Banlist Discussion!

[bluestar]

Thoughts on current Banlist
Begging Student&TradeTeacher:
Needn't say more about them,these two cards are just powerful,I can accept them to be banned,I can also glad to see they aren't banned.I am not the one bans card just for power but I approve of banning card for their annoyance(affect expreience of other players).

Big Country & Little Peasant :
They are related to 2-houses strategy,provide diversity to game.Do you guys really want to see every players extend their houses and rush to grow familiy in queue game and game again?I really don't want to see.
Big Country is maybe a bit powerful,but not too powerful.
Lillte Peasant isn't so powerful,some privious disscusion said the card is annoying and have no interaction with other players,IMO,Every players Fighting for growth every game once and once again is annoying,Little Peasant is a good card that enrichs playstyle,And also Little Peasant does have interaction with other players in fighting of woods and animals.I strongly suggerst to remove it from Banlist.

Caravan & Work Certification & Carriage Trip:Caravan and Work Certification maybe aren't too powerful but they are too annnoying,they should be banned.However Carriage Trip is something common from the view of power,you even don't draw it at 1st or 2nd draw,and yes,it is annoying in some games,but it isn't annonying in half games,I can accept it to be banned or not to be banned.

Cross Cut Wood:I strongly oppose banning it.I see some disscusion before to say it breaks wood-economy balance,IMHO,First and Biggest question,if you should ban it,why not Baseboards & Writing Boards and any other passing cards that gives you wood,a good player should have a sight on Resource-economy when drafting cards and remember which cards in play when playing game.I strongly suggerst to remove it from Banlist.

Braggart:I don’t think it is overpowered,you guys maybe think I am crazy,“it provides 9 points,which is just too much”,let me explain
Yes,it provides 9 points,but it is costly.You need to play 10 improvements,since one player has only 7 minor improvements,so you need to play 3 major improvements,which means 3 moves and plenty resource.And still you need to take 7 minor improvements actions,to play all of you hands and have enough resource to pay.There are many useless minor improvements in currut environment even in draft 7 out of 10,the word useless means you suffer lose from just playing the card or you aren’t able to play that card due to play condition,moreover,there are some passing card which amount can’t be ignored.
9 points,yes it is too much.But an occ can have impact as big as 9 point isn’t a great secret.Informant,which easily provides 12 woods,as big as 9 points.Lover,played in R5,provides 9 actions and 3points,which cost is only 19 food in total,is great than 9 points.Teacher’s Desk,which save you 5-6 actions from playing occs,is just great as 9 points.Plow Drivers,if you focus on 3 stone house strategy,can provides you 5 fields ,which is 10 points,Scholar,gives you 6 or more actions to play occs and minor improvements,has potential to give you benefit more than 9 points.These two cards are far away from banlist,I admit Braggart is great than those two cards,but I doubt Braggart is really worthy to be banned?

[Pepikos]

Quite some clear reviews on the new cards! And like the review on breggart, I started playing agricola on BGA after it got banned so never played with it, and think you have a point bluestart. But I think it's better to leave it as a banned card. I only played too few games with the new cards to have a strong opinon and might edit my view after some more plays. And i think its better to play more games with all the new cards in before we start banning.

Ban for being too strong:
- Writing chamber
- Summer house
- Craft brewery
- informant

Ban for being too annoying:
- Nightworker
- Tree guard
- Chapel

Not convinced (yet):
Autum mother
Estate master

[oyyyy]

Isn't it repetitive for all players to compete with each other to build houses, increase population, and plow fields? And every game is doing this.
I think that cards like Big Country and Summer House can be used as core cards for a unique track, and they must be built around it. Although their scoring ability is strong, it is also difficult to win a game today with more and more card combinations.

[Direful]

As a general philosophy, I think the Agricola community should lean towards only banning the most egregious cards first and then collect data to have a more informed opinion later.

We can always ban a card after we have more data to show it is excessively overpowered (Lumin’s data collection can help with this). If a card were banned immediately, we would never have play test data that might change our opinion so it likely would remain banned forever.

Based on playing 30+ games with the new cards, and considering all the discussions above, here are my recommendations for the initial bans for the new cards:


Initial Bans – 100% certain should be banned (6 cards)

Writing Chamber – This card has too high of a benefit (both in total points and flexibility) for too little of a cost
Estate Master – While difficult to set up, this card has the potential to provide 10+ points of bonus points. If this card is drafted, almost certainly a player will adjust their strategy to maximize points from this card.
Craft Brewery – This card has had a 100% win rate in all the 4p games I have played with it. Too many points provided AND it is a food engine.
Craft Teacher – Provides too much benefit, especially if you can get 2 Resource Market actions in the first stage. You could then play craft teacher and buy joinery to get 2 free occupations, while still having the opportunity to buy Pottery and Basketmaker’s Workshop for 2 to 4 more free occupations later in the game.
Weakling – Has the potential to provide 5-15+ vegetables passively in certain games. This is simply too unbalanced.
Pulverizer Plow – Provides too many passive plows on clay grabs that likely would be needed anyway. Has the potential to provide >3 passive plows which is stronger than swing plow.


Initial Bans – 85% certain should be banned, acknowledging that their inclusion would add more variety to game play (2 cards)

Summer House – This card can warp the game to encourage large stone rooms and actively discourage farming. By building rooms in the middle of the farm, it could give 16 points, negating the need to do any fencing or plows.
Chapel – Warps the game and gives a significant advantage to the player who plays it. I have played several games where I have been able to score 12-18 points with Chapel if players couldn’t afford the grain cost to take it themselves.


Should NOT be banned until more data is collected (and likely to remain unbanned):

Forest Clearer
Artisan District
Acquirer
Lazybones
Autumn Mother
Bed Maker

[AceSpade111]

My general thoughts:

Ban for Strength:
Writing Chamber
Craft Brewery
Craft Teacher
Chapel
Weakling

Ban for Annoyance:
Summer House
Treeguard
Night Worker

Consider Banning:
Forest Clearer
Autumn Mother (There's a bunch of other accelerated build/grow cards that fall in this category we may need data and stats to see which ones are actually busted)
Collector (So many new combos, think museum curator)
Bed Maker

Mentioned by Others but I haven't played with enough to comment:
Artisan District
Acquirer
Pulverizer Plow
Estate Master
Stone axe

And I would definitely not remove any of the current bans. Playing a few games without a ban list reminded me just how terrible cards like Little Peasant and Big Country are.

[self_evident2]

I'm unsure about nightworker - it seems potentially annoying but something that can probably be policed and played around. There are some interactions that seem very absurd that I would want to clarify how they work though (can you take a non-building resource action after nightworker with a card that lets you take two actions at once?).

You can. That's what make this card literally ABSURD and UNPLAYABLE at all.

[auknrcptjpni]

I'm representing in-person players in Denmark to share our opinions on these potential bannable card.

Instant bans:
Weakling, Craft Brewery and Estate Master: A banlist without these cards is just ridiculous.

Nightworker: If you play enough games with it, you will definitely find that it's ridiculously annoying, and it causes random and thus imbalanced affections on different players, which makes it even more annoying.

Informant: Too many wood.

Artisan District: It is useless in most of the time(just 1s-1p), but with certain combos, like Tree Guard or Craft Teacher , it will be a monster. Cards that strengthen a certain playmode (but not creating a new playmode) will make the game imbalanced and thus should be banned.

Definitely not a ban:
Pulverizer Plow: The strength is just good, but not too good. Also it's ridiculous to claim that it 'destroys the clay economy'. We can also say that rammed clay destroys the clay economy as well, let alone that rammed clay needs even more clay than this card.

Summer House: It's easy to calculate that, the basic points that a 5-room summer house (with 2 stables in the corner and a pasture) gives you include: 10p from stone rooms, 15p from farmers, 2+1+1 from animals, 1+1 from pastures and stables, 1+1 from grains and vegs, -1 from fields, and 8 from unused spaces, which adds up to 40. That means you need to work out a 15-point bonus from somewhere to win, with barely any plants and animals. Consequently, without powerful combos like Hide Farmer or Writing Chamber, it's just not that strong. The win rate of Summer House in Denmark in-person games(4p) is just somewhere around 1/3.

On the edge of ban/not ban:
Craft Teacher: As you have mentioned and discussed, it is strong but encourage diversity.

Forest Clearer: Weaker than Informant but still very strong, especially for the first and second player.

Writing Chamber: Very strong but encourages diversity.

Other cards don't even deserve to be discussed.

[donkeykong66]

Definitely not a ban:
Pulverizer Plow: The strength is just good, but not too good. Also it's ridiculous to claim that it 'destroys the clay economy'. We can also say that rammed clay destroys the clay economy as well, let alone that rammed clay needs even more clay than this card.

Full disclaimer, I haven't played with pulverizer plow before.

While I get the sentiment, I do think Rammed Clay and pulverizer plow have quite different effects on the game. In a vacuum 4+ clay stacks are good, 3 clay stacks are situational and 2 clay stacks are generally bad beyond stage 1.

Rammed Clay maybe makes 3 clay stacks a bit better, and 4+ clay stacks a bit higher priority. However, pulverizer plow makes 3 clay an amazing action and 2 clay a good action, and worse than that, you can take them basically last action guaranteed.

So I don't think the argument is that Clay is somehow taken out of the game (like Rammed Clay does) but more so that the clay doesn't stack up, which makes it harder for people to grab the right stacks mid game to reno / build extra room / build improvements that cost clay

[BadukDan]

Just played a game with Estate Master and got 20 points. We are playing draft 10 though to test out new cards but still it was way to easy for the amount of points you get. I agree this card is to powerful.

One more thing I play 3 player games with my family members so I don't know if this is as easy or not to pull off in a 4+ player games.

[alsozatch]

Hayloft barn is not being discussed at all but it seems like a clear instant ban. With just a 4w occ you can get a growth in round 4 along with 2 sown grain fields which is just absurd.

The line is something like 4w occ -> plow, sp barn -> grain, -> plow -> grain, grain -> sow. Or skip 1 of the plows for something else and you’ll still get the growth. And there are plenty of other ways to get it to work, like grocer. Or time it correctly with childless and it’s a Lover on a minor that trades 3 wood for 4 food instead of costing you 7+ food.

For reference hayloft barn is a 1 occ 3 wood minor that gives an urgent wish and 4 food once you’ve collected 4 separate instances of grain