Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-4830106-20151115174306/@comment-4010415-20151116054142

MetallicArcher wrote: If Cinder can chose who fights who, then I think it's likely she can also chose the biomes...

Actually this could explain why the fights so far have been so one sided, if she is fixing them up, she can match teams and biomes to give one competitor significant advantage. Ice biome with ice Dust in it for Weiss to do some huuuge ice stuff, stormy mountain for Nora to power up with.

Makes sense. We saw in Volume 2 that Cinder wanted Merc and Em to observe the other students. Maybe part of the reason for the list is so they can look for ways to give those people advantages.