X-list pondering

[Ranhothep]

I'm not sure whether this is the right spot for such a discussion, but I hope you guys don't mind. Recently we started playing some poorman's format games, which are expanded in essence, so naturally, we went with the expanded X and R lists. Only after I got slaughtered by a demoralized/rapid reload combo I went to check the X list more thoroughly and with great amazement found out it doesn't actually include all of the standard xlisted cards... Does anyone know of a reason why this should be so, or is it rather an oversight in your oppinion. Well, we agreed to use the standard xlist as well as the expanded one, since it is a great format (I prefer it to all others atm actually, coz the chance to combine old and new cards and new sites offers so many new challenges and possibilities without some unnecessary broken rare combos) but I was wondering what other ppl think about this.

[Phallen Cassidy]

This is a great question. Anybody know the answer now?

[ket_the_jet]

Holy necromancy, Batman!

I'm not sure why Expanded would not include X-listed cards from Standard, as neither are beasts that I have spent any time with.
-wtk

[leokula]

I played at the time (since Realms of the Elf Lords through the end of the game) and I think it's just how the formats were meant to be: that expanded was this more open and hardcore experience and standard was more regulated and balanced. I remember at the time, tournaments were mostly Standard and people usually complained about Expanded format as it was more broken.

[Phallen Cassidy]

As part of an unrelated question on when the X-list officially came about, I stumbled onto the Wiki's X-list page and saw the two links for the Expanded X-/R- lists at the bottom. It appears that when Decipher decided to start rotating out sets for Standard, they held a vote for what the Expanded lists should be. Everything on the Standard X-list at that time was voted on by casual players, pro players, and internal testers. The three groups were averaged as a whole and then each group's average was averaged (so individual casual players votes were worth less than an individual tester, but all players' votes were worth the same as all testers'). They also said this:

"When a new card is added to the Standard Format X-list, the DGMA will once again ask the player community about whether the card should be on the Expanded Format X-list or the Expanded Format Restricted List.  In this way, the Expanded Format will continue to be a player driven format."

Yet as time went on and cards were added to the Standard X-list, the Expanded lists remained unchanged. The exception was to add Orkish Smith and Strange-looking Men to them, and while I don't know why they were added and others weren't I'm willing to bet there was no community vote on them. My guess? Decipher's infamous financial woes either lost the job dedicated to keeping up with Expanded or caused that person to take on too many other things to organize a vote. They might have announced a change in how Expanded was being managed, but I think "oversight" is the answer here.

[5tein]

I played throughout most of the life cycle of the game, though I don't remember reading about why Demoralized, Courtyard Parapet, and Madril, Defender of Osgiliath did not get excluded in Expanded format, I can formulate a couple of thoughts:

1. Expanded was meant to be more open than Standard, as leokula suggested.

It also may be that Decipher recognized enough counters to these cards in the broader Expanded format. Frankly, I can't imaging what counter there was for Madril that would have stopped it from being a NPE, but at least Demoralized would have faced more Fellowship condition removal in Expanded.

2. Along the lines of Phallen's thoughts, Decipher really stopped caring about Expanded after The War of the Ring block was in full-swing.

IIRC, the last major Decipher-sponsored competitive event that included Expanded was the 2005 Worlds qualifier (which I think that was Decipher's way of inviting more hardcore, Movie-era players back into competitive play after Fellowship block rotated out). There may have been Expanded format events in 2006, but I don't remember any (that said, I wasn't playing much that year).