There were multiple things that killed extended. From lack of interest, to rotation, to card availability. Extended was a regional format at best. After Wotc tried to 'help' the format, it more or less split the player base into Extended players and Legacy players.
Extended was great when it was basically legacy/hadn't rotated. Then it rotated and became infinitely worse. As time went on extended was played solely as a way to qualify for the pro tour in GPs and PTQ's as well as a pro tour format. When it was in season people played extended. Out of season? Nobody gave a ****. Card price example: Dark confidant outside extended season back in 08 and 09 was a 10 dollar card. While extended was in season? $25-$30. But it would drop when extended season was over same with shocklands, fetchlands, etc. etc. When they shortened it even more to 4 years of blocks that was the final nail in the coffin. Nobody cared at that point and it stopped being a PTQ format. Enter modern and WotC claimed they would continue to support extended but then shortly after that (within a year or something too lazy to look it up) they officially axed the format and stopped recognizing it as a format although it had already been dead in every sense of the word.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Extended was a highly regarded format back in the day (around 2000) for several reasons:
1) It was a very degenerate format where you could play all sorts of busted cards (Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, etc.), where only the worst offenders in the history of the game (Power 9) were banned. Gradually, more cards were added to the banned list, but there were always combo decks to replace it, so it was pretty fun to brew for as well.
2) It was accessible to a wide range of players. Keep in mind that dual lands, Forces, and Wastelands were quite cheap back in the day, so it was in fact a wide-open format that was also accessible to many players. One thing Wizards did really well was respond to the wishes of the player base. When Revised rotated out of Extended, they made an exception to allow the original dual lands to stay in the format for another three years.
However, many factors contributed to its eventual death:
1) The format became much smaller. The change from rotating in three-year blocks to the last seven years of sets was tremendously unpopular, because players don't want to adjust to rotations every year. The second change from seven years to four was an absolute disaster, as no one wants to play with a reduced card pool. The relatively narrow focus of new design philosophies meant there were entire strategic aspects that were no long available in the new Extended.
2) The format became micromanaged too heavily. Card bans were extremely frequent in Extended beginning with Urza's Block, and while the format was enjoyable enough that it still maintained its appeal despite initial bans, it gradually eroded the player base.
3) Type 1 (Vintage) took off from 2000 to 2004, and when the B&R lists for Vintage and Legacy were separated in 2004, Legacy began to emerge as a superior alternative since the format was much more wide open and the cards never rotated.
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
Later on however, it simply turned into standard again, as simply the best decks of the blocks battled it out, which is no fun at all.
Extended got its big shake up with mirrodin again and then it just died as they shifted the format and without urza block extended was simply dead and bad.
This. When extended went back to Tempest and Saga, it was a good chunk of the game's history. It was like half way between playing eternal and playing Standard. As time went on, two things happened.
As the cool, old cards rotetaed out, many extended players moved into the newly branded Legacy format.
Extended became a much smaller percent of the games history. Rather than half way between Standard and Eternal, it was just Standard plus a little. Not the idea that made it popular. To make a new format half way between Standard and Eternal, we now need a card pool going back roughly ten years. Enter Modern.
^Basically this.
I don't think Extended died because they switched to 4 year rotations. They would only make such a change as a means to try and revive the format.
The thing people keep forgetting is that there were far less people playing 7-8 years ago. And more specifically, the change in number of people playing from 20-10 years ago is much smaller compared to 10-0 years ago. And the result is... a lot of the new players didn't have the cardpool to play Extended and so the playerbase just doesn't grow as fast as Standard did.
And then Modern comes along. People liked that the format didn't rotate, but it also wasn't as expensive an investment as Legacy.
The change from 7 years' worth of sets to 4 killed it; extended became 'standard+'. People who'd just started the game 6 years before (one of the heavy surge years, when more players joined than average) saw their 'extended legal' collection cut in half, instead of the expected "cards from before I started finally rotate out, I now have all 7 years worth of extended'; values of the cards from the excluded sets sank. Many players who'd been working on decks felt betrayed; it also didn't help that the remaining 4 years included some pretty weak sets, exacerbating the 'standard +' feel. WOTC initially tried to support new extended, but a great many players began to look for other formats--Overextended(Mercadian Masques-forward) and other attempts at non-WOTC controlled, non-rotating, non-sanctioned formats began to have respectable numbers as side tournaments at larger events. WOTC finally decided to get out in front of the wave with Modern; the format suffered at the beginning due to a tendency to ban cards from winning decklists to encourage diversity, and to pre-emptively ban some cards that didn't need it--leading to wildly different metagames and card values, as the bans came fast and furiously. Modern eventually settled down some, and the bans came less often, leading to more stable metagames/card values. Following through with copious reprints has also shown support for the format, as well as providing another sales driver for current sets.
As soon as it started rotating, Extended became a format that had a difficult time holding people's attention. For me? I lost interest after Ice Age Block, Mirage Block, Fifth, and ABUR duals rotated out all at once. In one painful slap, we lost Oath of the Druids (no gaea's blessing), Secret Force (no natural order), Trix (no illusions of grandeur), Miracle Grow (no tropical island), as well as all around giant staples like swords to plowshares and force of will. It was a very sad time. I think that long term, with each rotation, players who had loved extended would eventually face a giant rotation and lose a ton of cards that they loved. Over time, interest inevitably dwindles.
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1) It was a very degenerate format where you could play all sorts of busted cards (Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, etc.), where only the worst offenders in the history of the game (Power 9) were banned. Gradually, more cards were added to the banned list, but there were always combo decks to replace it, so it was pretty fun to brew for as well.
2) It was accessible to a wide range of players. Keep in mind that dual lands, Forces, and Wastelands were quite cheap back in the day, so it was in fact a wide-open format that was also accessible to many players. One thing Wizards did really well was respond to the wishes of the player base. When Revised rotated out of Extended, they made an exception to allow the original dual lands to stay in the format for another three years.
However, many factors contributed to its eventual death:
1) The format became much smaller. The change from rotating in three-year blocks to the last seven years of sets was tremendously unpopular, because players don't want to adjust to rotations every year. The second change from seven years to four was an absolute disaster, as no one wants to play with a reduced card pool. The relatively narrow focus of new design philosophies meant there were entire strategic aspects that were no long available in the new Extended.
2) The format became micromanaged too heavily. Card bans were extremely frequent in Extended beginning with Urza's Block, and while the format was enjoyable enough that it still maintained its appeal despite initial bans, it gradually eroded the player base.
3) Type 1 (Vintage) took off from 2000 to 2004, and when the B&R lists for Vintage and Legacy were separated in 2004, Legacy began to emerge as a superior alternative since the format was much more wide open and the cards never rotated.
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the Buylisting^Basically this.
I don't think Extended died because they switched to 4 year rotations. They would only make such a change as a means to try and revive the format.
The thing people keep forgetting is that there were far less people playing 7-8 years ago. And more specifically, the change in number of people playing from 20-10 years ago is much smaller compared to 10-0 years ago. And the result is... a lot of the new players didn't have the cardpool to play Extended and so the playerbase just doesn't grow as fast as Standard did.
And then Modern comes along. People liked that the format didn't rotate, but it also wasn't as expensive an investment as Legacy.