Format Idea

[sharkey]

What would people think of a format where all your cards on one side of your deck came from the same expansion? Like Austrian, except more so. One side could be Moria Swarm from fellowship, and the other Hunters. It does have the tendency to be to restrictive, but I thought I'd ask.

[Kralik]

Only one expansion, or one block?

[sharkey]

Expansions, so maybe only ROTEL, or Shadows cards. But like Austrian, both sides don't have to be from the same set.

[sharkey]

Geez... so critical. All you had to say was "I don't really like it." I like coming up with interesting restrictions on gameplay.

And what about the one ring? Some blocks have alternates, some don't.

[FingolfinFinwe]

Sounds like a fun concept to me.  Would be challenging.. not sure it's worth the effort though.  Hehe

[menace64]

I will build a deck from Ents of Fangorn with a deck from Mount Doom.

Like that?

...actually, that raises an interesting fact: staples like Eowyn, LoI would be much harder to abuse. A lot of very good cards would be utterly useless.

[macheteman]

i think kralik might have the right idea. do it all cards from one block. that might be interesting.

[chompers]

Whilst there is alot of formats already - new and interesting ways of playing the game can always be fun.

To answer kets question about the one ring - whenever a problem is encountered i guess you make a simple rule to solve it.

So how about - If you play a fellowship from an expansion without the One Ring or a Ring-Bearer you will use one from the closest preceding set. (Example - set 6 has no Frodo or One Ring, but set 5 has a Frodo to use but no One Ring, so use One Ring from set 4). Or any other rule that works and problem solved (doesn't mean the format will work, but at least you can now try).

Another issue is which set of sites to use. Just create another rule and off you go. If you encounter another problem create a rule. New formats may not be for everyone, but it helps keep the game fresh (after all there are no new cards coming out).

Issue may be larger sets will be used over smaller sets - so perhaps best to work using blocks.

[Kralik]

Expansions-only is so limiting that it doesn't make any sense at all. Blocks, on the other hand, could be interesting.

[sharkey]

Okay, blocks it is! Sets 1-3; 4-6; 7 and 8 and 10; 11-13; 15 and 17 and 18.

What about Aged End, Reflections, promos, and the like? Should they be their own set? Can they be splashed in any deck? Or only a set amount per deck, like 3 on each side?

And as for the sites, it should probably be shadow sites. That's the easiest to maintain. If anyone feels differently, let me know.

And I agree on the Frodo/One Ring point. You can any The One Ring or Ringbearer from the expansion you are playing. If for some reason the expansions doesn't have one, you may go down the expansion list (i.e., from 6 to 5) to get one. 

[Cw0rk]

What would people think of a format where all your cards on one side of your deck came from the same expansion? Like Austrian, except more so. One side could be Moria Swarm from fellowship, and the other Hunters. It does have the tendency to be to restrictive, but I thought I'd ask.

It's an interesting idea. However, most of the cards after Shadows are way better than everything made before that so people would end up playing Last block vs Last block.  A possibility that would make people play the first set would be to reduce the x-list and allow cards like No stranger to the shadow.

Personally I do not like to play with cards after Mount Doom so I wouldn't play this format... but if some people want to play like that, well they can play together on GCCG and have some fun.

[sharkey]

Yeah, I think the X-list can be shrunk a little. We'll have to use the expanded and go from there.

[Smeagollum]

most of the cards after Shadows are way better than everything made before

I agree on this partially. The problem is not the shadow, because I think shadow form block 1, 2 & 3 equals with blocks 4, 5 & 6.
In my opinion there are just 3 problems:

1. The biggest problem is that the fs of the movieblocks have a focus on culture and the post movieblocks on race. That wouldn't be a problem if not the shadowcultures were the same. This makes the fs from the 3 movieblocks weaker against shadow from post movieblocks. For instance the fs from the 3 mb have cards that effect's only cultures like Moria, Isengard & Sauron. The fs from the other blocks effects on race, which is wider. That makes it difficult for the mb blocks, because they have less cards they can use to defend. So therefore the fs from the 3 mb are weaker, unless they can combine with all 3 the blocks from mb.

2. The sitemechanic: Fs from the 3 filmblock blocks do have a different mechanic then post filmblock. They depend actually also more on that mechanic.

3. the combination of my points 1 & 2. The fs of the 3 mb are more dependable on the old sitemechanic, There also sites which interact with those fs. And this is different then the new sitemechanich which makes things wider.

So I think this idea will not work proper with the rules as they are now. It will mean that you'll need a lot of rule-bending and a lot of errata. The x-list for mb-cards will schrunk a little but the r-list and rules will be bigger. Also the r-list for post mb will grow.
The difference with the austrian format is that you can use all 3 of the the mb's: which makes it for the fs able to use more cards which gives them more defence. The only movieblock which is strong enough on it's own is rotk-block. So what you will get is that people will run block's 3 ,4 , 5 & 6.