Set Distribution

Starter Set should have a 2 player starter with Starter Exclusive cards. The Base set you could do a 1x of each and let the player buy the amount they want, and a Complete Base Set with CB exclusives.

make it worth it to the players.

Thats actually how I am doing it for Livid Visage. Base set is 60 cards, or buy a complete with Alternate print cards + Dividers and all that, or the Two player starter deck that has 8 cards exclusively for the 2 player starter.

the goal is for budget players to have complete access to all the cards and build the deck that *They* want to play. :)

I'm new here, but I'd like to help (no more complaints about Ephemerids, lol).
The game that I'm planning sounds somewhat similar to this - players customize a deck of cards to represent the options that will become available to their character. Decks are expected to be around 65 cards in total, with up to 3 duplicates of each card.

Each character class was going to be released as 2 decks - one was the 'major' build, and would feature a 2:1 ratio of cards that were "essential" to that major build and cards that were just "there" for testing out. This means that they are getting a less-than-ideal deck to start off with, but give a preview of what you could get in the next pack. That next pack of cards was going to be the 'prestige' build, which would have the same ratio of the other half of the cards. So if you wanted to have a full 3 copies of any card in the deck, you had to buy that second pack to complete the character's collection.

The original release is going to be the starter box with the rules and the 4 main classes, with enough cards to represent their major builds, and then 4 additional, separate packs that players can buy to fill out their chosen class for a very reduced cost ($15 starter, $5 booster).
Following expansions would feature the 2:1 starter decks for new classes in the expansion, new rules for said expansion, and then new 'prestige' decks for each of those new classes.

Hello Fhizban,

here are some notions that stem from my parsimoniously greedy customer mind:

I prefer the idea of buying a complete game. If it does come from the LCG corner I would prefer buying it as a complete package, not as different starters "A", "B" and "C". In my eyes, there should be no exclusive starter contents, especially no "starter A only" cards. Yeah, I get it, the publisher wants me to buy his entire line of products, fine. Then - why don't they put all starters into one single basic kit which I would buy anway (if I like the game)? I don't get the idea behind buying 1/3 or 1/4 of the game so I get forced into chasing after certain starter decks which might be sold out already, because of their cool package art ("Protoss" instead of"Zerg") or some unnecessary crap like that.

Basically, I would suggest two possibilities for your packaging :

1.) the complete 150 card-set with 3 copies of each card, also giving you the maximum amount of permitted cards in a single deck. This should satisfy a player AND a collector.

2.) an introductory 2-player-set with two playable decks, in which every deck contains only one single copy of a given card and some other stuff like rulebook, dice, playmat, tokens, etc. This avoids the problem of getting too many multiple copies of any given card beyond the permitted deck-limit, if you decide to purchase your complete set of cards. If your standard playing deck is 30 cards only, then, maybe, you can cut it down to two tiny 10/15-card versions for the intro deck or so.

Thus, if I want to get an introduction to the game, I buy the 2-player-set and duke it out with a friend. If I want to upgrade, I get myself a complete set.

Do you already have a limitation for the number of cards in a single deck package ?

Generally speaking:
I do not want to disgruntle anybody, but as soon as I see a game which components come in dozens of different packages, it seriously has the chance of shooing me away. Since I got away from all that CCG-random-packaging bullshit, I prefer clear and non-fiddly solutions like basic game - expansion a - expansion b - expansion c, not basic game consisting of part a - part b - part c - part d. I simply don't like all this Blue Moon stuff in which you get gazillions of of different races in different packages. Just my 2 cents.

I look at it like 'Death Angel', a game that my pals and I play almost religiously (huge GW nerds, can't help it, it passes time between tournament rounds). When you buy the starter you get everything that you need to play the game - 4 squads of Marines, full sets of Order Cards, everything. Only later did we find out that there were tiny (like, 20 card) expansion packs for the game. One pack provided you 2/3 new squads of Marines and their Order cards. The other expansion gave you more Enemies and Missions.
You could easily pop the game out and play it right away, without any problem at all, and without every buying another box. Or you could go off the deep end and buy up all the expansions like we have.

Just make sure that you provide enough cards in the "starter" that people don't feel like they're being cheated. Give them a full game. They're obviously going to look at some cards and ask "why aren't there 3 of these in deck, they're awesome!" and that's when you offer the expansions to fill out the rest of their deck.