goal-assemble-a-companion-pack-of-cards-to-improve-the-ij-decks/. That could help you beef up the starter decks and go deeper with the game that way.

And then from there, look into the latest sets.. but I think that's the best place to start! I'm new, too, so if I'm wrong, I'm sure others will set us straight...

Welcome back.  Here is my personal opinion on the packs.  Unless you can find them at a great discount, there is no longer much of a point to purchase the "foil packs" like kings with the exception of Priests.  All of the cards from those sets are included in the "boxes" so the cards you want from the foil packs are already included in these loaded boxes.  As far as the boxes go, I'd put them in this order:

Early Church
Cloud of Witnesses
TxP or Disciples
Persecuted Church

Since you are beginning anew, and stopped at Kings, I highly recommend Early Church.  This allows you to get the foundation of the new clay sets and start working on several strong defense options.  It also acquires you the "tin" cards which are the Rock of Ages and Faith of our Fathers sets which include the cornerstones to many of the strategies today, Including Genesis Heroes, Philistines, Luke/John N.T. offense, N.T. Women, Evil Kings of Israel, and many more.  Plus it gets you cards from the Kings set which is probably the strongest foil pack.

Going to Cloud of Witnesses:  The cloud of Witnesses cards that are included (4 cards: 1R/UR, 3 C) are the strongest cards in the game (for now), and are a must have for a national winning deck.  The other cards that are included are OK.  They are a nice representation of the game as they include 1 Warriors, 3 Angel Wars, 3 Kings, 2 Patriarchs & 2 Apostles, but most are commons or uncommons, so not a whole lot of stopping power.

TxP and Disciples are grouped together for me because you need to pick which decks you want to run.  TxP does tend to stay one step ahead for me as it contains the Grapes of Wrath and Mayhem dominants, but if you are looking to run Disciple or Sadducee decks, then you REALLY need to get these packs.  Both are loaded with URs from Apostles and Patriarchs, so you will get some of the "chase" cards from when you were playing before.  It is the best way to quickly get cards like Guardian of Your Souls (even though a better one is coming), Unholy Writ, even Leviathan.  Plus if you get the TxP packs, you will get a warriors R or UR.

Persecuted Church is on the bottom for me, but that is not because the cards from that set are bad, but because everything else is.  Without having the Early Church cards, most of the offensive cards in this pack can't stand up alone, you need the missionaries from the Early Church packs to give them a major boost (with the exception of the Philippi church).  The defense has some extremely strong Romans, but if you don't run those, you won't miss most of what else is there.  Don't get me wrong there are again some very strong cards, but when you only open 4 cards (like Cloud of Witnesses) and the other 11 cards are terrible it doesn't make it worth it and I stopped opening these packs just a few months after release and decided to continue to open Early Church and trade for the ones I needed.  Maybe I've had bad luck with the packs, but I've opened 4-5 boxes of this set and maybe a dozen of the packs I was happy with more than just the Persecuted Church cards.

Thanks for the responses everyone!  This really is helping A TON.  We found a whole punch of the old packs on sale at a christian bookstore the other day.  That was a ton of fun opening those up and a walk down memory lane.  Although, not many of them were useful for a winning deck . I am thinking about preordering the new set from TLG. 

We played her first game on Saturday with the starter decks. She beat me -_- Hahaha, but she loves the game.  I am looking at taking the advice of the linked thread about extras to add to our decks to make the starters stronger.

Hey,

Just wanted to say Greetings

Oh man, that is awesome!

Make requests of the community even if you think there's no way. You'll be shocked how welcoming and generous the family is after the tryhard purge!