Banlist Discussion!

[alexwjb]

I have just done an update:

- The banlists are now responsive to the player count. There are different banlists for 1/2 player games vs 3/4 player games. Job Contract, Pioneer, Brewery Pond and Fish Farmer added to the 1/2 player strong banlist. Child Ombudsman, Big Country, Walking Boots not included in the 1/2 player strong banlist.
- Lodger is added to the 3/4 player strong banlist (12 pro ban, 5 against). NB Lodger is not available in 1/2 player games anyway.
- Full banlists available on the wiki: https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/Gameh ... la#Banlist
- 2-player banlist discussion thread here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48946

Re Basket Weaver / Brewery Pond: I am also against 3/4 player bans for these cards. It's true the Basket Weaver is a "gotcha" card that can be annoying if you wanted the BMW, but for me winning/losing the BMW is not at the same level of game-warping as Lodger, Tree Guard, Carriage Trip etc.

As always please keep opinions coming. In general, changes happen if there is a good level of support for change from genuine players.

[Schaden90]

I’m not an arena player and mostly play async with friends/casual players so not sure I qualify as a “genuine” player, but I’d also like to see Guest Room unbanned. I think it’s a fun and healthy card to have in the pool despite being strong, and it’d admittedly be a pleasant state of affairs to have no bans from the E deck.

[alexwjb]

I’m not an arena player and mostly play async with friends/casual players so not sure I qualify as a “genuine” player, but I’d also like to see Guest Room unbanned. I think it’s a fun and healthy card to have in the pool despite being strong, and it’d admittedly be a pleasant state of affairs to have no bans from the E deck.

Thanks Schaden. I just went through opinions from the last year regarding Guest Room. Here is the summary:

Kep banned [3]: torvaldur, justyellow, Lasertrip
Unban [8]: alexwjb, cranesflyhigh (not strongly), silverriver, lezurichois (not strongly), Swathe, Aspheric, -MightyW-, Pepikos
Neutral [2]: Siveure, Ranior

So the thread is leaning towards unbanning Guest Room, but ideally more opinions would come in.

A reminder of what the card does for those who may not have seen it while it has been banned:

Guest Room (Minor Improvement, cost 4 wood + 1 reed.) E022
Immediately place any amount of food from your supply on this card. Once per round, you can discard 1 food from this card to place a person from your supply in that round.

[alexwjb]

Actually I found a poll that was run on Discord about this. So I can add more votes:

Keep banned [7]: torvaldur, justyellow, Lasertrip, xaxaQ, alsozatch, haydeezz, cs2376jr
Unban [12]: alexwjb, cranesflyhigh (not strongly), silverriver, lezurichois (not strongly), Swathe, Aspheric, -MightyW-, Pepikos, ducr, lumin_s, smoothjelly, jcraig314
Neutral [4]: Siveure, Ranior, Acerbic, colorfulpockets

Given that in general I think we should lean towards the status quo, I'd say this could go either way. So more opinions very welcome please!

[alexwjb]

I forgot to add Schaden who was the person who prompted this

Keep banned [7]: torvaldur, justyellow, Lasertrip, xaxaQ, alsozatch, haydeezz, cs2376jr
Unban [13]: alexwjb, cranesflyhigh (not strongly), silverriver, lezurichois (not strongly), Swathe, Aspheric, -MightyW-, Pepikos, ducr, lumin_s, smoothjelly, jcraig314, Schaden90
Neutral [4]: Siveure, Ranior, Acerbic, colorfulpockets


(and just to say: by "genuine" I only meant "people who actually play Agricola online". As opposed to people's alt accounts, for example. Not that I have evidence of such nefarious tactics, I just wanted to be able to head it off if a bunch of suspicious posters started pushing in one direction or another!)

[Rustycrab]

I am in favor of unban. Yes it is strong, but not broken. That fact that it does not disturb fg makes it not annoying for me. And it is fun to give different play options.

[alexwjb]

I am in favor of unban. Yes it is strong, but not broken. That fact that it does not disturb fg makes it not annoying for me. And it is fun to give different play options.

Thanks. These are my reasons for supporting unban as well. I'd add one other thing. Someone anonymous made statistics in March 2024. (This was before Guest Room was banned in July 2024). See here: https://pastebin.com/VxFtkhWF. The data is anonymous so can't be verified, but it certainly looks sensible and in line with official data we've kindly got from Lumin. Unfortunately Guest Room was not live in a period which Lumin data covers.

In non-AAS games, Guest Room was very strong, but by no means the strongest minor improvement. For example, it had lower PWR in those stats than Slurry, Writing Boards, Apiary, Baseboard, Carpenters Parlor, Mud Patch - all great cards but no one is suggesting banning them. So there is already some statistical evidence to support your statement that it is "strong, but not broken". (It's also obvious that Guest Room should be far weaker in AAS games since it is easier to get growth actions, and indeed that is the case.)


Updated tally:

Keep banned [7]: torvaldur, justyellow, Lasertrip, xaxaQ, alsozatch, haydeezz, cs2376jr
Unban [14]: alexwjb, cranesflyhigh (not strongly), silverriver, lezurichois (not strongly), Swathe, Aspheric, -MightyW-, Pepikos, ducr, lumin_s, smoothjelly, jcraig314, Schaden90, Rustycrab
Neutral [4]: Siveure, Ranior, Acerbic, colorfulpockets

[Ranior]

I remain pretty neutral. I don't have strong feelings either way.

I agree the one stats we had on it made it look strong but not overpowered, but I'm also worried that it's a card that takes some getting used to how to exploit it, and I'd be concerned that it would start showing up stronger as players improved with it (and would be worried that it already would show up quite strong in high level tables).

Regardless it is quite a lot of fun. If players want to bring it back and give it a go.....I can see the argument.

[grnt]

I’m not an arena player and mostly play async with friends/casual players so not sure I qualify as a “genuine” player, but I’d also like to see Guest Room unbanned. I think it’s a fun and healthy card to have in the pool despite being strong, and it’d admittedly be a pleasant state of affairs to have no bans from the E deck.

I think guest room needs a functionality change to not let you play the 3rd person the round you play it if it were to be unbanned, with that it's far too easy to dump food into the card in round 4 effectively setting you up to control the pace of the game from that point onward.

[alexwjb]

I’m not an arena player and mostly play async with friends/casual players so not sure I qualify as a “genuine” player, but I’d also like to see Guest Room unbanned. I think it’s a fun and healthy card to have in the pool despite being strong, and it’d admittedly be a pleasant state of affairs to have no bans from the E deck.

I think guest room needs a functionality change to not let you play the 3rd person the round you play it if it were to be unbanned, with that it's far too easy to dump food into the card in round 4 effectively setting you up to control the pace of the game from that point onward.

We can't change how cards work here, we just implement the physical game. (Interestingly, the original card on play-agricola worked in exactly that way. For some unknown reason it got buffed before being published.)

Shall I add you to the "keep banned" pile?