Banlist Discussion!

[QBert]

I too agree with banning begging student and big country but not any other cards. My reasoning is simple. These are the only two cards in a draft that I will always auto-pick without considering the other cards in the pack. Everything else requires at least some consideration of other cards in your pack or your seating position.

Begging student has so much support in the form of cards that reward playing occs that even if your hand of occs is bad it is still a very strong card to play and should never be passed.

Big country automatically scores high 40s/low 50s if played on two rooms, is very hard to disrupt by other players without them ruining their own games and creates a very boring parallel play experience where you do not interact with the other players since you don't want the same things. I can see it is a great, fun card for newer players to boost a farming strategy, and playing it for the first few times while you puzzle out optimal ordering of your very limited actions can be fun. But it is not a balanced nor fun card for competitive play, and thus it should be banned in arena.

[Direful]

I don't think any other cards should be up for ban consideration asides from Begging Student and Big Country.

Big Country - Not particularly fun to play against and most skilled players can guarantee a 1st/2nd place just by getting this card. Locking in a top 2 position from a single card is too strong and makes drafting much more luck based on who gets Big Country.

Begging Student - Very strong (too strong) when combined with Lantern House. Even without Lantern House, Begging Student saves too many actions and too much food cost for the cost of only one beggar.

[Aspheric]

I am happy to join the chorus for Big Country banning as it would be good to play the next arena season without it. The card does warp the game and closes down the decision space versus a normal game.

I personally would wait on Begging Student for another season. I have won with it, I have lost with it, and there is some mitigation with constable.

Nothing else is close to bannable for me.

[magicjavelin]

Another one for banning Big Country + Begging Student.

[tophmightydragon]

I'm fine with the idea of a big country ban due to the fact that roughly in about 1/3rd of the games and roughly %9 of games ends up being big country small -scale farmer games. Big country by itself leads to a way too efficient game and even doubly so with small scale farmer that isn't fun for the rest of the table. Big country in 7 or 8 is 7/6 points and 14/12 food. Its probably close to being the equivalent 4 food 3 food actions actions and 3 2-point actions. Most revised agricola cards do not tends to not provide this level of value in return.
Begging student is also okay to be banned due to it tends to give 5 or 6 free actions during the game which if each of the occs is roughly net 2 points per occ,you would still be up 9 points.

[watershipdown]

Another vote for both Big Country and Begging Student being banned. I personally have not played many games with Big Country given my skill level but have watched plenty of streams with it being played and it just seems to kill all enjoyment of the match. I have played with Begging student and compared to a similar type of card Puppeteer, it generally activates twice as many occs in a game at a cost of only 3 points. While Puppeteer is considered a pretty good card, it usually at most gives you three occs and it still has a downside of costing a food each.

[silentcj]

+1 for Big Country and Begging Student for the same reasons as everybody else.

Though I will be sad to see Begging Student go as i feel like i've barely been dealt it!

Carpenter's Parlour is the only other card close in my opinion (but it's not that close!). I think Tiller can stay unless the remainder of C are the next cards to be released, as there are a ton of good combo cards in there relative to the other decks.

[shmog0292]

Also in favor of banning Begging Student + Big Country. Far from an expert player, but having watched numerous games this season in Lumin’s, Ranior’s, and EconSean’s streams they just seem far too strong. Begging Student provides too much flexibility with free actions while Big Country is game warping and combos can be easy to find in the 2nd/3rd/4th pack (Small Scale, Sleeping Corner, etc).

I’m 50/50 on Tiller but I don’t think it’s overpowered in this set…something to keep in mind if BC gets banned is earlier plows will be available in most games and could hurt this card a bit. Open to keeping this one off the ban list for now.

[hillbre]

I am in favor of banning Big Country and Begging Student. I think these cards add too much advantage and win too high of a percentage of the time given all other things equal.

[SabinL]

I'll add my voice to the mix. I do think that since arena is a competitive scence, Begging student and Big Country should not be part of the deck for the next season.

I think the best argument for me is that they make you qualitatively draft differently then other cards. I actually enjoy that both these cards make you learn things from the game that can take a long time to get a feel for: having occs for all stages of the game, seeing where the actual points are on the board.

But they really are the only two cards where you draft exclusively around them once you have them, and that completely change the evaluation of the occs and minors that are circulating. For me, this warping effect is a bit too much with these two cards and consequently they should be banned for the next season.