Clarity: Retiring Revised and X-List (Standard)

by Charlie Plaine, Acting First Edition Brand Manager

30th August 2017

As The Continuing Committee prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary, we're extremely mindful of the barriers to entry that exist to our games, and to our community. As part of a concerted effort to clean up the information we provide and reduce complexity for new and returning players, we're going to be taking steps to eliminate overhead and provide clarity when and where we can do so.

As part of that effort, we are going to be retiring the "Revised" and "X-List (Standard)" rules sets for First Edition as of January 1st, 2018. Retiring these rules sets means they will no longer be officially supported formats for Continuing Committee events, no longer offer achievements, and no longer appear on official documents or tools.

Revised and X-List (Standard) were both introduced during a difficult time period for First Edition, after the official end of the game but before the modern stewardship of 1E by the CC. Each was an attempt to bring balance to the game as it was by using different tools to address power and rules issues. Revised offered new rules (seed limits, copy limits) whereas X-List (Standard) used bans to remove problem cards. Both options had a lot of time and energy put into their development, for which we are grateful to the volunteers who did so. These rules sets also had their fans and their detractors, but both fell by the wayside with the advent and adoption of the Official Tournament Format (OTF). OTF used all of the tools available, instead of just some, and has allowed for a modern and healthy game state.

Over time, we've noticed less and less officially reported activity using these two rules sets via our website. The number of tournaments using Revised or X-List (Standard) has dropped to zero; most of the tournaments that were held using these options were for achievement purposes. The idea of sun-setting these formats has been floated for some time, but as we head into the 10th anniversary of the CC, it was felt the time is right.

What does retiring rules sets mean?
For the vast majority of our players, this step will have little to no impact on their day to day use of the site or tournament play experiences. As near as we can tell, there have been no tournaments played using either format in all of 2017. Removing these as options will allow us to clean up our site, tools, and documentation in an effort to provide more clarity to users.

First of all, as noted, this will not be taking effect until January 1st, 2018. Until then, Revised and X-List (Standard) will remain options for players seeking to experience those rules sets or to earn related achievements. After December 31st, 2017, these rule sets will no longer appear on the site as options for tournaments, in the card legality checkers, or deck builder filters. Additionally, all achievement specific to the format will no longer be available. Please note that anyone having already earned the achievements will keep the points earned, if any.

Documentation on the formats will be removed from the Organized Play Guide and will be archived in a different section of the official documentation. Players are welcome to use Revised and X-List (Standard) in their own events, but they won't be officially sanctioned rules set options for CC tournaments. Any references to these rules sets will be removed from the main, non-archive versions of the website. (Specifically, they won't appear except in sections dedicated to retired/archived First Edition rules sets.)

We will be finalizing and posting more details about exactly what will change as the date approaches, and will be sharing that information with you. We're announcing this change now to ensure that we have time to answer your questions or address concerns, to give you ample notice about some achievements being ended, and to plan out exactly what will need to be done.

We don't take these actions lightly, but feel this is a positive and overdue change for the site, the community, and the game of First Edition. Thank you for taking the time to read this announcement, and please stay tuned for more details as we approach the end of the year.

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