I have never played AGoT but I am familair with CCG's in general.

I had considered buying some starter decks from ITE, 5KE, and maybe some older ones if I can find em on the cheap. Are the starters a good place to learn the game from for complete beginners? I would just like to have more than the 4 decks to learn from that the game has when it ships. Plus some of the friends in the circle want to have all the houses represented as they are more fans of the novels than the game. We will only be playing casually so card mix isnt an issue with us. I have purchased some common sets from as far back as Valyrian or flight of dragons I cant remember which is older. I have also purchased the first 6 chapter packs, one of each. I probably have around 1000 cards total but have been reading on the forums here and elsewhere some uncommons or even rares will be needed to take advantage of all the keywords spread across the expansions.

After that ramble, what I mainly need are some basic deck themes I should build for or some sample deck lists using a small card pool that I can expand on.

thanks alot guys. I just want a solid place to start from.

First off, welcome to the game!

The answers to your questions depend on whether you plan to play in tournaments/competitively, or if you are just playing for fun. Right now, the standard legal format is "LCG only" cards (meaning everything printed as a chapter pack + the core set), but there is a classic ("highlander") format that allows you to play one of any card ever printed as well.

If you don't intend to play in FFG-sanctioned tournaments (and prize support is pretty poor these days, so there isn't much reason to...though it looks like it may be getting better once FFG's new director of "Organized Play" gets things going), the cards you bought are a great start and you should be able to make a variety of decks from them. In terms of what to build, if you're working with CCG-era cards, there is an unlimited variety of deckbuilds. If you want to get an idea of what to build and see a few decks that won tournaments in the past, check out Tzumainn's site ( http://tzumainn.com/agot ).

I hope this helps, and others may have other ideas or may be able to answer your questions more directly. Good luck!

That question is really to big to parse. I recommend checking the 1000's of decks on tzumainn for ideas. If you want to know about a specific deck type for a specific House, or which cards for which House are among their strongest that may be a bit easier. Other than that I could give you an idea f a couple of general builds popular with the Houses from Valyrian on.

Baratheon - Rush, Joust

Greyjoy - Resource Denial, Decik Discard, Multi-Save

Lannister - Intrigue Heavy, Story Event, Kneel

Martell - Icon Control, Winter Viper Kill/Discard, Disruption

Stark - Murder, Military Dominance/Multi-Claim

Targaryen - Burn, Attachment Control, Recursion