Expanded is broken.

[MuadDib85]

Why should Anduin Confluence be banned?

I think if people want to waste an important site choice on this, then they deserve to be able to get rid of allies... BTW besides Leowyn which other allies would be worth playing in standard?

But if you are saying it should be banned in expanded.. I know nothing about this as I don't play expanded, but imo it should definately not be worried about in standard.

[Gil-Estel]

Expanded isn't broken, it is challenging. I like to have access to cards like Greed, Enquea LoM, Saruman's Power. It enables you to counter several powerful fellowships. I'm more of a shadow person myself. It seems that during the past years fellowships became stronger and stronger and that shadows didn't grow at the same rate. But if you want to make it more viable it could use some more thinking cause indeed, Madril DoO is indeed insane.

[SomeRandomDude]

Expanded has pretty much the Madril/IB deck and the Demoralized/Rapid Reload deck, that's why most people refer to it as broken.

[Gil-Estel]

If you know it, do something about it. With expanded you have access to the Balrog launch deck with Demon of Might. And a condition based shadow should never be a problem.

[Gerontius]

Also, Anduin Confluence should go. In FotR block it's a site 7, so you have time to use your allies at least.

I agree. In fellowship, you could stop it with a Thror's map, etc. In expanded, it could come at any point of the game. MaudDib is right in that it's useless against 95% of the decks you'll have to face, but I like using Tom Bombadil, The Gaffer, Hobbit Party Guest, etc. in my hobbit decks and recently the one other person in my player group has been adding it to several decks.

[Olorin]

Expanded isn't broken, it is challenging. I like to have access to cards like Greed, Enquea LoM, Saruman's Power. It enables you to counter several powerful fellowships. I'm more of a shadow person myself. It seems that during the past years fellowships became stronger and stronger and that shadows didn't grow at the same rate. But if you want to make it more viable it could use some more thinking cause indeed, Madril DoO is indeed insane.

Hi there,

well, I personally don't like expanded due to several reasons - compare it to brokeness, OP, etc.

I agree with Gil-Estel when he says, the shadow site didn't grow at the same rate with the fellowship - a well set up fellowship is far harder to kill by even a well set up shadow than it was back in early times...

well... if you want to use just nearly all the cards therefore I invented Austrian Format - give it a try - everyone I know liked it... it has pracitse experience from several tournaments, etc. For really many people this is the only one format they wish to play - and it is for everyone - even without having all the cards - so it is quite more fair.

--> an example: imagine Mumak commander + pavise + orcse with hate Even the queen wouldn't be amused

[FM]

And yet, the Expanded boards keep getting new topics and replies every now and then, and the Austrian Format boards have been dead for AGES, except for the card discussions. I DO think Olorin has hit solid gold with the Austrian Format idea, a nice complement to Movie Block, but I say it'd be too far to praise it like THAT. I mean, only his group plays Tournaments by those rules, it's NOT "universal" as Movie Block is. So if it's "better" than Expanded, why is it not more popular? The answer is simple: they overlap, with Extended being "more broken". But not as broken as Open, where you pretty much play Fiend, hose Fiend or get hosed. And why I say this? Players LIKE it "broken". They like to play with the cards they fought hard to get, and they like to see a crazy interaction or loop being slowly set up on the unsuspecting (or powerless) opponent, and then spring it at them. They LIKE it. IF the brokeness is fair. D has stopped caring for the game, so no erratas are being issued to "fix" broken loops and interactions, which kills the Open metagame. Expanded, however, can STILL be played around. It DOES have other decktypes that allow you to counter strategies and to play with ideas, so that even though we get, like, 3-4 dominant decks, the "metagame" will STILL shift, since there is more than ONE dominant deck.