I did an emergency ban of Recruitment, since it was added last-minute, could not be discussed and seems especially egregious. Of course this is up for discussion, although I doubt a lot of people will be advocating for it to be unbanned.
Banlist Discussion!
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Re: Banlist Discussion!
Thanks to everyone working on the banlist, lots of good thoughtful discussion and work to help the Agricola community.
Could someone explain why "shaving horse" was banned? I'm not disagreeing with the decision, I just saw lots of discussion for other cards and couldn't find any for shaving horse. In my experience as a 300-400 ELO player, it's been somewhat self-limiting. I've not played it personally. What I've seen is that the food is great but it makes it harder to build fences etc. Perhaps other players simply spend their wood faster or something, and the card becomes too powerful.
Could someone explain why "shaving horse" was banned? I'm not disagreeing with the decision, I just saw lots of discussion for other cards and couldn't find any for shaving horse. In my experience as a 300-400 ELO player, it's been somewhat self-limiting. I've not played it personally. What I've seen is that the food is great but it makes it harder to build fences etc. Perhaps other players simply spend their wood faster or something, and the card becomes too powerful.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Shaving horse allows incredibly efficient feeding, especially with other cards that give you wood. It's not just wood you get from the board that can trigger it. I believe the strongest players can probably budget their wood and food to manage it very well, plus afaik you probably won't need another feeding source (which is very powerful, especially given that the maintenance of shaving horse is getting lots and lots of wood).
Frankly, on reflection I'm not sure shaving horse actually belonged of a category with the other 11 cards that got banned. Most of them break the game in some way or another on a regular basis (either by providing far too many points (above about 4-6 regularly and you're in trouble imo, and these give >10), or enabling growth far too easily), or are walking boots / nightworker and steal actions, which is very upsetting for the player(s) whose action gets stolen.
The thing is, there's a whole other category of cards that I want to ban, not because they break the game regularly or break the game very badly by ruining the flow, but because they are a little bit too strong. If I was going to advocate for all of these cards to be banned, shaving horse definitely makes the list, and there are like ~10 more cards that could probably also make the list. I mostly avoided recommending bans on this second lot of cards (partly to not advocate for tripling the banlist, partly out of practicality in case I missed anything, which I already did twice) but it was judgement where stuff fit between these two lists for cards that were definitely in one of these lists. (E.g. Many other players would put craft teacher in the "breaks the game" pile not the "probably too strong" pile, while I feel like inconsistency hurts craft teacher. I do know I have inflicted some disgusting craft teacher games on these players if they commit to arena).
Frankly, on reflection I'm not sure shaving horse actually belonged of a category with the other 11 cards that got banned. Most of them break the game in some way or another on a regular basis (either by providing far too many points (above about 4-6 regularly and you're in trouble imo, and these give >10), or enabling growth far too easily), or are walking boots / nightworker and steal actions, which is very upsetting for the player(s) whose action gets stolen.
The thing is, there's a whole other category of cards that I want to ban, not because they break the game regularly or break the game very badly by ruining the flow, but because they are a little bit too strong. If I was going to advocate for all of these cards to be banned, shaving horse definitely makes the list, and there are like ~10 more cards that could probably also make the list. I mostly avoided recommending bans on this second lot of cards (partly to not advocate for tripling the banlist, partly out of practicality in case I missed anything, which I already did twice) but it was judgement where stuff fit between these two lists for cards that were definitely in one of these lists. (E.g. Many other players would put craft teacher in the "breaks the game" pile not the "probably too strong" pile, while I feel like inconsistency hurts craft teacher. I do know I have inflicted some disgusting craft teacher games on these players if they commit to arena).
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Admittedly, if there's no wood injection in the game it can be pretty limiting. However, those games are pretty rare.erx2 wrote: ↑10 January 2024, 23:38 Thanks to everyone working on the banlist, lots of good thoughtful discussion and work to help the Agricola community.
Could someone explain why "shaving horse" was banned? I'm not disagreeing with the decision, I just saw lots of discussion for other cards and couldn't find any for shaving horse. In my experience as a 300-400 ELO player, it's been somewhat self-limiting. I've not played it personally. What I've seen is that the food is great but it makes it harder to build fences etc. Perhaps other players simply spend their wood faster or something, and the card becomes too powerful.
The way "obtain" works enables really ugly combos with Shaving Horse. For example, if you have 5 wood and take a wood space with Wood Cutter played, you get 6 food from Shaving Horse activating twice. Wood Collector, Informant, etc. also potentially activate it.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
I agree that Shaving Horse is one card that trivially solves feeding, and that's extremely powerful. It can often generate a lot of excess food for a player even, which a lot of revised cards can benefit from (Grocer, Seed Trader, Confidant, Lover, Guest Room, Winter Caretaker, Basket Carrier, etc)
There are basically no other single cards that provide so much food so easily.
I get Siv in that we probably could have allowed it and seen what the stats say, and I get it's not as obviously busted in the game breaking way that many other things on the ban list are, but I for one am very happy it's not around.
Thankful to see the Recruitment ban. With that in place I do think we have a pretty good basis to play the format in front of us and have a good time. There's still a bunch of cards on my watch list, and we'll hopefully discuss all those in 2.5 months when the arena season is winding down and we want to make updates/tweaks to the banlist for the next one, but by then we should have a lot better idea about what is going on, without a bunch of extra game breaking stuff polluting the data.
There are basically no other single cards that provide so much food so easily.
I get Siv in that we probably could have allowed it and seen what the stats say, and I get it's not as obviously busted in the game breaking way that many other things on the ban list are, but I for one am very happy it's not around.
Thankful to see the Recruitment ban. With that in place I do think we have a pretty good basis to play the format in front of us and have a good time. There's still a bunch of cards on my watch list, and we'll hopefully discuss all those in 2.5 months when the arena season is winding down and we want to make updates/tweaks to the banlist for the next one, but by then we should have a lot better idea about what is going on, without a bunch of extra game breaking stuff polluting the data.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Some thoughts on the banlist after some arena games.
We didn't ban enough cards. I felt awkward advocating for expanding the list as much as I proposed, but this set needs a lot of bans.
Two things stand out to me right now: Craft Teacher, and Child Ombudsman.
Sorry to everyone who wanted Craft Teacher banned before now, I mostly saw people go all-in with the card and fail, or go all-in and succeed with what seemed like very combo reliant hands. I have now seen it succeed, without needing excess support or an all-in game plan. It turns out that you can build guilds and a room early on if you just build a guild that isn't the basketmaker's workshop. Whoops.
Child Ombudsman: of the growth enabling cards, this is what I feel like is the most able to just force getting to four or five people very early. This has happened several times in games now - it's not good in early growth games, but it absolutely dominates late growth. You take a 4-6 point penalty to set up a game that would win by 15-20 points. The only requirement is being able to build multiple rooms early on and feed and score from there - but this is strong in early growth games anyway.
I very much want both of these cards banned the next time the banlist is updated.
This post is also not intended to comment on any other cards banworthiness or lack of banworthiness. There's probably other stuff that should be banned but nothing is as clear as these two cards for me.
We didn't ban enough cards. I felt awkward advocating for expanding the list as much as I proposed, but this set needs a lot of bans.
Two things stand out to me right now: Craft Teacher, and Child Ombudsman.
Sorry to everyone who wanted Craft Teacher banned before now, I mostly saw people go all-in with the card and fail, or go all-in and succeed with what seemed like very combo reliant hands. I have now seen it succeed, without needing excess support or an all-in game plan. It turns out that you can build guilds and a room early on if you just build a guild that isn't the basketmaker's workshop. Whoops.
Child Ombudsman: of the growth enabling cards, this is what I feel like is the most able to just force getting to four or five people very early. This has happened several times in games now - it's not good in early growth games, but it absolutely dominates late growth. You take a 4-6 point penalty to set up a game that would win by 15-20 points. The only requirement is being able to build multiple rooms early on and feed and score from there - but this is strong in early growth games anyway.
I very much want both of these cards banned the next time the banlist is updated.
This post is also not intended to comment on any other cards banworthiness or lack of banworthiness. There's probably other stuff that should be banned but nothing is as clear as these two cards for me.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
I think it is very hard to evaluate the cards in a draft 10 format. Everyone ends with 5 fields, 5 rooms 15 fences anyway so soms cards may feel stronger than the actually are.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Child Ombudsman is very dumb. The fact that you can use it as a grow immediately in 5 without needing to first take another action leads to very frequently being able to grow to 5 before rounds 8 or 9, and you have too big of an action advantage at that point to overcome regardless of when grow flips (and you can always just grow normally if it lines up well). You don't have to sacrifice anywhere near enough for the effect and it should be banned.
I don't have any comment either way on craft teacher. Occ cheating is insanely strong in draft 10. I think that even cards like writing desk are borderline too strong in draft 10, where in draft 8 I don't think it's as big of an issue.
I do think that Tree Guard is banworthy. Early access to that unique mix of resources allows for such easy food throughout the early portions of the game since you can basically always get stone oven after two tree guards. The way that it warps resources and the battle for start player is insanely annoying and it's almost always in favor of the person playing tree guard since they can decide when to use it and when to not do it. I think it's a bit too strong on its own and I find the way that it plays to be highly annoying.
I would be pro pulverizer plow being banned. It's a bit too easy to set up a ton of plows with it at too little of a cost. One clay isn't enough to get other people to take the space, and you can just retake the clay over and over again.
I don't have any comment either way on craft teacher. Occ cheating is insanely strong in draft 10. I think that even cards like writing desk are borderline too strong in draft 10, where in draft 8 I don't think it's as big of an issue.
I do think that Tree Guard is banworthy. Early access to that unique mix of resources allows for such easy food throughout the early portions of the game since you can basically always get stone oven after two tree guards. The way that it warps resources and the battle for start player is insanely annoying and it's almost always in favor of the person playing tree guard since they can decide when to use it and when to not do it. I think it's a bit too strong on its own and I find the way that it plays to be highly annoying.
I would be pro pulverizer plow being banned. It's a bit too easy to set up a ton of plows with it at too little of a cost. One clay isn't enough to get other people to take the space, and you can just retake the clay over and over again.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
I'm fine to ban treeguard for disbalance (but not because its too strong).
I think we should add freshman to the banlist (at least in draft 10), with certain combos you can play your occs way to easy!
Craft teachers is hard for me, i won and lost a lot of games because of it. so cant tell if i want to ban it.
I hate to play (against) child ombudsman, when i play it its bad when other play it they win the game =D
I think we should add freshman to the banlist (at least in draft 10), with certain combos you can play your occs way to easy!
Craft teachers is hard for me, i won and lost a lot of games because of it. so cant tell if i want to ban it.
I hate to play (against) child ombudsman, when i play it its bad when other play it they win the game =D