Banlist Discussion!

[CosmoTecnezio]

Hi all. I am following very often Ranior, Lumin, EconSean live agricola gaming on Twitch and then I would like to give my point of view, since they often ask the community to do it.

From a subjective point of view i definitevely think both Big Country and Begging Student should be banned as soon as possible.

From an objective point of view I formulated my own way to determine if a card should be banned or not. I worked in particle physics and I applied a first rough estimation method for the significance that a card has to be considered too strong with respect to the average.

As an example I used the AB decks data Lumin showed in his post (the first table he published in the following post https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 6&p=101625).

In principle, the probability P that a card has to be found among the played cards of the winner ("win-play probability") can be expressed as:
P=(x*y)/(z*w) where:
x=total number of cards drafted in a game (56 as in Lumin's table)
y=probability that a card has to be played in a game
z=number of players (4 as in Lumin's table)
w=total number of cards in the deck (94 as in Lumin's AB deck table)
Then P=0.1498*y

From the table Lumin posted I inferred the total number of games he analyzed. 331 was the averaged number of times a card was drafted, so that multiplying 331*(94/56) ,where 94 is the total number of the cards in the table (minor+occs in the AB deck), I obtained 555 games.
Thus 555*0.1498*y=83.139*y is the "win-play value" that each card should have after 555 games.

y can span from 0 to 1 since it's a probability value. If we consider y=1 it's like taking in account all the possibile combos that have led that card to win. As a matter of fact, when y=1 this means that in every game we assume that all occs and minors are played. Therefore, 83.139 can be considered as the maximum "win-play value" a card can have in 555 games, taking in account all the possible combos.

83.139 can be considered as a "background value". The significance S that a card has to be considered stronger with respect to the background can be computed in this way:
S = (k-z)/sqrt(z) where:
k=win-play value from the data for each card
z=maximum win-play value for the dataset analyzed (in this case 83.139)

This significance S is telling us how much a card can be considered significantly different from the max strenght a card can typically have.

The only card that showed more than 3 sigma (which is the standard value used in physics) is Big Country. 3 sigma means that with a 99.7% confidence level we can consider Big Country significantly different from all the other cards in terms of capability to let you win.

In the table Lumin showed Big Country had 118 win-play value which corresponds, in this framework, to 3.8 sigma.

I am looking forward to have more data from CD decks in order to evaluate the significance for Begging Student and other CD cards.

Suggestions and comments are welcome, bye!

[cs2376jr]

I’ve been wanting to do this awhile but have just kept forgetting/procrastinating/just not wanting to, but here we are! I’m going to give my opinions on cards needing to be banned, and cards needing to be put on a “watch list”. A watch list is just a list of cards that I don’t think need to be banned at the time but could in the future depending how the meta goes/I get to see more plays with the card. I’ll probably say a lot of what others say but that's okay, it's good to reinforce what others have said.

Bans-

Begging student- Easily the strongest card in the deck in my mind. It doesn’t need any synergies to be great, but there are also cards that make your game nuts like bookcase, bookshelf, tutor, papermaker etcetera. Every Time I get the card in the draft I already think I have by far the best odds to win at the table because of how strong the card is. Even when I don’t have any of the occ support you want and the occs are bad, you still just get to play 6 free occs which in theory should all do something making it well worth the action and 3vp you’re investing in it. No doubt in my mind this is ban-worthy.

Assistant tiller (tiller for short)- Tiller is up there with the strongest cards in the game. To be able to last action plow is a great ability and now it comes with 2f? Nice! Oh and not only that, I also get to combo it with the million other day laborer cards in the set? (water worker excavator loam pit cottager ect.) Seems like a winning game plan, let’s do that! What am I trying to get at here? Well, the truth is, tiller is such a strong card that it may even be ban-worthy without all the day laborer combos in the set, but with them there is no doubt in my mind that it needs to be banned. I’m sure we have all lost to the massive dl button before and it's just not fun because there's really nothing you can do. You can’t get in their way at all as it's a space no one is able to use and do well, and you can’t draft against it because it's a first pick card. The food you get from it also gives you tremendous flexibility and gets you out of any food trouble you might have been in.

Big Country (BC)- BC is a card like no other. It says that if you farm, which is what you are supposed to do in agricola, you get a bunch of points and your feeding is solved for the game. On its own I don’t think it's too strong, but you just need one or two other cards in your hand to make it unwinnable for others. The other issue is the fact that it just has no interaction. It's got the same feel as massive DL combos have, “Oh his big country+sleeping corner in round 7 12 grow was unbeatable” The big country player farms, takes animals and crops, and then sp’s to grow. They won’t score less than 50 and they won’t interact with the other players at the table. It also screws the wood economy of the game as they are using 15 wood on fences and that's it as well as only taking wood early in the game making the game super difficult on the person after them. So not only is this card super strone, it also doesn’t interact with other players and can distort the wood economy

Watch List-

Potter Ceramics (PC)- PC is a card that, if used correctly, can coast you to a very nice win. The thing that is different from the cards above is that the strength of the card comes from the other cards in the set. To use it best, you need to find cards like baker, oven firing boy, bread paddle, threshing board, or flail. These all give you free bake actions allowing you to make a clay to 5 food (if you have the clay oven) for free. You want to take wood and you want to plow and you want to occ so it's almost just a free 5 food. The other thing that makes it so strong is that none of these cards that give free bakes are particularly strong so you are able to reliably get them mid to late in the draft. The issue with the card is that food alone doesn’t win games. PC games usually require you to be very precise and not too many players can unlock its true potential. It also forces you to prioritize an oven very aggressively as losing it can crush your game plan, but doing so will push you back in the growth queue which costs you actions and grants others action. All in all I think PC is a very strong card but I have revised my opinion from it needing to be banned to just needing to be watched as it can be quite tricky to play.

Carrot Museum- Carrot museum is a funky card. It gives lots of stone and wood for having veggies which is a very good reward, and it gives 2vp too which is nothing to sleep on. Honestly the card is probably worth playing if you have 2 spare clay as 2vp for a minor to raise your ceiling is quite good. The main issue with the card is that it can easily be degenerate. You have small greenhouse, large greenhouse, childless, grocer, bookcase, and I’m sure there’s even more that I’m not thinking about. All you need is one of these cards to have a nuts game. The reason I’m putting it on the watch list is because it takes quite a few actions to setup and as with PC, that can delay your growing or in this case it probably makes your food pretty awful so you'll have to navigate that. After getting veggies in the ground though you should be good to go food wise. The reason this card is on my watch list is that it can easily be degenerate, but I just haven’t gotten to see it played enough to know how good it is yet. I’m generally a fan of banning cards that can win by itself with just one other card.

Lantern House- has a very braggarty feel to me. This card says “if you have a strong game already, this card puts it over the top. Sp in round 1 to get 2 good actions in round 2 is already a strong move, now we get to do it with a 4/5 vp minor? Sign me up! It’s just on the watch list because it’s not always going to be good (quite a few drafts are just bad and you don’t want to play your cards) sometimes you have to occ round 1, sometimes you don’t get sp round ect. Lots of this can go wrong so I don’t think it's worth banning quite yet, but when everything goes well it can be crazy good.

Childless- Childless is a card that says “if you build a room in round 3, you get to grow first, have feeding for stage 2 solved, and have crops so all you have to do the rest of the game is take wood and fields” Its crazy strong in late grow as it gives you so much food and crops. If grow flips early, well, you have first room and just get to grow first, that sounds like a winning gameplan to me. The only thing I am unsure of as of now is how often a card like childless wins. It's good every single game as long as you get that round 3 room (which you should most of the time unless you have the disaster 4th seat opener) Just keeping it on the watch list for now because I need to see it a little more to determine how I feel about it.

Hopefully this wasn’t too long and people will actually read it I didn’t intend for it to be thing long, but here’s my thoughts!

[Thamoo]

Having played some more, I now agree with the begging student ban. That card is way too strong.

Tiller I haven't seen many day labor combos since CD decks got added. When they hit though it is indeed brutal. That said I do hate draft loam pit fairly highly which may contribute to why I don't see it as often. Still a no from me but eh, I don't care much about that one.

For BC I would be interested in looking at the win rate in high level tables. It really doesn't feel oppressive to me except when they get the perfect growth pattern AND some supporting cards. Yes one in ~15 games (total, not just games with BC) BC will get lucky and cruise to a easy win but most of the time the 50~52 score isn't enough to win, or even third place. I also think there is much more counterplay than people assume :
- Some fighting for early plows, especially great with childless.
- Early animal pressure, both in not letting BC get an early sheep pile and by fencing early to delay pig/cow pairs.
- R11 first player is a strong action that BC will almost surely want. If you're in front of the BC player very strongly consider taking it if you need the growth.

All that said. I absolutely despise being the BC player and most other seems to dislike playing against it so banning it is fine with me. Wouldn't agree it's for power reasons though, just annoyance.

As for the other cards. I think childless and potter ceramics are the closest but don't meet the threshold for a ban. I'm certainly biased though as I really like playing with them.

Lastly, how do we feel about a bean counter ban? The card is essentially a -1 card to the pack it's in which will only be played (with many regrets) by players learning the game.

[Ranior]

I probably wouldn't ban Bean Counter--I agree it is probably the only card in the current set that in unplayably weak in that it basically has no valid use case while everything else at least can occasionally shine, I'm not particularly in to banning things off the bottom. Perhaps that's just because it hasn't been done historically, or perhaps it is because I don't really find it a problem. Part of the skill of the game is picking good cards and understanding when and when not to play cards--and knowing to basically not touch Bean Counter is part of the small skill. Especially while we are running draft 8 or higher and you can always avoid the worst card it's not an issue. (Under draft 7 it's a bit annoying, but most players are going to wind up with some cards in the back part of the draft they don't intend to use anyhow).

I'm still on board with banning Begging Student, Big Country, and Assistant Tiller. However, at this point in the arena season, I'm on the side of keeping the current format through the entire season. I plan to kick off this discussion when we're in the final month or so of the season so we can get things figured out in time for the next arena season--by that point I think Begging Student clearly will have support to be banned, and Big Country probably does while I get the sense Assistant Tiller probably does not quite. But maybe we can get some poll going or something then.

For now though, I think we can all continue to discuss, but I suspect it's best not to make changes midway through the current season.

[QBert]

I more or less agree with Ranior above. If you ban Bean Counter, then it's not a far leap to also ban Sugar Baker, then Reed Roof Renovator, perhaps Roughcaster. Not every occ has to be playable. In fact I would argue having exceptionally weak occs in the draft is a necessary counterbalance to a very strong strategy in a set with Patron, Furniture Maker, Paper Maker, Tutor, Bookshelf, Writing Desk, Bookcase, et cetera, that strongly rewards playing occs, even if they are blank.

[Old_Pepikos]

i started to play agricola on BGA so perhaps my opinion isnt as valid as some other more experienced players. However i do have an opinion of the mentioned cards:

1. Begging student - its super strong and op when constable doesnt see play and other cards like latern house/tutor. However it has a little skill in it to find occs that fit in the certain harvest. (Banning this card seems a good solution)

2. Tiller, i only feel like it is op when you have combo's. And i dont really hate draft, but in strong tables you dont see the combos super often. and i really feel like seasonal worker isnt worth to play it without any combo. (Im against banning this card)

3. BC, the card that looks bad when you start agricola but when you see how you should play it is easy 46+ vp. The thing is that for a lot of new players their first win is with this card. thats fun, and i also really like the way you approach the game when you play the 2room bc. it really helps bad players to find the most efficient actions, which will help you later in non 2 room bc games. on top of that it makes some occs super good, which is also fun. (so also against banning this card)

[kelebel]

Begging Student is def overpowered imo, it’s pretty much impossible to have a bad game with it. It’s a shame cos it’s a fun card to use but it is unbalanced.

BC isnt as strong on its own but the issue is that it almost forces you to draft it, play it, and play a certain type of game. (Childless is similar in how it dictates your first 6/7 moves.)

Assistant Tiller is not as overpowered as BS and not as proscriptive as BC imo

So for me banning BS is fair enough. Keep Tiller and Childless but keep an eye on them. And personally i would like to see BC edited to only be playable in certain rounds like trident - say 10-12. That way its still a strong card but if you want the 2-4 pts and food you have to compromise/plan ahead at the expense of other plans to be ready to play it

[Ranior]

Just for the record, edits/changes to cards are not really an option. BGA only publishes official stuff, or things a publisher approves. So we'd have to get the publisher to make an official errata for any Big Country edit. That's fairly unlikely to occur.

[kelebel]

Just for the record, edits/changes to cards are not really an option. BGA only publishes official stuff, or things a publisher approves. So we'd have to get the publisher to make an official errata for any Big Country edit. That's fairly unlikely to occur.

Thanks yeh I thought that after I had posted. It would be a shame to lose BC altogether because it's a unique card, and the more diversity in the game the better . But as it can't be edited I'm 50/50 on banning it..

[Smoo]

i have changed my mind on Big Country. It needs to go.

The issue is that when playing a 2 room Big Country game, for most of the game the actions that you want priority on are not important to the other players. Blocking is usually very inefficient for the other players - if it is, then they have to skip a much better action to do so, which puts them behind the rest of the table. So everyone else is playing a 3player game where at the end the winner gets to compare their score to your solitaire score. The solitaire score is often higher, so in a competitive environment (eg Arena mode) the best path to victory, is usually to take the Big Country path when it is offered to you.

While it does add 'diversity' to the game, i don't think it does so in a way that actually improves gameplay for everyone involved.