War of the Ring Standard

A somewhat forgotten format, this was the first iteration of Standard format that rotation was in effect. Rather than constrain new cards to carefully avoid unhealthy interactions with older cards, Decipher decided to 'phase out' old blocks (in this case, Fellowship Block) one set at a time with every new base or expansion set released. War of the Ring Standard, therefore, consists of Towers Block, King Block, and War of the Ring Block (plus The Weta Collection and supplemental sets Reflections and Expanded Middle-earth), and uses sites from War of the Ring Block.

This was a tumultuous time for the game: the changes to sites, Shadow cultures, and set rotation had a lot of detractors. Unlike Movie Block it was not offered any support from Decipher after The Hunters ushered in a new Standard, and unlike Towers there wasn't much similarity between the block and standard versions. Without anything to keep the format alive, fans of the War of the Ring-era Standard specifically (if there were any) could do little else than revert to Movie block, embrace the evolving Standard and Expanded formats, or stop playing altogether. By the time it was supported on Gemp and mLOTRO it had faded into obscurity, and both War of the Ring formats are among the least played official formats today.

X-list

The following cards cannot be included in War of the Ring Standard decks, with new additions to the X-list since Movie Block noted with the reason. Since most banned cards were from Fellowship block and those sets were rotated out anyway, the Standard X-list during this time was the smallest ever (on paper, at least). For more details, see X-list.

• All cards in sets 1-3 and any Promotional cards originally printed in those sets
• Legolas, Dauntless Hunter (4R73) - too abusive with the influx of unbound Hobbits from Shadows
• Fortress Never Fallen (4U276) - too efficient for a culture which was not intended to excel at discarding conditions
• Get On and Get Away (4R304) - no cultural enforcement with too great of an impact on the Shadows adventure path
• Steadfast Champion (7U49)
• Aggression (8C1)
• Memories of Darkness (10U2)
• Galadriel, Lady Redeemed (10R11) - undercosted with too little cultural enforcement
• Mordor Fiend (10C91)
• Final Account (11C31) - circumvents the deckbuilding rules that limits cards to 4 copies and does so with no regard for culture or card type

Formats

Sets	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	10	9	11	12	13	14	15	17	18	16	19
Historical Decipher Formats	Fellowship Block			Towers Block			King Block				War of the Ring Block				Hunters Block
	Towers Standard
	King Standard
	Movie Block
				War of the Ring Standard
							Standard
	Expanded
	Open

Player's Council Formats (including PC Errata)	1	2	3	V1	4	5	6	V2	7	8	9	10	V3	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
	PC-Fellowship
	PC-Movie
	PC-Expanded