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A player who appears to be uninterested in the growth queue can suddenly start and then play Lodger, which the other players may not have seen. This can mean a player who was expecting to grow first can be sent to the back of the queue without warning, which can destroy their game depending on their strategy. Other players can arbitrarily benefit.

I don’t find this “gotcha” effect fun or interesting. Compare, for example, Recreational Carpenter - a very strong card, but you can’t take start player in the same round you build a room. A massive difference. (Recreational Carpenter is significantly stronger than Lodger but also significantly less annoying to play against).

After we banned some unplayable cards, i would like a unban on some of the stronger occs and minors. The games i see are not terrorized by one strong card anymore.

i suggest unbanning the following cards next season:
- Guest room (enables 2 room combo's more)
- pulverizing plow (i really liked it enabled some clay combo's)
- Informant

Personally i would like carp hammer back because of the crazy potential .

For the sake of growing the game via twitch highlights i would like to keep lodger around but in general i am in favor of a ban

alexwjb wrote: ↑31 August 2025, 17:35 A player who appears to be uninterested in the growth queue can suddenly start and then play Lodger, which the other players may not have seen. This can mean a player who was expecting to grow first can be sent to the back of the queue without warning, which can destroy their game depending on their strategy. Other players can arbitrarily benefit.

I don’t find this “gotcha” effect fun or interesting. Compare, for example, Recreational Carpenter - a very strong card, but you can’t take start player in the same round you build a room. A massive difference. (Recreational Carpenter is significantly stronger than Lodger but also significantly less annoying to play against).

But there are other ways this could happen too. For example Wooden Shed is similar. And if the growth queue is room constrained, there are multiple ways of doing it by playing occs and cards that gives you resources, allowing you to jump the queue.

As you say, Lodger isn't that strong of a card so not seeing it in the draft is very rare. Sure, weaker players might pick this early and surprise you, but the very same players will also do other unpredictable moves that messes up your plans. In my opinion, it's a part of the game. My vote is No on banning Lodger.

And as someone stated before, it adds this fun mini game trying to block the Lodger from building in time.

Thanks for making the post hot again!

Cards that i like to see banned:

Lodger (mainly when played by low elo players)
Hardware Store -> game wrapping in DL combos i think DL combos are still playable with it banned
Brewery pont (really want to see the current starts of this card)

Cards i like to see unbanned:
Guest room

In in favor of keeping the rest of the banlist the same!

I think in the current meta is favoring big house stratagy's so i think unbanning cards that are in favor of big house is a mistake

I have a similar view to Just Yellow. I think overall the ban lists are both in a good place. I'm surprised people want to see the return of guest room. I think the card is absurd and can't imagine any scenario where I would not first pick and use it. I would also strongly dislike having pulveriser plow back in the card pool.

I do think lodger may have some interesting use cases. For example, I have wondered whether it could work in a combo with Autumn Mother to get a growth in round 4. That said, the majority of times it seems to make the table is when a low ELO player overestimates its value. And it often has a game warping effect. So I wouldn't be too upset to see it go.

torvaldur_makan wrote: ↑18 June 2025, 20:15

cranesflyhigh wrote: ↑17 June 2025, 14:34

DavidJG wrote: ↑13 June 2025, 23:33 Job Contract seems too powerful and IMO should be banned.

Job Contract C023
If both are unoccupied, you can use the "Day Laborer" and the adjacent "Lessons" action space with a single person (in that order).
Afterward, both spaces are considered occupied.

This not only gives the player an extra lessons action every time, but also blocks it from all other players.

Other actions that give a player an extra action every time can also be very powerful even when they do not block the other players.

Without daylabor combo, it basically has the effect of Patron that only works on a single space, but also on the first proc. It is a very good card for sure, as rushing out occs is potent, especially early game where you do not need an extra feeding action to keep the occ spam going, and the combo potential makes it great. It is nowhere near the power level of other cards on the banlist though - it is in most cases better than Patron, but Patron is only a mediocre occupation to begin with.

Yeah, I'm not following. It comes with some drawbacks, like you still have to use DL before anyone uses the Lessons action space in a round. The strength (if there is one, I'm not really a fan of DL combos) of DL combos is that you can use it with your last person in a round because no one wants the action space.

Job Contract is occasionally strong, but never ban-worthy strong in my opinion.

There really needs to be a separate 2-player banlist. Job Contract is so completely broken in 2-player games, it just ruins them. Taking 3 actions from turn 2 on is way too strong, you don't even need any combos. Patron is a 4+ player count card, having this ability in a 2-player games takes all skill out of the game. In 2-player you often play out your enitre hand of Occs so it's just 14 free food tht comes early.

PLEASE, we need a separate 2-player ban list. Many people enjoy playing 2-player games for the speed, it's fast to be able to finish a like game in 30-40 minutes where there is very little downtime. This card has made so many games over on turn 1.

EuroGamez wrote: ↑17 December 2025, 09:15

torvaldur_makan wrote: ↑18 June 2025, 20:15

cranesflyhigh wrote: ↑17 June 2025, 14:34

Without daylabor combo, it basically has the effect of Patron that only works on a single space, but also on the first proc. It is a very good card for sure, as rushing out occs is potent, especially early game where you do not need an extra feeding action to keep the occ spam going, and the combo potential makes it great. It is nowhere near the power level of other cards on the banlist though - it is in most cases better than Patron, but Patron is only a mediocre occupation to begin with.

Yeah, I'm not following. It comes with some drawbacks, like you still have to use DL before anyone uses the Lessons action space in a round. The strength (if there is one, I'm not really a fan of DL combos) of DL combos is that you can use it with your last person in a round because no one wants the action space.

Job Contract is occasionally strong, but never ban-worthy strong in my opinion.

There really needs to be a separate 2-player banlist. Job Contract is so completely broken in 2-player games, it just ruins them. Taking 3 actions from turn 2 on is way too strong, you don't even need any combos. Patron is a 4+ player count card, having this ability in a 2-player games takes all skill out of the game. In 2-player you often play out your enitre hand of Occs so it's just 14 free food tht comes early.

PLEASE, we need a separate 2-player ban list. Many people enjoy playing 2-player games for the speed, it's fast to be able to finish a like game in 30-40 minutes where there is very little downtime. This card has made so many games over on turn 1.

I agree that Job Contract should be on the too strong banned list for 2 player games.
Are there statistics on how often the player of Job Contract wins in a 2 player game, and how that compares to other cards?

DavidJG wrote: ↑06 January 2026, 02:53 Are there statistics on how often the player of Job Contract wins in a 2 player game, and how that compares to other cards?

Yes: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44912

Job Contract is the #1 unbanned 2-player card.

Is there a place to get a list of the currently banned card, a pinned post would be great. Very hard to find any list as a non-premium member.

alexwjb wrote: ↑06 January 2026, 08:50

DavidJG wrote: ↑06 January 2026, 02:53 Are there statistics on how often the player of Job Contract wins in a 2 player game, and how that compares to other cards?

Yes: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44912

Job Contract is the #1 unbanned 2-player card.

There are a bunch of us that only really play 2 player games, so would be great to get a dedicated banne dlist with cards like Job Contract and Nightworker. As there completely ruin the game before it's even started.