Isn't that just the Banned/Restricted List for individual cards? Don't they do a whole separate annoouncement regarding the entire format and what sets are legal?
I think they use this to annouce when sets are rotated. Ohterwise you have to look at the floor rules to find the sets allowed and full banned/restricted lists. I could be wrong though.
The point to rotating sets out is to create a new/balanced environment. The current environment is pretty wide open in terms of viable Tier 1 and 2 decks (except for Donate of course), and feels pretty fresh because of the power cards from Apocalypse and Odyssey (and the previous bannings of course).
I never thought they would rotate sets out this year and we should see what the new stand-alone expansion brings to the environment before predicting any more change to the Extended format.
I found the last announcement when the sets were rotated for Extended and it was in a Banned/Restricted Update like this one, so I guess you just have to keep your eyes peeled.
The one in 1999 said "the next two or three years", so if not this one this perhaps next year.
Personally, I'd rather see just the duals vanish than just Ice Age block. It's really excessive when most decks are using 15+ duals. Really frustrating. I'd love to see Ice Age and Co. vanish in a puff of smoke too, but the duals are the bigger problem.
Nah, I think they left the duals in because WOTC were of the opinion that there weren't any good "substitutes" in the sets that DID stay in. Since there's been a couple of blocks released since then, WOTC is probably re-evaluating that decision.