If you play in tournaments, I'm sure you'll see a lot of similarity.  But I remember on Cardgamedb, for netrunner, there is a blog that challenges people to create effective decks around less popular or just generally considered worse, cards.  They may not survive in tournaments, but they are can be fun to craft and test out.

This is the first time I am really getting into a LCG. I'm pretty happy that I am getting in on the "ground floor" as it were. I have a question for the folks who have been playing this type of format in the past.
 
I don't think that it's a stretch to say...there are going to be a LOT of similar decks for a while, bearing that in mind, how long is it going to take before we start seeing a lot of individual decks...how many packs in before we start seeing some really unique decks?
 
 

I think in this LCG the first cycle (6 months) and into the first deluxe decks are going to seem similar.
 
It's not a bad thing persay as it'll come down to who plays best

I've only played a few times(3?), and think I made at least three of those each time and led to me getting whupped.  Thanks for posting this it'll be really helpful, just got to drum it into my head now!
 
*prints list and begins revision* 

Well don't feel too badly.  Since I've written this, I've played twice and missed a ton of these.  Ugh.  Talk about embarrassing.  Sigh. 

Some more commonly made rules mistakes or things that are overlooked:
 
Remember that even though you might have Initiative, if your foe brings their Warlord to a planet where you have NOT done so, they will have initiative there.  (This is a big one that  people forget.)
  Remember that when your Warlord goes to any planet, in whatever state it was in before it went there, your Units arrive EXHAUSTED, ostensibly from the rigors of space travel. 
  Shield cards work against even re-assigned damage AND not only during combat but NOT against Moved damage.
  Remember that if you BOTH bring a Warlord to a Planet in the Command Phase, only the NON-EXHAUSTED Units will count their Command Icons.  Easy to forget this one, too.
  Remember to analyze the Planet chain right away to try to ascertain where key battles will take place AND/OR where the game could end, potentially.  Plan accordingly
  Always pay attention to Planet Battle abilities - they can wreak havoc with your plans if you aren't aware of them!
  Remember that with Ranged Units, if they're coming to a planet with your Warlord's posse, they're not going to get to use their Ranged abilities because they'll arrive Exhausted to that planet. If it's important to you to use a Unit's Ranged ability, your best bet is to Deploy that unit instead. 
  Finally, when you're deploying your cards in the Deploy phase, it's a good practice to play things like Supports or Events (or even Attachments) first, before your Units because the more you delay showing  your plans to your opponent, the more you can counter-plan for their moves, and such. 
  And remember that ANY Action you use in the Deploy phase DOES, in fact, count as your action in that phase as part of the back and forth.

And the Emperor shall protect!...

Some more commonly made rules mistakes or things that are overlooked:
 
Remember that even though you might have Initiative, if your foe brings their Warlord to a planet where you have NOT done so, they will have initiative there.  (This is a big one that  people forget.)
  Remember that when your Warlord goes to any planet, in whatever state it was in before it went there, your Units arrive EXHAUSTED, ostensibly from the rigors of space travel. 
  Shield cards work against even re-assigned damage AND not only during combat but NOT against Moved damage.
  Remember that if you BOTH bring a Warlord to a Planet in the Command Phase, only the NON-EXHAUSTED Units will count their Command Icons.  Easy to forget this one, too.
  Remember to analyze the Planet chain right away to try to ascertain where key battles will take place AND/OR where the game could end, potentially.  Plan accordingly
  Always pay attention to Planet Battle abilities - they can wreak havoc with your plans if you aren't aware of them!
  Remember that with Ranged Units, if they're coming to a planet with your Warlord's posse, they're not going to get to use their Ranged abilities because they'll arrive Exhausted to that planet. If it's important to you to use a Unit's Ranged ability, your best bet is to Deploy that unit instead. 
  Finally, when you're deploying your cards in the Deploy phase, it's a good practice to play things like Supports or Events (or even Attachments) first, before your Units because the more you delay showing  your plans to your opponent, the more you can counter-plan for their moves, and such. 
  And remember that ANY Action you use in the Deploy phase DOES, in fact, count as your action in that phase as part of the back and forth.

I can't speak for every place, but I just checked CoolStuffInc, and they seem to be still taking pre-orders.

Some more commonly made rules mistakes or things that are overlooked:
 
Remember that even though you might have Initiative, if your foe brings their Warlord to a planet where you have NOT done so, they will have initiative there.  (This is a big one that  people forget.)
  Remember that when your Warlord goes to any planet, in whatever state it was in before it went there, your Units arrive EXHAUSTED, ostensibly from the rigors of space travel. 
  Shield cards work against even re-assigned damage AND not only during combat but NOT against Moved damage.
  Remember that if you BOTH bring a Warlord to a Planet in the Command Phase, only the NON-EXHAUSTED Units will count their Command Icons.  Easy to forget this one, too.
  Remember to analyze the Planet chain right away to try to ascertain where key battles will take place AND/OR where the game could end, potentially.  Plan accordingly
  Always pay attention to Planet Battle abilities - they can wreak havoc with your plans if you aren't aware of them!
  Remember that with Ranged Units, if they're coming to a planet with your Warlord's posse, they're not going to get to use their Ranged abilities because they'll arrive Exhausted to that planet. If it's important to you to use a Unit's Ranged ability, your best bet is to Deploy that unit instead. 
  Finally, when you're deploying your cards in the Deploy phase, it's a good practice to play things like Supports or Events (or even Attachments) first, before your Units because the more you delay showing  your plans to your opponent, the more you can counter-plan for their moves, and such. 
  And remember that ANY Action you use in the Deploy phase DOES, in fact, count as your action in that phase as part of the back and forth.

Very common misplay I see is: When an event is cancelled they refund themselves the "cost" of the event.
 
Typically people don't take the resources back, but very often if an event says "Exhaust an army unit to..." you still keep that unit exhausted because it's a part of the cost.
 
If you pay the cost of an event and that event gets cancelled, that cost is gone along with the resources and the other costs associated with the card.

IT'S A MIRACLE! Everybody dance now!
 
(I checked it earlier this morning, must have updated in the last few minutes.)

Expected to arrive by October 3rd. 

Yep, we too were heavily disappointing with how wimpy and generally impotent Exterminatus ends up being most of the time - which is a shame because thematically, it should be the ultimate in death and destruction when played.  Sigh.

They do imitate Orks. They're called Diggas and live underneath a Necron pyramid. The Eldar are all mutated from radiation from the Orks spaceship crash.

You are correct that Area Effect damage is not considered Attack damage.

Just get it. It's super fun, especially if you like 40k at all.

Star Wars replaced Netrunner for me too.
I love this game. It has so much depth to it that is not apparent at first when you start to play. There is a number of important decision points to the game as well but it's not as heavy on the brain as Netrunner or AGoT thankfully.

... It was a grim sight around the table. The three developers stared at one another, bleary eyed - each holding a foul brown concoction that one of their mothers swore could cure any hangover. The yolk of an egg bobbed to the surface of one of the cups; yellow, but changed. Staring down, it occurred to the first developer that exposure to the liquid had caused it to surrender it's intrinsic, existential identity as an egg yolk.
 
Become something more. Perhaps something less.
 
He knew he had to drink it; this wasn't the sort of hangover that felt like a dull thumping inside of your head - it was the sort that drilled out of your skull above your eye socket and into an alternate universe of unending horror and pain. A universe where instead of working on the project you were supposed to, you'd spent the time attempting to filter beer through full-bleed Cthulhu art cards, without success.
 
"Guys, the situation is grim" he groaned. "We were supposed to have this done a month ago."
 
"What about the bath?" Asked the second.
 
The third slammed his fist down on the table, his voice raising to a throaty whisper - but to the men around the table it sounded like a thousand screaming GenCon attendees who'd already paid for a ticket to the opening tournament. "The bath can't help us, we can't even go in there. Remember our forth? He went to the bathroom and he never came back. I can still hear him gibbering at night".
 
"Are we even sure he actually existed?"
 
All three men sat in silence, mulling it over.
 
Finally, the third broke the silent reverie for their lost companion who may or may not have actually existed. "Do any of you remember why we have a bathtub full of LSD anyway?"
 
Again, silence.
 
"We could use it? Remember MKUltra?"
 
The first squinted across the table. "Dangerous talk. The forums are already full of conspiracy theorists, and they're already asking a lot of questions about our shady business activities with the core sets".
 
"Are they still going on about that?"
 
"Every forum. Every few days. They can never know that due to a bizarre twist of volume printing, if we were to print complete playsets in ever core, we'd be able to sell each box for 20% less than we charge now!"
 
Forgetting themselves for a moment, the three developers began to laugh. Deep, belly laughs, tinged with something cold, something callous. All of a sudden the third began to splutter and hack - reaching under the table he quickly pulled out a box labelled "Netrunner Core Completion: Unique development prototype" and vomited copiously into it.
 
Wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye, the first turned to the second. "So, seriously - Second - how is this bathtub of LSD going to solve our problems".
 
 
(tbc)

I'm there already.

Joined.

Well now I flippin' love Orks. That's amazing. Gork and Mork are fantastic.

Let's say you have a mobile unit (like the Tau Vash'ya trailblazer) that you want to keep safe from combat.
If you place him on the first planet, there WILL be a battle there. No problem, you can always just hop away to planet 2, right?
Sure... unless the enemy Warlord is there.
In retrospect, that means it's much harder to trap at last planet, so I may have been wrong about that.

Orks are an artificially created race designed by the serpentine elder ones to fight the Necrons and their sun-eating masters (so are the Eldar btw). When the Elder ones lost the war and the necros began their slumber waiting for the galaxy to repopulate itself, the Orks spread. They are now more numerous than even humans, but their infighting keeps them in check.
 
Biologically, Orks are fungus that procreate through spores in their shed blood. They have no sexes. Many kinds of orkoids exist, mutated in their underground sacks based on nearby total Ork population. Once Orks land on planet, its very difficult to ever get completely rid of them.
 
Orks never die of old age and keep growing larger forever. They have an inherent knowledge of military technology and have the natural impulse to fight. For an Ork, Green is da best. They are also latent psykers, meaning they generate a passive psionic field that allows them extraordinary feats in combat (flying a plane without wings, keeping their downtrodden equipment together, red painted vehicles being faster, blue is lucky etc). Ork psyckers are called Wierdboyz and their gods are personifications of them not giving a **** in the battlefield: Gork and Mork, one is cunningly brutal and the other is brutally cunning. 
 
Orks are a tough race that simply adheres to its ancient genetic programming of waging war.

I seem to remember reading something comparing Works to fungus... When you kill one it effectively releases suppress which seed the earth and grow more Orks.
So yeah... A little creepy :-P
I also love the fact that Ork 'science' is literally powered by belief.