The Shire Countryside Legality

[ket_the_jet]

October 28, 2004: http://lotrtcg.decipher.com/news/

Is the Shire Countryside x-listed for Movie Block?
-wtk

[Kralik]

No.

[ket_the_jet]

No.

The CRD had the X-List for Movie Block as of 7 September 2004. This was posted later (28 October 2004). Do you care to expand upon your decision?
-wtk

[Kralik]

Sure, I was just in a hurry. According to the link:

October 22nd: Shadows legalized.
October 28th: Shire Countryside X-ed.

So the X is a result of the Shadows set being released. Also note that at that point (Oct. 24th), only the Shadows site path would be legal. Movie Block predates it.

Also... the Movie Block X-list is identical to the X-list given by the Lord of the Rings Online deck validator. Both the CRD provided and the "official" LOTRO Deck Builder agree.

[ket_the_jet]

Well, why single out The Shire Countryside if all cards sets 1-6 were now X-Listed? I figured maybe that X-List would be for the movie block because there was no reason to note that it was X-Listed when Shadows was released.
-wtk

[Kralik]

Mmm... when Shadows was released, all sets 1-6 were NOT X-listed. Sets were slowly rotated out. Someone help me out here, since I had stopped playing before Shadows: Was it one set at a time or one block at a time?

Also, the heart of playing old formats is to play them with the original rulings. Fellowship block with the rules before Towers, Towers with the rules before King, Movie/King with the rules before Shadows.

[ket_the_jet]

Gotcha. I stopped playing with Movie Block as well. I just wanted to make sure I had the most up-to-date X-List for a tournament that will likely be held mid-October and saw that TSC was on one of the lists.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Shadows ruined the game to me and that's why I fell out of it for several years before picking it back up around this past Thanksgiving when I decided to play against my brother for old times' sake. Either way, I love Movie Block and would love to keep introducing new players to the game but I am wary to say "Only play sets 1-10 because 11-19 all are terrible and ruined the game" because I don't want to put a bad stigma on the game.
-wtk

[Kralik]

If Decipher had not nixed the old sets and (especially) Shadow cultures, they wouldn't have alienated as many players as they did. But anyway - about rotation - I think the sets rotated out one at a time. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

[ket_the_jet]

If Decipher had not nixed the old sets and (especially) Shadow cultures, they wouldn't have alienated as many players as they did. But anyway - about rotation - I think the sets rotated out one at a time. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

The problem with that is that not as many people would buy into the new set up with bad guys. instead of Uruk-Hai and Uruk-Hai? Did Saruman send a platoon to Cirith Ungol? I didn't buy into the new set up of minions so I didn't buy any of the new sets.

Plus, and this was brought up on the "Worst Picture" topic in Bag End, all of the new culture templates and symbols were lame.
-wtk

[Kralik]

What makes me sad is that when Decipher first started LotR (and when I started playing it), they were only going to make sets along with the movies. I was thinking, "YES! I won't see the ridiculous power bloat of Star Wars!" (Cards getting progressively stronger... such as Luke Power 2 Ability 2 vs. Rare Luke Power 6 Ability 7). It was disappointing to me that they decided to continue and took it the route they did.

[ket_the_jet]

(4M1) The One Ring (M) was the start of the end!
-wtk

[Kralik]

Yes, compare the first schedule to the second.

[RedGoldStag]

But anyway - about rotation - I think the sets rotated out one at a time. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

As I recall, rotation was one block at a time, not one set at a time. However, rotation wasn't implemented until Black Rider released (at which point all of Fellowship Block ceased to be legal), so there was a brief period where sets 1-3 were legal along with Shadows.

[Malachi]

I think it's not the rotation, but the new Shadow cultures and the new sitepath system that alienated most players...

[azogsbane]

I think it's not the rotation, but the new Shadow cultures and the new sitepath system that alienated most players...

You are absolutely correct (at least in my case, and in the case of everybody I used to play with). I am encouraged to hear that we are not alone.

Like ket_the_jet, I stopped buying new cards when shadows came out, and it wasn't long after that we all stopped playing -- until now! My brothers and I played a couple games at the end of the summer and now we're suddenly into it again after all these years. It's been renewed source of fun for past few months. Hence I have just recently created at account here. I doubt I'll be able to get any of my cousins to start playing again though (it was sort of an extended family pastime for all of us back in the day).

Not playing with the "new" sites, and not having as many RotK cards as we have TT and FotR, my five brothers and I have our own simple rules for the adventure path: any movie site of the corresponding number is allowed. I works great.