The fab 5 in arena

[Kakapogoglu]

If we played with extensions, with more powerful birds and ways to score points, that could have been an option. But with the base game here, those 5 birds are just too powerful, even in round 2. They are unbalanced and not fun to play with/against, 2 food/cards against 2 eggs may be better already. Wood duck would be powerful enough if we were able to see only one card, and not two.

From my experience, I enjoy playing arena as it is, which offers a sufficient luck factor. I also tried long-term tournaments with all birds available. Those tournaments are not finished yet so I still play a few games, and there is ALLLLLWAYS one (or more) player with a gull or a raven at the start. Lately, even both in the starting hand of an opponent : he scored around 140, and other players around 90-95 (pretty good scores for the base game btw). Each player plays its own game, at the end you don't even win or lose, there is no competition at all because it's like the game is rigged. Next time I see a Franklin's gull in my own starting hand, I would be able to throw it away to the sea, where it belongs

[Lisette Baum]

.... the fab. 4 should be excluded.
Some weeks ago I played at home with my family. I had good grassland engine but no chance get all my good and expensive birds down because I had only one bird in the woods. There was no chance to win, got a raven played it at the end of round three and won the game with 121 points....
These bird are over powered at most points of the game.

[EtherealPeartree]

After reading through the supplied threads and hearing your feedback, I understand the decisions this community chose for arena. I would still like to be able to create a tournament with more options but it is what it is. Thanks for your feedback everyone!

[bergerOUS]

In tournaments you can choose what you want. So if you like to play with ravens choose the big four too but there is no possibility to reduce their power.

[FrankJones]

It takes several turns to get a raven in play and ready to activate.
Delaying it until the first turn of round 2 will not make much difference, so I would not be in favor of this modification.

We tried a house rule in which we made the ravens not playable until round 3. But they're still strong even in round 3, because they're still a decent scoring bird, and the ability is still very strong.

Killdeer round 3 is less powerful, being a low-scoring bird, but even then, playing it in the grassland is likely to set a scenario in which a player can activate an already-strong grassland while gaining 2 new cards.

We also tried things such as "Franklin's Gull and killdeer must draw one from the tray and one from the deck" which actually did help make it a more balanced card.

And for the ravens we said, "No nectar can be taken" or "food can only be taken from the feeder" or both.

Eventually we just removed the ravens.

[Lisette Baum]

...no house rules on BGA.

[FrankJones]

...no house rules on BGA.

Some games do, but I think the permissions vary from game to game. I would guess that in most cases, rule changes would require permission from whoever owns the rights to the game.