EconSean wrote: ↑03 September 2022, 15:34 Work Certificate-This card, if it comes out early enough in the game, warps the game in such a negative way, regardless of how powerful it is. It messes up all of the resource piles and gets the person playing it way too much at a direct cost to other players. There is very little counterplay to this card. Even if it's not too powerful, this should absolutely be removed to improve the play experience for everyone.
I had a game with Work Certificate and Hand Cart both in game, without any problems. Just grab other injection cards and that player won't get a huge benefit off of it nor will other players starve on resources.
Trade Teacher-This really does too much for an occupation benefit card, and is simply too flexible. The fact that it triggers off of itself, which basically
no other occ with a similar effect does, is ridiculous. Being able to utilize this as a food engine, an animal engine, and/or a crop engine is simply too powerful. My experience says that this should be banned for power level reasons.
First, every occ triggering after Lessons triggers itself, so does e.g. Animal Teacher, which has a similar effect!
Yes, Trade teacher is very strong, but you need a hearth or oven+bake to get a good food engine, or you need a good amount of food to get all those goods. You often also have only 3-4 useful occs, so you just use a not free action space to pay for 2 goods.
I don't rate it higher than e.g. Lord of the Manor or Cow Prince.
As for other cards, I'm not convinced that wood injection cards that are currently unbanned are too strong/game warping. One problem with cross cut wood is that it typically gave one person a large benefit that would be difficult for other players to get. There is the occasional game where this can happen with the newer cards (many occs, big room strategies), but it's far more rare, and basically any person who these cards are passed to can get some kind of benefit out of them (much like mini pasture), which is untrue of cross-cut wood. I don't have a great grasp on how much resource injection there is, but some games I feel like there are infinitely many resources/food, and other games I feel that there is a clamp on everything, and I'm very unsure where a good balanced lies on that. I don't really mind at all when they get played, and don't see a huge problem with them, but I'm open to my mind being changed.
If you have Roof Ballaster plus Cross-Cut Wood, you got lucky and can get out of nowhere a good amount of wood. The strongest part is the surprise moment to use an action space while others think you can't.
All those resource passing minors I don't mind in terms of balance, they just randomly inject lots of stuff making the game chaotic and less appealing to me.
Banlist Discussion!
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- Moorland Holms
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 10 July 2022, 01:26
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Last edited by Moorland Holms on 26 September 2022, 21:25, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Very confused by some of this analysis. You cannot just guarantee that enough resource injecting cards will be present in the draft, and they are all very high picks anyways. In higher ELO games, wood and clay spaces can be very tight and tends to be policed heavily, and so having a card that effectively prevents 4 clay or 4 wood spaces from existing destroys all other player's ability to get wood/clay grabs and gives the person with the work certificate a big advantage. I also don't understand what hand cart has to do with this, since that injects food/grain.Firnefex wrote: ↑03 September 2022, 16:32EconSean wrote: ↑03 September 2022, 15:34 Work Certificate-This card, if it comes out early enough in the game, warps the game in such a negative way, regardless of how powerful it is. It messes up all of the resource piles and gets the person playing it way too much at a direct cost to other players. There is very little counterplay to this card. Even if it's not too powerful, this should absolutely be removed to improve the play experience for everyone.
I had a game with Work Certificate and Hand Cart both in game, without any problems. Just grab other injection cards and that player won't get a huge benefit off of it nor will other players starve on resources.
Trade Teacher-This really does too much for an occupation benefit card, and is simply too flexible. The fact that it triggers off of itself, which basically
no other occ with a similar effect does, is ridiculous. Being able to utilize this as a food engine, an animal engine, and/or a crop engine is simply too powerful. My experience says that this should be banned for power level reasons.
First, every occ triggering on Lessons triggers itself, so does e.g. Animal Teacher, which has a similar effect!
Yes, Trade teacher is very strong, but you need a hearth or oven+bake to get a good food engine, or you need a good amount of food to get all those goods. You often also have only 3-4 useful occs, so you just use a not free action space to pay for 2 goods.
I don't rate it higher than e.g. Lord of the Manor or Cow Prince.
As for other cards, I'm not convinced that wood injection cards that are currently unbanned are too strong/game warping. One problem with cross cut wood is that it typically gave one person a large benefit that would be difficult for other players to get. There is the occasional game where this can happen with the newer cards (many occs, big room strategies), but it's far more rare, and basically any person who these cards are passed to can get some kind of benefit out of them (much like mini pasture), which is untrue of cross-cut wood. I don't have a great grasp on how much resource injection there is, but some games I feel like there are infinitely many resources/food, and other games I feel that there is a clamp on everything, and I'm very unsure where a good balanced lies on that. I don't really mind at all when they get played, and don't see a huge problem with them, but I'm open to my mind being changed.
If you have Roof Ballaster plus Cross-Cut Wood, you got lucky and can get out of nowhere a good amount of wood. The strongest part is the surprise moment to use an action space while others think you can't.
All those resource passing minors I don't mind in terms of balance, they just randomly inject lots of stuff making the game chaotic and less appealing to me.
In general, cooking hearths and ovens are generally solid ways of feeding. Trade teacher isn't just good because it's a food engine: It also gets you access to solid farming at the same time. Having a card that just enables baking or just enables animals is fine, but being able to both set up crops and breeding pairs while setting up feeding is simply very strong. On their own, I think it's strength is similar to collector, but the upside on trade teacher is way too high since it does not cost beggars/has some pretty ridiculous occupation/card combos that enable it to be too frequently overpowered.
- Moorland Holms
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 10 July 2022, 01:26
Re: Banlist Discussion!
It is very group specific, but most pro streamers underrate clay and let it stack up a ton. I guess I have only looked at it from 4+ player perspective, where at 2 players clay is really scarce. But if there is not a single injection card, players normally should grab all stacks of 2-3, so it procs only a few times per game, mostly for reed later.EconSean wrote: ↑03 September 2022, 23:26 You cannot just guarantee that enough resource injecting cards will be present in the draft, and they are all very high picks anyways. In higher ELO games, wood and clay spaces can be very tight and tends to be policed heavily, and so having a card that effectively prevents 4 clay or 4 wood spaces from existing destroys all other player's ability to get wood/clay grabs and gives the person with the work certificate a big advantage. I also don't understand what hand cart has to do with this, since that injects food/grain.
In general, cooking hearths and ovens are generally solid ways of feeding. Trade teacher isn't just good because it's a food engine: It also gets you access to solid farming at the same time. Having a card that just enables baking or just enables animals is fine, but being able to both set up crops and breeding pairs while setting up feeding is simply very strong. On their own, I think it's strength is similar to collector, but the upside on trade teacher is way too high since it does not cost beggars/has some pretty ridiculous occupation/card combos that enable it to be too frequently overpowered.
With Handcart you can also take a building resource each work phase with 6/5/4/4 on w/c/r/s.
Trade Teacher is super strong and definitely a first pick card because of its adaptability. But I haven't seen player's with Trade Teacher win every game, especially not if there were other strong cards available. So I stand by my opinion not to ban it.
If cards get banned just because majority of people cry (often without even trying to behave differently ingame), I hope after banning all S tier cards A tier won't become the new S and also unbalanced and banworthy for many players...
Re: Banlist Discussion!
if I recall correctly whenever I got both trade teacher and an hearth the game becomes trivially easy. A card can't be a (very efficient) food engine, a way to get breeding pairs and your grain/veg source at the same time and be balanced. As it stands I would pick it above begging student. I understand and agree with being careful about banning too much cards on a whim but if we're to ban any card that one is almost certainly the top one imo.
I also strongly disagree with your clay analysis, in my experience the most common new player mistake is indeed to overvalue clay past the early game. There's a reason nobody is first picking clay hut builder. Even if the other players jump on clay stacks whenever it build to 2-3, they will eventually hit the point where clay does nothing else for them and you'll get your reno clay in the later rounds. If the clay pressure stays all game long just stay in wood and collect your easy Elo since you've been doing efficient actions (wood, plow, animals) while your opponents fought for inefficient clay actions.
I also strongly disagree with your clay analysis, in my experience the most common new player mistake is indeed to overvalue clay past the early game. There's a reason nobody is first picking clay hut builder. Even if the other players jump on clay stacks whenever it build to 2-3, they will eventually hit the point where clay does nothing else for them and you'll get your reno clay in the later rounds. If the clay pressure stays all game long just stay in wood and collect your easy Elo since you've been doing efficient actions (wood, plow, animals) while your opponents fought for inefficient clay actions.
- Moorland Holms
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 10 July 2022, 01:26
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Sure, but often there is no clay pressure, so I don't know why it then would be better to fight for 2-3 wood than to just grab 4-5 clay after the first 5 wood if you want to grow asap.
It's funny to see that happen while everyone is trying to build 2-3 wooden rooms, 15 fences and some improvements, especially when Reno flips in round 5.
It's funny to see that happen while everyone is trying to build 2-3 wooden rooms, 15 fences and some improvements, especially when Reno flips in round 5.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Ah I think I got handcart confused with handtruck. My fault.
Wait are you saying that Work Certificate only procs a few times a game? Here are a couple of examples where it provides a completely egregious amount of resources:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=294540989 Game where work certificate gives 20 clay and 3 wood
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=296804561 Game where work certificate gives something like 16 clay, 4 wood and a reed
Even in this game I played recently where the work cert player didn't have a great game, it gave something like 11 clay 1 wood: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=296827574
Even in bad games, when played around stage 4 it just gives too many resources for a minor improvement.
For a card to be bannable, it does not have to win every game, and that being the threshold for whether a card is banworthy or not would be absurd since even a card like Braggart or Caravan does not win every game, but clearly heavily advantages players who wield those cards. Just as a note, the banned list is purely optional, and is meant for players who wish to play agricola in a more competitive setting where imbalanced and unfair/annoying cards are removed. It is always an option to play without a banned list. I think that the community has almost universally rallied behind Lumin's criteria for what constitutes a banworth card, which is the first post in this forum thread, and in my opinion the rest of the banlist adheres to these guidelines.
There's 0 historical precident for saying this:
Wait are you saying that Work Certificate only procs a few times a game? Here are a couple of examples where it provides a completely egregious amount of resources:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=294540989 Game where work certificate gives 20 clay and 3 wood
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=296804561 Game where work certificate gives something like 16 clay, 4 wood and a reed
Even in this game I played recently where the work cert player didn't have a great game, it gave something like 11 clay 1 wood: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=296827574
Even in bad games, when played around stage 4 it just gives too many resources for a minor improvement.
For a card to be bannable, it does not have to win every game, and that being the threshold for whether a card is banworthy or not would be absurd since even a card like Braggart or Caravan does not win every game, but clearly heavily advantages players who wield those cards. Just as a note, the banned list is purely optional, and is meant for players who wish to play agricola in a more competitive setting where imbalanced and unfair/annoying cards are removed. It is always an option to play without a banned list. I think that the community has almost universally rallied behind Lumin's criteria for what constitutes a banworth card, which is the first post in this forum thread, and in my opinion the rest of the banlist adheres to these guidelines.
There's 0 historical precident for saying this:
There have been a few sets of bans on BGA thus far, and in my opinion all of them have removed cards that clearly fit the description of the banned list. After the last set of bannings when CD cards were introduced, there were 0 people who wanted to ban any further cards until this new set released, and nobody in these new discussions has proposed banning powerful cards that remain unbanned, so this kind of "slippery slope" argument is very clearly a non issue.
Re: Banlist Discussion!
My own feeling from a game I played was that work certificate did only proc a few times. That was still a very strong amount of value for a minor improvement, plus the reason it only procced a few times was that every other player was very aggressively taking every 4c and 4w stack. Forcing your opponents to do this with a minor that still gives you maybe 5 wood/clay over the course of the game seems too much to me, and worthy of banning.
- Moorland Holms
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 10 July 2022, 01:26
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Besides clay there was obtained 3 wood, 4 wood + 1 reed, 1 wood respectively.EconSean wrote: ↑06 September 2022, 21:50 https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=294540989 Game where work certificate gives 20 clay and 3 wood
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=296804561 Game where work certificate gives something like 16 clay, 4 wood and a reed
Even in this game I played recently where the work cert player didn't have a great game, it gave something like 11 clay 1 wood: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=296827574
I've already addressed the clay issue and the rest is not that superior. It is still a great card though.
I guess if there is often a Little Peasant in the game, that helps Work Certificate getting out of control (less persons to clear the board).
Re: Banlist Discussion!
In general, I am against cards being banned, especially before they have been fully road-tested in an arena season.
Ideally the decision would be made based on data which shows their strength when compensating for ELO and other factors.
However, that being said, the only card I am in favour of banning without additional data before the start of the next arena season is Trade Teacher.
The card is bonkers powerful. Here is an example of Crystal Maiden getting a whopping 71 with it.
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=299877096
I’ve been in the 60s with it several times as have many others.
I am not a fan of bans for game warping or annoyance, but can appreciate and understand the frustration that others feel. The concept of game warping is less objective than power and runs the risk of taking cards away before the community have had the chance to enjoy them.
Ideally the decision would be made based on data which shows their strength when compensating for ELO and other factors.
However, that being said, the only card I am in favour of banning without additional data before the start of the next arena season is Trade Teacher.
The card is bonkers powerful. Here is an example of Crystal Maiden getting a whopping 71 with it.
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=299877096
I’ve been in the 60s with it several times as have many others.
I am not a fan of bans for game warping or annoyance, but can appreciate and understand the frustration that others feel. The concept of game warping is less objective than power and runs the risk of taking cards away before the community have had the chance to enjoy them.
- Yuxiao_Huang
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 04 November 2020, 16:10
Re: Banlist Discussion!
Lol I got 64 in that game, but crystal maiden was much more better! I didn't expected to win after I saw his Trade Teacher.Aspheric wrote: ↑14 September 2022, 22:25 In general, I am against cards being banned, especially before they have been fully road-tested in an arena season.
Ideally the decision would be made based on data which shows their strength when compensating for ELO and other factors.
However, that being said, the only card I am in favour of banning without additional data before the start of the next arena season is Trade Teacher.
The card is bonkers powerful. Here is an example of Crystal Maiden getting a whopping 71 with it.
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=299877096
I’ve been in the 60s with it several times as have many others.
I am not a fan of bans for game warping or annoyance, but can appreciate and understand the frustration that others feel. The concept of game warping is less objective than power and runs the risk of taking cards away before the community have had the chance to enjoy them.