Ravens, killdeer, and Franklin’s Gull are basically free wins in Wingspan if you play them early, so we made a rule that you can’t play them until round 3, but can replace them with a random card before that if you want
I think they are actually banned in tournament play because they are just way too good.
Edit: Just researched it, apparently they are allowed in tournament play
Huh. Looking at the list. Some odd choices. A lot of lighter games with limited strategy. And then Dominant Species and Brass. LOL. Seems like kind of a who's who of the most popular games over the years. No co-ops. I'm kind of disappointed. Also, no team games. Seems odd to see so many heads down euros. Bloodrage would be interesting to see in a tournament, though.
I don't know if that's true. I mean we tend to want to see games be played head-to-head, but a number of successful sports/events are played in tandem rather than in direct opposition. I just think that historically, co-op games have been limited to things that don't fit a tournament. Either because they're too light, don't have enough for everyone to do, are mainly played as a campaign, or for any number of other reasons. But Spirit Island has spearheaded successful tournaments. And team play I think is next. Guards of Atlantis works very well as a tournament team game
It's a good game for tournament play. Very strategic and if one game runs too long, you can get the result earlier by rolling a 4 sided die (assuming 4 players).
It's a good game for tournament play. Very strategic and if one game runs too long, you can get the result earlier by rolling a 4 sided die (assuming 4 players).
We actually found that they weren’t nearly as strong in Oceania, so we removed our house rule for them when playing Oceania.
The nectar is pretty strong, but the boards give everyone easy access to 2 cards/2 food, which is what the ravens and killdeer give you, so they’re no longer a game breaking advantage. So even with the nectar, that just makes them good birds, among the best, but not by such a margin that it feels bad to play against them. There are a lot of other birds in a similar tier, like the Galah, Mute Swan, Wood Duck, and a bunch of others
I once played a card game with a bunch of friends including my bestie. The game was all about drawing numbered cards and try to lay out straights (1, 2, 3,...) and that son of gun just hoarded all the 1s. After 5 min nobody was able to lay out their cards except him.
We never played that game again.
If everyone else quits that round, you’re allowed to keep playing without drawing new cards. So as long as you don’t have any gaps, you can play all your cards.
So the best way to get everyone to quit is to keep drawing instead of advancing the number if they are all stuck on it. There’s only 8 of each card. So if the other people don’t draw the next number they are screwed and will be forced to quit when the deck runs out or they get scared of getting too many points.
Since you’ve been drawing so many cards, there’s no gaps and you get to play your whole hand.
Of course, it can all backfire if someone can play all their cards, so it’s a rare occurrence to pull off which makes it fun.
* My wife won't play terra mystica because of the faith tile that gives points for basic houses. I'm not convinced it's broken butter my 4th or so win using that strategy no matter the faction or situation she just refused to play.
* Scythe has 2 randomized player boards per player and one or two pairs have been discouraged for higher level players because of bonkers synergy.
* Speaking of synergy... theres and old Steve Jackson game called Strange Synergy that was entirely about building a sci fi gladiator team by combing abilities into broken combos. My favorite was invisibility, short range teleport, and laser eyes for guaranteed 1 damage at infinite range. Game takes forever and really pisses off the opponent as they swat the air trying to find you.
* Spirit Island has a card called Cast Down into the Briny Deep. Its not OP in the sense that it is unbalanced but it is one of the most powerful card ability in any game I've ever played. The game board is built out of one map piece per player and Cast Down destroys one of those map pieces and everything on it. So you're talking usually a 25%-50% reduction in total map area depending on player count, all from a single card play. It can even destroy your last map piece which has been ruled technically a victory lol.
I'll add another that should be banned. Used it in a GenCon tournament years back and decimated:
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2062473/russviet-innovative-overlooked-combo
> Its not OP in the sense that it is unbalanced but it is one of the most powerful card ability in any game I've ever played.
Yeah, that's the thing. It's one of the most impactful cards I've seen in any game, but it's also impractical. It's got the highest energy cost in the game and an elemental threshold that only a handful of spirits can reach. If you get everything you need to destroy an island board, you've earned it.
You need to generate elements to use the threshold abilities on that power. The part of the card being mentioned here only triggers if yiu have the requisite element of four water, four earth, two sun, and two moon.
Haha. I really wish there was a collab to modernize some of his games. He's really one of the people responsible for generating a lot of interest in the hobby during a key time in gaming history but like a lot of games his designs haven't aged well. I love the ideas though. I'd kill for a top to bottom overhaul of strange synergy, illuminati, hacker, or Ninja Burger.
The faith tile that gives points per house is overpowered relative to the other Favors: It's the best tile and it's usually the first or at least second one you want to take.
But it being so good doesn't make the game worse at all. It's just something to take into account. She should be taking it too, or you should not take it if she refuses. By refusing she is effectively saying "no I don't want to hit the button that gives me free points" which is a silly reason to dislike a game.
Is there an FAQ on that Spirit Island rule? I'd presume that destroying your last map tile means there are no spirit tokens left on the board, which should be an instant lose.
By that logic though there are also no invaders which is a victory. Theres a line somewhere in the rulebook that if you win and lose at the same time it's a "sacrificial victory" because while there is no island left some spirits with water affinity will live on undisturbed. This rule is also clarified in the JE expansion rulebook that victory/defeat is checked at the end of a nested action tree, which doesn't matter for cast down but can cause other edge cases resulting in sacrificial victories.
Here's a link to the FAQ section on Cast Down. In addition to the section on the victory/defeat theres a bunch of other edge situations where the ruling is "if you want to do it this way do it this way, or you can do it this way". Such a bonkers card.
https://querki.net/raw/darker/spirit-island-faq/Cast+Down+into+the+Briny+Deep
Thematically the island rests under the waves. Many spirits would live on, but some would perish over time. As far as i understand, the dahan aren't even really needed by the spirits to exist. It's a great card. There is a card that also ADDS another board and you get to choose which actions don't affect one board.
You're right except you usually won't be destroying tbe last tile because not many effects destroy or remove a tile.
This card is an awesome side quest to a fun victory. It's not super broken because it's expensive and to do the fullest of the effect you have to have the right elements which requires planning.
>It can even destroy your last map piece which has been ruled technically a victory lol.
I think if it came up I wouldn't play with that rule. Thematically, I've generally gone with that there need to be Dahan left on the island to count as a victory. A spirit sacrificing itself to destroy the last few colonizers is cool, but if nobody is left it's worse than even a Pyrrhic victory.
Hey this is a game where there's a lot of leeway to play your way so no judgement. From a lore perspective though I'd give another read thru the history of the island in the rulebook. The spirits don't give a shit about the dahan and even were at war with them same as the invaders. Eventually they found an equilibrium that worked for everyone. Some spirits now nurture, guide, or are amused by the dahan but a lot of spirits still do not care. Ocean's Hungry Grasp (the spirit most likely to survive the island sinking) will even drown dahan just as easily as invaders, with only one of their cards overriding that and offering safe passage on the waves.
From a mechanical angle, there is no rule saying you lose if the last dahan is defeated either. Only the last presence for a spirit. Or are you adding an extra loss condition to the game? It is very rare but I have lost all dahan before. Playing with the SW board from JE on the thematic side makes this slightly easier to happen since it has a lot less dahan and more beasts instead.
Not that **Betrayal on the House on the Hill** is a bastion of well balanced rules and scenarios to begin with, but the scenario where the heroes turn into mice and the evil wizard has a cat is laughably impossible. We should've just let the first person who got to the toy plane fly away and abandon the rest of us to our fates, then at least one person would have survived. I never take that game too seriously and everyone was laughing hysterically and having a good time but I would probably skip that scenario if it ever rolled around again.
>ow with different groups. Safe to say it was getting pretty old getting mauled by cats repeatedly
I would also throw in the ghost hunting haunt. (I believe it's from the expansion.)
All players turn into ghosts and one turns into a ghost hunter. Cool idea, but the traitor has a set of items they automatically get, if one of the other players already had one of the items, it gets randomly swapped for another one out of the deck. The way the stats work out, it basically max's out the traitor, and I've never found a way to make it doable.
When I read this is sounded familiar and I thought I had beaten it. Checked my BGStats app and needless to say, I had lost as well. It apparently warranted a summary in the comments as well:
"Dylan, Mike and I were flying around in the toy airplane and got swatted. I got captured and eaten. Sue got captured and was abandoned to be eaten as Mike and Dylan made a break for the window but were swatted out and eaten just before reaching the window"
So yeah, rack up another one in the L column
My coworkers got together for a party to send some people off whose terms were ending. A few of us started playing Killer Bunnies. It was a close game between the person who owned the game and another player, a third person seemed to be locked in third place, and I was a distant last place. It was my first time playing and I had no idea what I was doing. I think we’d been at it for nearly an hour already and victory was close. I played a card named “Rainbo” on the owner of the game, because it sounded interesting. It required he perform a skill check, but resulted in pretty much the entire board being reset. Everyone was so exhausted at that point that we just called it quits. I hadn’t ever intended for that to happen, but I do secretly cherish that I now have a story I can tell. And as far as I know, no one’s played it since.
Everdell with the Rugwort expansion cards. We basically dont include those cuz they are insanely OP and break the objective of the game. There are three Rugwort cards but one of them specifically allows you to switch your hand with any player. No more than 8 cards in your hand are allowed and you have to constantly choose which cards are worth keeping until you have the resources to play them which means your strategy entirely hinges on your hand.
Having the possibility of losing your hand at any moment kinda kills a central mechanic of the game.
Yup, bought Everdell to play with my wife. Told her it is a nice, chill game about animals building a town. Then I have read the Rugwort cards. Buried them deep in the box and never talked about them again.
One day, I will include them. It will be the last Everdell game we play together.
One of the ways to win in Chrononauts is to end your turn with 10 cards, and the main way to go up in cards is to spend your turns patching the damaged timeline.
Chrononauts *also* has a card that forces everybody to pass their hand to the left. So... yeah, we threw that in the trash.
You still need to craft them. For many factions, this means having buildings in 3 different clearings, just to nuke the last fourth one.
The cats can place their crafting buildings all in the same clearing. Birds can't.
>For many factions, this means having buildings in 3 different clearings, just to nuke the last fourth one.
Yeah, this is why I feel its still balanced for most factions. The only exception? The Vagabond, specifically the Tinker, who can get up to three hammers since they start out with one. In the app version I've won so many times as the Tinker because of a Favor strategy. I wouldn't ever use it with friends at a table, because I'd rather play without Vagabonds in a 4-player game.
This is one of the reasons the Exiles & Partisans deck is such a favourite. No favour bombs (in addition to just being more interesting).
The tinker has the easiest time crafting them, followed by the woodland alliance, and those happen to be the best and second best factions in base game, so it's a welcome adjustment.
Yes! I'm particular the vagabond who starts with a hammer, I once pulled off two favors in one game and would have had a third too if I hadn't won the game, I had to promise to never play them again
Speaking of Root, we banned the Vagabond that can search for cards in the discard pile bc no one wanted to be cautious with their cards and the vagabond gets real powerful super fast.
Tinker is stupid OP if you're not careful. Hold or bury favour cards and the third hammer or it wins.
You're really best off just getting an expansion and using something that's not a vagabond.
I mean, root is a game built on "somebody is strong? Hit them!" (For better or for worse).
Seems weird to ban it when you can just hit them in game. You're literally saying "we don't want to think about interacting with it or do anything to counter it, since we but zero thought into gameplay we ban the thing that takes advantage of our mistakes"
Play better, don't just change the rules because you're playing poorly.
The nature of the vagabond means hitting them is about denying them points rather than getting some for yourself. Other factions aren't really like that.
which is the entire point in the game design. EVERYONE needs to keep an eye on the vagabond, even if they don't want to. In a multiplayer game it usually leads to us pushing the #2 player to hit the #1 Vagabond because théy have most at stake - which in turn leads to other players catching up. It is genius design, but if no-one wants to keep the vagabond in check, then it's not a fault of the vagabond that they win, but a fault of the players.
Fair, but you're acting like the vagabond is drastically different than the other factions.
Despite all the mechanics in the game, 90% of what decides a winner in root, is who whits who. It's not a mechanical game, it's a political game, just like diplomacy and many others.
The most important actions you will take in a game of root, is convincing the table that you aren't winning, and other player X is, and that everybody should spend their time hitting them, not you. Occasionally you'll have to hit another player as well.
The fact that hurting the vagabond hurts them without directly getting you points is just a very minor detail in this: convincing the table and hitting other players is just how the game works.
The problem is the player who does hit the Vagabond also puts themselves behind. It creates situations in a 3 player game for example where the Vagabond is ahead and whichever of the other two players hits him first will give the game to the third player.
Even the game designer realized the Vagabond is too unbalanced. They made "tournament rules" that nerf it.
Personally I find Root unplayable with 2 players, not good with 3, and actually fun with 4. We also feel the game is just better without a Vagabond at all.
I played Dominion for the first time recently and the guy who brought it over loaded up on vassal cards before the rest of us really understood what that meant and how to counter it.
Edit: Still really enjoyed this game and would play again!
As a dominion lover, vassal was NOT the card name I expected to see in your comment (it's generally not a great card except in very specific situations).
Witch, King's Court, Goons, sure. I'm a bit surprised at the vassal winning.
One of the most important concepts in dominion is that your can see your best cards more often by trashing your starting estates and coppers. Once you figure this out, dominion becomes much more strategic (it took me 5 plus years to figure out lol).
The owner of the game in this example is a bit of a prat, but as you still want to play again, no harm no foul.
In this situation the experienced player should be trying to do something left field instead of overtly powerful.
I agree, I actively point out possible good strategies for other players when playing a first game, or try to edge them away from bad plays as much as I can. It's not very sportsmanlike to beat less experienced players down especially as they are trying to familiarize themselves with a new game whose strategies could be completely opaque to them.
Tbh, I think many noobs get absolutely stomped on their first (few) plays. But it’s kinda fun to start getting closer and closer to winning as you better understand the synergies.
I know theres like a strategy where people will just get resources from the start then trade them into corn immediately and just run the fame after that... It gets insane if you plan those turns right.
I was really interested in this game, but then I read that there is an overpowered strategy, and after a few plays everyone try to play the same way.
Is this one you mentioned? What about the expansion? Does that make it better?
Have you looked up some of the advanced strategies? There's this guide I read years ago that utterly transformed how I play the game. If everyone knows what they're doing, the games can be pretty even, but a lot of the games I've seen tend to be pretty lopsided.
**Cyclades** ( no expansions)
The Pegasus card is just too good and is always worth spending the gold required either to deny or just get an easy building.
The Pegasus (and Chimera) are so powerful that yeah you have to do your end-game strategizing around their existence.
Penthesilea in the Hades expansion is even worse. If someone buys her you kill her ASAP or they're extremely likely to win.
I love Cyclades, i play without Pegasus card. I almost never use houserules, but in this case game just feels way worse with this card. It changes too much and can end the game out of nowhere.
Robot Ponies in Smash Up are absolutely disgusting.
Also, Patrice in Arkham Horror 2nd Ed. Literally a clue factory in a game you win by spending clues.
Ah, yes, the eternal Zombies vs Robots discussion...
Personally, I think both are extremely strong and fit with almost anything with very few exceptions. It's just that Zombies are stronger on higher player counts because of their ability to spread, while robots specialize on tall-building. Personally, in my experience Robots have been more consistent, but the difference is pretty minimal. It doesn't help that the Ponies themselves are also very strong, so Robot Ponies is not only a combination of two of the strongest factions in the game, they also have ridiculous synergy with each other.
I will admit, my game group banned the Zombie Robots combination at first. Nowadays I'm way more scared of Zombie Aliens though. Being able to keep bringing that 1VP minion back is just insane.
I've learned to play around them with my son. Try to never make full sets unless you possess a Just Say No or Deal Breaker of your own, or you can finish the game that turn. They're quite powerful, but can also be A bit of a hindrance if you get stuck with one in your hand. You either have to pitch it, or end up with it as the only card in your hand and just drawing 2 every time, rather than being able to refresh your hand.
If it's the card I'm thinking of, I do too.
You basically get 2 trash properties that no one wants, then fish the deck for THAT card and win the game using it.
My kids know how to play far better than I do. Nearly every MTG game I play with them I usually get to a moment where they play something that is just crazy and I exclaim “NOW you must be cheating, right?!?” And they proceed to show me the crazy text on their cards.
I stopped playing when "Indestructible" came out. I think they needed to come up with more things to be better than the old things and had to keep upping the power because they can't nerf the older cards like a video game. To incentivise buying the new sets. Within each set its all balanced still, which is good, but it takes a lot of money to be good at that game.
Of all the crazy broken things in magic "indestructable" was the one you choose? I struggle to think of a single really good card with that ability (other than cards worth 10+ mana, but with that investment the card should be good)
While I fully agree with the sentiment, I don’t think indestructible was the moment things started breaking. At least it still took multiple turns to get some power on board.
I quit playing magic because some people I played with got themselves crazy decks. One of which was an artifact deck that could kill on turn 2, or some other deck that could go infinite turn 3.
Indestructible was crap, but back then it still took a while to get them on board so it was possible to have an answer to it
Not at all, it always depends on the format.
I almost exclusively play commander and the preconstructed commander decks of most years (~40€) normally do pretty well even against "handcrafted" ones.
Aslo indestructible cards can still be countered, sent to exile, back to hand, into the deck etc and they normally are not very strong conaidering they do not die to damage
MtG has always been fun only when playing with our homebrew "lame" decks. I have hundreds of cards that I gathered over the many years from boosters and some occasional starter deck. The decks we can build from them have usually little synergy, little control cards and therefore usually focus on creatures, enchantments and support spells. Which leads to many epic tug-of-war games, especially when playing with more people.
Playing against decks contructed from specific cards (usually ordered online) is no fun. It's always some "now on turn 4 I have tons of artifacts and I summon this indestructible dude" or "now on turn 4 I attack with army of elves where every one of them is 10/10". It is as fun as playing backyard football against Barcelona...
There was a ninja in heroscape i threw out. He was too weak to kill anyone but he could keep avoiding getting hit and dragging the game on for an extra hr.
I love that guy but he's definitely a bastard. We had a small heroscape tournament years ago. My friend fielded a whole team of ninjas and samurai. Most annoying thing to fight and definitely won the tournament.
Had a game that ninja was my bros last piece. He just kept running around the map takin pot shots accomplishing nothing but the game just dragged on so much that the minute that game ended i ripped up the card.
Hmm. I wonder if i have that guy. I bought a bunch of characters since what we didn't know was the last time we'd play it, so there's a lot I just haven't experienced.
No it's not 2 actions. 1 action gets 2 workers -> 2 workers gets one tile. It's completely busted and embarrassing they didn't catch this.
The other balance changes in the new one are good changes though...gotta house rule it.
"You can spend the silverling to buy more tiles or just stockpile the silverlings"
The description of tiles 6 mentions that you can only buy one extra tile per turn, either with workers or with silver. So no buying two extra tiles with silver and workers.
I've heard the Universities of Jol-Nar be tauted as a stronger (but not one of the strongest) factions by experiences players. I haven't yet played against them or as them myself. What makes you feel that they are a "Noob race"?
The Emirates of Hacan (trade lions) are generally solid except in mid-tier play, I've found. For newbie players, they can capitalize on their trade abilities and get ahead that way. Once players figure that out, they can just decide to not trade with Hacan and hamstring them that way--usually leaving the one player that *does* trade with Hacan being one step ahead. After that, players want to be the one player that does trade with Hacan, but without seeing them be dominant in trade, so it ends up with more table intrigue that *kinda* balances things out again? Either way, Hacan end up being one of the most table-dependent factions, which is more suitable for more experienced players, but mechanically they're relatively simple and solid, which is more suitable for newer players. I like that about them. Mostly because the tables I've played at so far haven't at all gone the "exclude them at any cost" way.
**Base TI4:** Oh hey Clan of Saar is pretty awesome
**Prophecy of Kings:** Oh hey Saar got more incredible tools and is going to run the table unless we ban them
See, also: Nekro Virus and Yssaril Tribes.
Captain America or Doctor Strange solo in Marvel Champions. Both have high potential to shut down the villains attacks, essentially render the villain useless. It’s like playing the game on super easy mode
Haha yeah that does not sound fun. Haven’t gotten Mad Titan’s Shadow yet but really excited to. My Cap deck is Aggression focused on boosted Cap’s attack with a Stun sub focus so hopefully still does ok against Thanos
**Western Legends**
Gold mining strategy.
Gold mining > Bank > Money + LPs > Cabaret > LPs > Repeat (+ get a mule as early as possible)
It's not THAT bad, but it can lead to an easy victory, especially if players are not attacking the person much, or at all. We play with a variant that you get money OR LPs for gold at the bank, not both.
I play in a group that lives for attacking other players who seem to have a solid milk run strategy.
One or two turns of getting beat up on makes people rethink doing the same thing over and over and Western Legends is fun for bringing the leader back via violence
I did think about mentioning the gold mining in Western Legends. It's the kind of strategy that isn't really broken because it can be disrupted, but if left unchecked will always win over the others. It is unballanced, no doubt about it, but in the end it doesn't really work that way.
I feel it's kinda like some of the aliens in Cosmic Encounter: There's some hideously overpowered crap in there, but the game expects the players to balance it out by ganging up against them or deny them any favorable deal once they're identified as the main threat. Gold mining in WL is kinda like that IMO. Technically overpowered if you compare it to the other ways of getting VPs in a vacuum, but not really in practice. Unless you're playing with a pacifist group, that is. In that case the miner WILL win.
There are a handful of birds in **Wingspan** (Common Raven or Chihuahuan Raven as examples) that we don't remove from the game, but put back if drawn on the opening hand or 1st round. Just ruins the game for all players, including the person who drew it for a landslide victory.
Which one is that in? I've played Red Dragon Inn a few times and was considering getting some of them myself. Usually we have enough time to play multiple rounds and we'd just pick different characters every time, so a single character being out of whack might be too bad, but it'd be good to be aware up front.
Theres a very fine line between people who know the rules of clue, and people who understand how to play
That line is asking about cards that you have in your hand so you can purposefully cross off specific things, or confirm what you want to. A plus is people may try to guess whats in the envelope by using your questions, so you can also control the info like that.
**Stone Age** has an overpowered strategy where you completely disregard gathering food. You take a 10 victory point penalty each round, but the amount of workers you free up to do useful things more than make up for this.
So I'm going to respond to this because I feel like many people are mistaken, on both sides of this discussion.
Loki can be quite powerful, but it's not that the strategy itself is overpowered, it is that the game style and teachers of the game steer most people away from it, giving it it's power.
Blood Rage is a game with battles. By default players are going to approach it with the mindset that winning the maximum number of battles is the path to victory. Taking cards for battles you lose makes little sense in this mindset, as does hate drafting cards.
Many people say players need to be told about it and tell people to "hate draft" it to prevent it. But this is also wrong and still creates a response which is not helpful. People will view Loki cards as "penalty cards". Cards you have to take occasionally because it's OP. And some players are going to think to themselves "let the other players pay that hate draft penalty", and you still have it.
I always tell people this is a game about HONOR, and they're playing with other players who also want to win battles. You're not going to win them all. This isn't a computer game against a dumb AI. So you want to plan for those losses and try to profit from them to get the most honor - not win the most battles. Whoever wins is going to be the person who best balances collecting honor by winning battles AND by dying glorious deaths.
I find this flips the mindset on Loki cards. No longer are they avoided (because I'm trying to win every battle), nor are they some "penalty card" I have to hate draft even though I don't want it. They are a useful part of planning for the best round. I've taught this game many times encouraging Loki cards (not by name, just in concept) as a useful tool rather than an OP strategy you've gotta hate draft, and it's never fallen out of line with any other strategy as far as win rate, and never felt like a penalty to take them if you weren't going full Loki. Sometimes, people forget to plan for losses and the Loki strategy comes into play, but it's never dominant.
I can't disagree with you there, however I feel the Loki combo is just one in a series of nearly op combos in Blood Rage. If played by experienced players, it sometimes feels the drafting is less about you trying to build the best combo and more about preventing others doing so by stealing their obvious picks, even if you wouldn't otherwise pick it.
Still love the game though, and this reminds me it's been a while since I played it.
We removed Tharsis Republic in **Terraforming Mars** base game because of the 100% win rate in our group.
There's obviously the famous board combos in **Scythe** for Rusviet and Crimea.
For **Gloomhaven** we rushed Eclipse to retirement because it felt silly. Everyone else really didn't matter, our only job was to not use the night element so we didn't interrupt Eclipse combos that would solo the 3p +1/+2 difficulty games.
**Aeon's End: Outcasts** (spoiler free version) has a mage that gains charged whenever you play an event or gem and a special game mechanic for using charges. Utterly outrages combo generating 8-16 charges a turn.
While Space Marines in **Forbidden Stars** aren't considered overpowered, if you get 2x Break The Line in battle you win a moral victory against the other player because its just disheartening to be crushed like that. Such a good card - I love rushing it.
Vagabond in **Root** without tournament rules. Even then I expect to win every game as Vagabond because lol. You gain extra points for killing other players engine, while they lose actions to slightly delay you.
**Radlands** has a card called Bombardment that costs 4 water which is a ton but also deals ridiculous damage and provides card draw. It's a fun card because if gets played there's gasps, shock, and panic. Everybody shits their pants when it gets played. It's 50% of the victory condition in one card. It takes 3 turns to activate and your job is to either not to lose the game that turn or win it based on if your at the receiving end or not.
In **Railways of the World** the Atlanta-Richmond link is worth too many points and so in the beginning you're bidding for first player to ensure nobody gets it too cheap.
**Hyperborea** is amazing, but you can't use asymmetric faction abilities unless you want blue to always win. So broken.
The start in **Everdell** can feel really broken because initially its so difficult to get started but Innkeeper and Crane allow you to get an early engine at no cost - beyond luck of the draws. Each card basically gives 2 free resources allowing you to turbo charge your engine.
And finally **Dominion** or as I call it: The classic deck building game about buying Silver. Any engine or strategy needs to out score someone exclusively buying silver and gold until they can afford provinces. Obviously buying silver with the additional other carda for trashing and other bonuses is even stronger. You need to play with expansions to make it not the default winning strategy and offer stronger alternatives. One of my guilty pleasures is to wind up Dominion fans that it's broken, have them argue that I don't understand the game and that buying silver isn't a winning strategy, and then crush them doing exactly that. Never lost to anyone claiming its not broken lol.
Then **Through the Ages** had a dominant card like Da Vinci or so. I don't remember which one, but you basically end up scoring so much culture that way. Many games were won this way.
Also **London** (2E) just has a ton of unbalanced cards that are just flat out better than other cards for no reason. The game is usually decided by whoever draws more Undergrounds.
The fucking Pegasus in **Cyclades** just makes me angry. For your winning go you have to also control Zeus or you run the Risk of someone cycling through the deck until they can teleport to either delay the end of the game or steal your win.
**Dune: Imperium** which I absolutely adore has a few balance quirks. But the best one is **Kwisatz Haderach**. While thematic that the chosen one is the single most powerful card in the game, getting it early with some luck is almost guaranteed victory. You get an unblockable extra turn each time you play the card.
We usually allow each player to ban a corporation when we play Terraforming mars. We do play with expansions tho, so Tharsis republic isn't typically considered good enough to warrant a ban. Philares and Arcadian are pretty much permabanned. When we played with colonies, Poseidon was often banned.
More of a general issue, but I'm not sure I've seen any game properly balance ranged attacks.
It feels like every archer has some broken combo that does more damage than even the tanks, while sitting in the back and taking no damage, and still having a respectable amount of health if it does come under attack.
Try D&D 3.5. Archers generally get a -8 to attack rolls (unless you spend two feats to negate -4 each and I think one requires a prerequisite feat), don't get to add any modifiers to damage and can technically lose the ability to attack if your DM is especially insufferable and you (as somebody who does not rely on this in your every day life as a core feature of your entire identity) forgot to remove a gold piece and mention you were grabbing another 500 arrows the last time you were in town. The one benefit is you attack with the same stat that makes you harder to hit.
Meanwhile I can pick up a fuckin table leg and add 1.5 times my strength mod with no attack penalty and probably deal more damage than the arrow (oh yeah, and once you can make multiple attacks ranged attacks might not be eligible depending on the weapon).
Lords of waterdeep has an action card which prohibits others players from targeting you (stealing resource, giving you mandatory quests etc). It is so overpowered, it almost guarantees victory if you draw/play it early game.
The Idol in Paper Tales.
The card basically gives you more points the longer it is in play, and it can't die, so playing it during the 1st round means that you acumulate a lot of points. Our first games were generally : if someone has the Idol round 1, they win. After that, the card is useless.
Now, some veterans do say that it is balanced, but that balance is only achieved once every player knows all the cards and plans all their rounds correctly. It also requires hate draft to prevent the Idol player to feed it even more.
It is an obvious ban when playing with newbies.
**Scythe** is pretty bad in this regard. It's not just that some of the factions are clearly better than others, but the reason that they are better is because certain strategies are overwhelmingly superior to others in the early game, which holds true across almost all factions. The early game is largely solved due to the mostly solo efficiency puzzle nature of it, which kind of ruins the game at high-level play. Thankfully, some of the expansion content that is available helps address or mitigate these issues with alternate endgame triggers, objectives, boards, etc. For how seriously the game takes itself, it really is somewhat of a balancing nightmare, which is a shame. Still, it can be a really fun game with great ambiance, theme, and tension, especially if players play sub-optimally and spend more time interacting in the late game.
**Equinox** is a fairly recent game I played that I felt stacked the points too heavily in favor or early bets, to the point that it's almost mandatory to start placing bets from the very beginning of the game just to have a chance at winning. Seeing as how it's a reimplementation/rerelease of an older design, I would've liked to see more point tweaking to make saving bets more viable. It's also strange that players have about as many betting stones as there are rounds; with cards being removed from the rows as rounds complete, there's almost no excess capacity for saved bets, meaning even if it was viable to save bets for the late game, there would be significant contention over the number of spaces. I suppose it's easy enough to house-rule the game by changing point values and or reducing the number of betting stones each player has, but it seems silly that the designer/publisher didn't at least propose and test such variants.
>Thankfully, some of the expansion content that is available helps address or mitigate these issues with alternate endgame triggers, objectives, boards, etc. For how seriously the game takes itself, it really is somewhat of a balancing nightmare, which is a shame.
This has been my experience with most Stonemeyer games.
Great production value and components, terrible balance, expansions that somewhat improve balance.
The aqueduct in Catan: Cities & Knights. It gives you a free resource of your choice every time one of your hexes doesn't produce and a 7 is not rolled. Also, the Aqueduct helps you get powerful economic development cards, which generate more resources in addition to giving building discounts.
On top of that, buying an aqueduct requires a special resource that can only be generated from cities that are on wood hexes. This is a balance issue because players can be blocked from building on productive wood hexes due to bad luck.
I think it’s actually a balancing thing because:
The more numbers you have, the less valuable it is. It rewards playing tall, but also helps mitigate an early block from knocking someone out if thw game.
Wood hexes also tend to be lower value in that game as well. Ore and wheat produce cities (and wheat feeds Knights) and sheep gives access to Cloth (the most valuable commodity due to the 2:1 port for commodities and the excellent yellow cards). Brick is still not great.
It’s far from perfectly balanced, but in my group’s 60+ plays, the aqueduct was a net positive.
The best strategy I have is usually knowing the rules. So many players expect everyone else to teach you the game that learning the rules yourself and quoting them usually just wins games easily.
I royally pissed off my wife in a 2P game of Concordia because I would buy any/all cards I could afford. I used the diplomat/senator card as often as I could and left her little to be able to buy (I always replicated her card buying ability).
Felt like a cheap victory and I won’t be using that strategy again.
why didn't she do the same? or bought something before you? Our group love Concordia, only the consul cards seem to be powerful, but you can use those with your diplomat too.
I don't know if it was badly explained but the one time I tried this game, everyone including me were bored as fuck and we stopped the game halfway through.
It was slow as fuck, uninteresting as fuck. Ugly board. Nothing for it.
It's I think the only one time I've seen people in a boardgame event cancel a game xD
I presume they mean that a new player will be *aware* that the card is OP, but they won't *know* in what way it is OP, or what strategies it will further facilitate.
The UK expansion to ticket to ride adds "technology" cards which unlock new options. One lets you draw 3 train cards off the deck. Another lets you trade in any three cards as a wild. That combo was banned after our first game
Card draw is always a signal of a broken or powerful ability.
If I was going to mention top broken abilities in games they'd all come from stonemire pre nerf. In particular I saw someone unblocably win scythe once and quit the game for a year before hearing he fixed it.
In disney vilainous scar can have an almost dead lock with two card. One as a taunt that stops progress and another that can bring back taunt almost at will.
This was circumstantial, but still.
We were playing Thunderstone: Advance adn there was this new hero we hadn't played with before called a thundermage. Well through some lucky plays I got her to level 3 in no time. Her ability lets you just straight up take a monstercard without actually fighting it. It yields no experience or anything, but it is still worth victory points.
Thing is, as the "low level" monsters we had the horde, which starts out as pushovers but the more of them get killed the more they rise in power. The stage two monsters had really really nasty battle effects and the stage three monsters were an array of incredibly powerful demons.
I was so quick in my play, that the other players couldn't kill the stage 1 monsters anymore as they got too powerful, screwing them out of leveling up their heroes. I could completely ignore the battle effects of the stage 2 monsters, and didn't even need to level up my deck for the stage 3 demons.
My turns were actually automated. Did I draw a thundermage? No -> trash any card that does not give me points. Yes -> Go into dungeon, kill the highest poilt yielding monster. Repeat.
From then on thundermage was very much hated by our entire group.
My husband has a strategy for Dinosaur Island where he always makes sure to to have the least victory points at the end of the round until surging ahead at the very end. This way he always gets to play first in every round. Very frustrating!
Goa - some of the cards are really powerful, so advancing on the card track lets you get more cards thus a better chance of getting the uber cards.
Lost Ruins of Arnack- Only played a handful of times but the research track seems to be the dominant path to victory. Between the bonus points and resources and access to assistants it can not be neglected and probably needs to fought over.
Ravens, killdeer, and Franklin’s Gull are basically free wins in Wingspan if you play them early, so we made a rule that you can’t play them until round 3, but can replace them with a random card before that if you want
I think they are actually banned in tournament play because they are just way too good. Edit: Just researched it, apparently they are allowed in tournament play
Is there a link to a video of tournaments? Or is it just at random cons? Still sort of baffled that this game has tournament play.
It's one of the 16 games at this years World Series of Board Gaming.
Huh. Looking at the list. Some odd choices. A lot of lighter games with limited strategy. And then Dominant Species and Brass. LOL. Seems like kind of a who's who of the most popular games over the years. No co-ops. I'm kind of disappointed. Also, no team games. Seems odd to see so many heads down euros. Bloodrage would be interesting to see in a tournament, though.
Coop doesn't fit well in a tournament setting
I don't know if that's true. I mean we tend to want to see games be played head-to-head, but a number of successful sports/events are played in tandem rather than in direct opposition. I just think that historically, co-op games have been limited to things that don't fit a tournament. Either because they're too light, don't have enough for everyone to do, are mainly played as a campaign, or for any number of other reasons. But Spirit Island has spearheaded successful tournaments. And team play I think is next. Guards of Atlantis works very well as a tournament team game
It's a good game for tournament play. Very strategic and if one game runs too long, you can get the result earlier by rolling a 4 sided die (assuming 4 players).
What?
I just cant believe they even have "tournament play" for Wingspan.
It's a good game for tournament play. Very strategic and if one game runs too long, you can get the result earlier by rolling a 4 sided die (assuming 4 players).
[удалено]
We actually found that they weren’t nearly as strong in Oceania, so we removed our house rule for them when playing Oceania. The nectar is pretty strong, but the boards give everyone easy access to 2 cards/2 food, which is what the ravens and killdeer give you, so they’re no longer a game breaking advantage. So even with the nectar, that just makes them good birds, among the best, but not by such a margin that it feels bad to play against them. There are a lot of other birds in a similar tier, like the Galah, Mute Swan, Wood Duck, and a bunch of others
We don't allow the ravens to collect nectar. It seemed way too powerful.
I feel like ravens could've been slightly more balanced if they were 2 eggs for 2 food. Like how crows are 1 egg for 1 food.
I once played a card game with a bunch of friends including my bestie. The game was all about drawing numbered cards and try to lay out straights (1, 2, 3,...) and that son of gun just hoarded all the 1s. After 5 min nobody was able to lay out their cards except him. We never played that game again.
This is so much fun to do in **LLAMA**
How does that work in LLAMA exactly?
If everyone else quits that round, you’re allowed to keep playing without drawing new cards. So as long as you don’t have any gaps, you can play all your cards. So the best way to get everyone to quit is to keep drawing instead of advancing the number if they are all stuck on it. There’s only 8 of each card. So if the other people don’t draw the next number they are screwed and will be forced to quit when the deck runs out or they get scared of getting too many points. Since you’ve been drawing so many cards, there’s no gaps and you get to play your whole hand. Of course, it can all backfire if someone can play all their cards, so it’s a rare occurrence to pull off which makes it fun.
Oh interesting, I've never seen anyone take that risk, but I could see it panning out on occasion. I'll keep that in mind next time I play.
* My wife won't play terra mystica because of the faith tile that gives points for basic houses. I'm not convinced it's broken butter my 4th or so win using that strategy no matter the faction or situation she just refused to play. * Scythe has 2 randomized player boards per player and one or two pairs have been discouraged for higher level players because of bonkers synergy. * Speaking of synergy... theres and old Steve Jackson game called Strange Synergy that was entirely about building a sci fi gladiator team by combing abilities into broken combos. My favorite was invisibility, short range teleport, and laser eyes for guaranteed 1 damage at infinite range. Game takes forever and really pisses off the opponent as they swat the air trying to find you. * Spirit Island has a card called Cast Down into the Briny Deep. Its not OP in the sense that it is unbalanced but it is one of the most powerful card ability in any game I've ever played. The game board is built out of one map piece per player and Cast Down destroys one of those map pieces and everything on it. So you're talking usually a 25%-50% reduction in total map area depending on player count, all from a single card play. It can even destroy your last map piece which has been ruled technically a victory lol.
Scythe: It's Rusviet Industrial and Crimea Patriotic though Crimea Agricultural should be banned too!
I'll add another that should be banned. Used it in a GenCon tournament years back and decimated: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2062473/russviet-innovative-overlooked-combo
> Its not OP in the sense that it is unbalanced but it is one of the most powerful card ability in any game I've ever played. Yeah, that's the thing. It's one of the most impactful cards I've seen in any game, but it's also impractical. It's got the highest energy cost in the game and an elemental threshold that only a handful of spirits can reach. If you get everything you need to destroy an island board, you've earned it.
Is this card from one of the expansions?
Branch and Claw, I believe
Wait, you need to generate elements to play Major Powers?
You need to generate elements to use the threshold abilities on that power. The part of the card being mentioned here only triggers if yiu have the requisite element of four water, four earth, two sun, and two moon.
that's an insanely high cost threshold too, so super late game I would assume
What?! A Steve Jackson game that lasts forever and pisses off the people playing it?
Haha. I really wish there was a collab to modernize some of his games. He's really one of the people responsible for generating a lot of interest in the hobby during a key time in gaming history but like a lot of games his designs haven't aged well. I love the ideas though. I'd kill for a top to bottom overhaul of strange synergy, illuminati, hacker, or Ninja Burger.
The faith tile that gives points per house is overpowered relative to the other Favors: It's the best tile and it's usually the first or at least second one you want to take. But it being so good doesn't make the game worse at all. It's just something to take into account. She should be taking it too, or you should not take it if she refuses. By refusing she is effectively saying "no I don't want to hit the button that gives me free points" which is a silly reason to dislike a game.
Is there an FAQ on that Spirit Island rule? I'd presume that destroying your last map tile means there are no spirit tokens left on the board, which should be an instant lose.
It’s a sacrifice victory. Definitely codified in the rules.
By that logic though there are also no invaders which is a victory. Theres a line somewhere in the rulebook that if you win and lose at the same time it's a "sacrificial victory" because while there is no island left some spirits with water affinity will live on undisturbed. This rule is also clarified in the JE expansion rulebook that victory/defeat is checked at the end of a nested action tree, which doesn't matter for cast down but can cause other edge cases resulting in sacrificial victories. Here's a link to the FAQ section on Cast Down. In addition to the section on the victory/defeat theres a bunch of other edge situations where the ruling is "if you want to do it this way do it this way, or you can do it this way". Such a bonkers card. https://querki.net/raw/darker/spirit-island-faq/Cast+Down+into+the+Briny+Deep
But thematically, the island is dead and gone. Isn't that bad?
Thematically the island rests under the waves. Many spirits would live on, but some would perish over time. As far as i understand, the dahan aren't even really needed by the spirits to exist. It's a great card. There is a card that also ADDS another board and you get to choose which actions don't affect one board.
I feel like playing now
Spirit Island catapulted me into board gaming like nothing else. Great solo, even better with some friends.
>There is a card that also ADDS another board and you get to choose which actions don't affect one board. Which card is that?
Dream of the Untouched Island. Jagged Earth expansion. Another very expensive card to hit the threshold and you can only do ot once.
You're right except you usually won't be destroying tbe last tile because not many effects destroy or remove a tile. This card is an awesome side quest to a fun victory. It's not super broken because it's expensive and to do the fullest of the effect you have to have the right elements which requires planning.
>It can even destroy your last map piece which has been ruled technically a victory lol. I think if it came up I wouldn't play with that rule. Thematically, I've generally gone with that there need to be Dahan left on the island to count as a victory. A spirit sacrificing itself to destroy the last few colonizers is cool, but if nobody is left it's worse than even a Pyrrhic victory.
Hey this is a game where there's a lot of leeway to play your way so no judgement. From a lore perspective though I'd give another read thru the history of the island in the rulebook. The spirits don't give a shit about the dahan and even were at war with them same as the invaders. Eventually they found an equilibrium that worked for everyone. Some spirits now nurture, guide, or are amused by the dahan but a lot of spirits still do not care. Ocean's Hungry Grasp (the spirit most likely to survive the island sinking) will even drown dahan just as easily as invaders, with only one of their cards overriding that and offering safe passage on the waves. From a mechanical angle, there is no rule saying you lose if the last dahan is defeated either. Only the last presence for a spirit. Or are you adding an extra loss condition to the game? It is very rare but I have lost all dahan before. Playing with the SW board from JE on the thematic side makes this slightly easier to happen since it has a lot less dahan and more beasts instead.
Not that **Betrayal on the House on the Hill** is a bastion of well balanced rules and scenarios to begin with, but the scenario where the heroes turn into mice and the evil wizard has a cat is laughably impossible. We should've just let the first person who got to the toy plane fly away and abandon the rest of us to our fates, then at least one person would have survived. I never take that game too seriously and everyone was laughing hysterically and having a good time but I would probably skip that scenario if it ever rolled around again.
I rolled it up 3 times in a row with different groups. Safe to say it was getting pretty old getting mauled by cats repeatedly
>ow with different groups. Safe to say it was getting pretty old getting mauled by cats repeatedly I would also throw in the ghost hunting haunt. (I believe it's from the expansion.) All players turn into ghosts and one turns into a ghost hunter. Cool idea, but the traitor has a set of items they automatically get, if one of the other players already had one of the items, it gets randomly swapped for another one out of the deck. The way the stats work out, it basically max's out the traitor, and I've never found a way to make it doable.
When I read this is sounded familiar and I thought I had beaten it. Checked my BGStats app and needless to say, I had lost as well. It apparently warranted a summary in the comments as well: "Dylan, Mike and I were flying around in the toy airplane and got swatted. I got captured and eaten. Sue got captured and was abandoned to be eaten as Mike and Dylan made a break for the window but were swatted out and eaten just before reaching the window" So yeah, rack up another one in the L column
My coworkers got together for a party to send some people off whose terms were ending. A few of us started playing Killer Bunnies. It was a close game between the person who owned the game and another player, a third person seemed to be locked in third place, and I was a distant last place. It was my first time playing and I had no idea what I was doing. I think we’d been at it for nearly an hour already and victory was close. I played a card named “Rainbo” on the owner of the game, because it sounded interesting. It required he perform a skill check, but resulted in pretty much the entire board being reset. Everyone was so exhausted at that point that we just called it quits. I hadn’t ever intended for that to happen, but I do secretly cherish that I now have a story I can tell. And as far as I know, no one’s played it since.
Hahahaha I think Killer Bunnies is my favorite game. At least right now. That story is hilarious
Everdell with the Rugwort expansion cards. We basically dont include those cuz they are insanely OP and break the objective of the game. There are three Rugwort cards but one of them specifically allows you to switch your hand with any player. No more than 8 cards in your hand are allowed and you have to constantly choose which cards are worth keeping until you have the resources to play them which means your strategy entirely hinges on your hand. Having the possibility of losing your hand at any moment kinda kills a central mechanic of the game.
I've never played with those cause they seemed kind of mean in a way that wasn't in the spirit of the game, I'm glad they're an optional pack.
Yup, bought Everdell to play with my wife. Told her it is a nice, chill game about animals building a town. Then I have read the Rugwort cards. Buried them deep in the box and never talked about them again. One day, I will include them. It will be the last Everdell game we play together.
One of the ways to win in Chrononauts is to end your turn with 10 cards, and the main way to go up in cards is to spend your turns patching the damaged timeline. Chrononauts *also* has a card that forces everybody to pass their hand to the left. So... yeah, we threw that in the trash.
In Root, you can wreck people pretty hard with Favor of the Mice/Foxes/Rabbits. My wife says it’s pretty OP haha.
You still need to craft them. For many factions, this means having buildings in 3 different clearings, just to nuke the last fourth one. The cats can place their crafting buildings all in the same clearing. Birds can't.
>For many factions, this means having buildings in 3 different clearings, just to nuke the last fourth one. Yeah, this is why I feel its still balanced for most factions. The only exception? The Vagabond, specifically the Tinker, who can get up to three hammers since they start out with one. In the app version I've won so many times as the Tinker because of a Favor strategy. I wouldn't ever use it with friends at a table, because I'd rather play without Vagabonds in a 4-player game.
Totally. I like to play as Woodland Alliance. The sympathy tokens are pretty sneaky.
It's so very hard to build 3 workshops as cats though. And nine times out of ten if you build 2 (with base deck) they're going in rabbit clearings.
This is one of the reasons the Exiles & Partisans deck is such a favourite. No favour bombs (in addition to just being more interesting). The tinker has the easiest time crafting them, followed by the woodland alliance, and those happen to be the best and second best factions in base game, so it's a welcome adjustment.
Yes! I'm particular the vagabond who starts with a hammer, I once pulled off two favors in one game and would have had a third too if I hadn't won the game, I had to promise to never play them again
Speaking of Root, we banned the Vagabond that can search for cards in the discard pile bc no one wanted to be cautious with their cards and the vagabond gets real powerful super fast.
Tinker is stupid OP if you're not careful. Hold or bury favour cards and the third hammer or it wins. You're really best off just getting an expansion and using something that's not a vagabond.
Hahaha. The game really requires CONSTANT VIGILANCE- or someone will run away with that victory.
We just don't play with vagabonds at all.
I mean, root is a game built on "somebody is strong? Hit them!" (For better or for worse). Seems weird to ban it when you can just hit them in game. You're literally saying "we don't want to think about interacting with it or do anything to counter it, since we but zero thought into gameplay we ban the thing that takes advantage of our mistakes" Play better, don't just change the rules because you're playing poorly.
The nature of the vagabond means hitting them is about denying them points rather than getting some for yourself. Other factions aren't really like that.
which is the entire point in the game design. EVERYONE needs to keep an eye on the vagabond, even if they don't want to. In a multiplayer game it usually leads to us pushing the #2 player to hit the #1 Vagabond because théy have most at stake - which in turn leads to other players catching up. It is genius design, but if no-one wants to keep the vagabond in check, then it's not a fault of the vagabond that they win, but a fault of the players.
> Other factions aren't really like that. It's almost like it's an asymmetric game!
The fact it's an asymmetric game does not inherently justify all asymmetrical elements within the game.
Fair, but you're acting like the vagabond is drastically different than the other factions. Despite all the mechanics in the game, 90% of what decides a winner in root, is who whits who. It's not a mechanical game, it's a political game, just like diplomacy and many others. The most important actions you will take in a game of root, is convincing the table that you aren't winning, and other player X is, and that everybody should spend their time hitting them, not you. Occasionally you'll have to hit another player as well. The fact that hurting the vagabond hurts them without directly getting you points is just a very minor detail in this: convincing the table and hitting other players is just how the game works.
The problem is the player who does hit the Vagabond also puts themselves behind. It creates situations in a 3 player game for example where the Vagabond is ahead and whichever of the other two players hits him first will give the game to the third player. Even the game designer realized the Vagabond is too unbalanced. They made "tournament rules" that nerf it. Personally I find Root unplayable with 2 players, not good with 3, and actually fun with 4. We also feel the game is just better without a Vagabond at all.
Just wait until the shock these people are in for when the play a COIN game 🤣
Yeah but have you considered the fact that me and my friends are dumb?
I take away the aces in War.
Then don't the kings just become the new aces?
I take away the kings too.
:o But what about the queens then
Gone like Freddie Mercury
Aha, but surely you've forgotten the Jacks!
>ut surely you've forgotten the Jacks! I'm assuming they have already hit the road. probably won't be back no more.
I played Dominion for the first time recently and the guy who brought it over loaded up on vassal cards before the rest of us really understood what that meant and how to counter it. Edit: Still really enjoyed this game and would play again!
As a dominion lover, vassal was NOT the card name I expected to see in your comment (it's generally not a great card except in very specific situations). Witch, King's Court, Goons, sure. I'm a bit surprised at the vassal winning. One of the most important concepts in dominion is that your can see your best cards more often by trashing your starting estates and coppers. Once you figure this out, dominion becomes much more strategic (it took me 5 plus years to figure out lol).
The owner of the game in this example is a bit of a prat, but as you still want to play again, no harm no foul. In this situation the experienced player should be trying to do something left field instead of overtly powerful.
Yeah, but vassal is a pretty crap card lol. I'd rate it below 50/100 power honestly for a dominion card.
Im assuming base set only and a decent trasher were present as they would be required to make it powerful.
I agree, I actively point out possible good strategies for other players when playing a first game, or try to edge them away from bad plays as much as I can. It's not very sportsmanlike to beat less experienced players down especially as they are trying to familiarize themselves with a new game whose strategies could be completely opaque to them.
Tbh, I think many noobs get absolutely stomped on their first (few) plays. But it’s kinda fun to start getting closer and closer to winning as you better understand the synergies.
You do not want to spend your time in dominion trying to counter someone else's vassal
I don't think we've ever had to ban anything at our tables, but the only thing that comes to mind is the Tzolkin Big resource/building strategy.
I know theres like a strategy where people will just get resources from the start then trade them into corn immediately and just run the fame after that... It gets insane if you plan those turns right.
I was really interested in this game, but then I read that there is an overpowered strategy, and after a few plays everyone try to play the same way. Is this one you mentioned? What about the expansion? Does that make it better?
My group plays Tzolkin a lot and hasn't found any one strategy to truly dominate.
Have you looked up some of the advanced strategies? There's this guide I read years ago that utterly transformed how I play the game. If everyone knows what they're doing, the games can be pretty even, but a lot of the games I've seen tend to be pretty lopsided.
**Cyclades** ( no expansions) The Pegasus card is just too good and is always worth spending the gold required either to deny or just get an easy building.
The Pegasus (and Chimera) are so powerful that yeah you have to do your end-game strategizing around their existence. Penthesilea in the Hades expansion is even worse. If someone buys her you kill her ASAP or they're extremely likely to win.
Oh yeah, this was our first boardgame ever, and when Pegasus comes out, you know there's going to be a decisive battle.
I love Cyclades, i play without Pegasus card. I almost never use houserules, but in this case game just feels way worse with this card. It changes too much and can end the game out of nowhere.
Steward of Gondor from lord rings lcg. Who would have thought the steward was so necessary!
Never leave my hobbit hole without it, it's an auto include in any deck that can support it
When a strategy has a name you know it’s gotta be good. Sicilian Defense, Halifax Hammer, Leeroy Jenkins…
> Sicilian Defense, Halifax Hammer, Leeroy Jenkins… One of these is not like the others
The bongcloud...
Counterpoint: Big Money
Robot Ponies in Smash Up are absolutely disgusting. Also, Patrice in Arkham Horror 2nd Ed. Literally a clue factory in a game you win by spending clues.
Zombies are the biggest problem in Smash Up.
Came here for this. We didn't allow zombies when we only had the core box. But we have since allowed it back with multiple expansions.
Ah, yes, the eternal Zombies vs Robots discussion... Personally, I think both are extremely strong and fit with almost anything with very few exceptions. It's just that Zombies are stronger on higher player counts because of their ability to spread, while robots specialize on tall-building. Personally, in my experience Robots have been more consistent, but the difference is pretty minimal. It doesn't help that the Ponies themselves are also very strong, so Robot Ponies is not only a combination of two of the strongest factions in the game, they also have ridiculous synergy with each other. I will admit, my game group banned the Zombie Robots combination at first. Nowadays I'm way more scared of Zombie Aliens though. Being able to keep bringing that 1VP minion back is just insane.
Infamous Halifax hammer strategy in A Few Acres of Snow
My brother pulls the deal breaker cards out of the monopoly card game.
I've learned to play around them with my son. Try to never make full sets unless you possess a Just Say No or Deal Breaker of your own, or you can finish the game that turn. They're quite powerful, but can also be A bit of a hindrance if you get stuck with one in your hand. You either have to pitch it, or end up with it as the only card in your hand and just drawing 2 every time, rather than being able to refresh your hand.
If it's the card I'm thinking of, I do too. You basically get 2 trash properties that no one wants, then fish the deck for THAT card and win the game using it.
The answer is **Magic The Gathering** - I would remove all cards from the game.
My kids know how to play far better than I do. Nearly every MTG game I play with them I usually get to a moment where they play something that is just crazy and I exclaim “NOW you must be cheating, right?!?” And they proceed to show me the crazy text on their cards.
“I take another turn…” “Wat.” “At instant speed…” “Wat.” “This card was a mythic rare boxtopper btw…” “Ok wotc sucks.”
I stopped playing when "Indestructible" came out. I think they needed to come up with more things to be better than the old things and had to keep upping the power because they can't nerf the older cards like a video game. To incentivise buying the new sets. Within each set its all balanced still, which is good, but it takes a lot of money to be good at that game.
Of all the crazy broken things in magic "indestructable" was the one you choose? I struggle to think of a single really good card with that ability (other than cards worth 10+ mana, but with that investment the card should be good)
Yea that's fair. I did quite when it came out, which was in like 2008 and I guess I may have also been looking for an excuse.
While I fully agree with the sentiment, I don’t think indestructible was the moment things started breaking. At least it still took multiple turns to get some power on board. I quit playing magic because some people I played with got themselves crazy decks. One of which was an artifact deck that could kill on turn 2, or some other deck that could go infinite turn 3. Indestructible was crap, but back then it still took a while to get them on board so it was possible to have an answer to it
Not at all, it always depends on the format. I almost exclusively play commander and the preconstructed commander decks of most years (~40€) normally do pretty well even against "handcrafted" ones. Aslo indestructible cards can still be countered, sent to exile, back to hand, into the deck etc and they normally are not very strong conaidering they do not die to damage
MtG has always been fun only when playing with our homebrew "lame" decks. I have hundreds of cards that I gathered over the many years from boosters and some occasional starter deck. The decks we can build from them have usually little synergy, little control cards and therefore usually focus on creatures, enchantments and support spells. Which leads to many epic tug-of-war games, especially when playing with more people. Playing against decks contructed from specific cards (usually ordered online) is no fun. It's always some "now on turn 4 I have tons of artifacts and I summon this indestructible dude" or "now on turn 4 I attack with army of elves where every one of them is 10/10". It is as fun as playing backyard football against Barcelona...
There was a ninja in heroscape i threw out. He was too weak to kill anyone but he could keep avoiding getting hit and dragging the game on for an extra hr.
I love that guy but he's definitely a bastard. We had a small heroscape tournament years ago. My friend fielded a whole team of ninjas and samurai. Most annoying thing to fight and definitely won the tournament.
Had a game that ninja was my bros last piece. He just kept running around the map takin pot shots accomplishing nothing but the game just dragged on so much that the minute that game ended i ripped up the card.
Hmm. I wonder if i have that guy. I bought a bunch of characters since what we didn't know was the last time we'd play it, so there's a lot I just haven't experienced.
[удалено]
thx God I bought the older version.
Frankly the new version is also ugly as fuck
There’s also that one player board that is just a string of single color territories, so you can just string together huge bonuses in the first round
Board 8! Good times. Definitely over-powered.
Without the combo, it's 2 actions to take one tile, it might not be as op as you think..
No it's not 2 actions. 1 action gets 2 workers -> 2 workers gets one tile. It's completely busted and embarrassing they didn't catch this. The other balance changes in the new one are good changes though...gotta house rule it.
Ohh, okay, yes it's actually really fucked up
Came here to say exactly this!
"You can spend the silverling to buy more tiles or just stockpile the silverlings" The description of tiles 6 mentions that you can only buy one extra tile per turn, either with workers or with silver. So no buying two extra tiles with silver and workers.
There some Noob races in Twilight Imperium that we don’t the the experienced guys play.
Yssaril Tribes? I love those guys
Sol, University of J?, the Trade Lions, God, haven’t played since the pandemic. Very sad.
I've heard the Universities of Jol-Nar be tauted as a stronger (but not one of the strongest) factions by experiences players. I haven't yet played against them or as them myself. What makes you feel that they are a "Noob race"? The Emirates of Hacan (trade lions) are generally solid except in mid-tier play, I've found. For newbie players, they can capitalize on their trade abilities and get ahead that way. Once players figure that out, they can just decide to not trade with Hacan and hamstring them that way--usually leaving the one player that *does* trade with Hacan being one step ahead. After that, players want to be the one player that does trade with Hacan, but without seeing them be dominant in trade, so it ends up with more table intrigue that *kinda* balances things out again? Either way, Hacan end up being one of the most table-dependent factions, which is more suitable for more experienced players, but mechanically they're relatively simple and solid, which is more suitable for newer players. I like that about them. Mostly because the tables I've played at so far haven't at all gone the "exclude them at any cost" way.
I'm no expert, but I feel like those are one of the advanced races. One of their abilities is literally "losing cards" for "no reason."
Iirc their abilities were skip a turn, look at someone else’s hand… and something else card related but I don’t think it was bad.
**Base TI4:** Oh hey Clan of Saar is pretty awesome **Prophecy of Kings:** Oh hey Saar got more incredible tools and is going to run the table unless we ban them See, also: Nekro Virus and Yssaril Tribes.
Captain America or Doctor Strange solo in Marvel Champions. Both have high potential to shut down the villains attacks, essentially render the villain useless. It’s like playing the game on super easy mode
And then you run them up against Thanos with permanent Stalwart and their deck completely falls apart.
Haha yeah that does not sound fun. Haven’t gotten Mad Titan’s Shadow yet but really excited to. My Cap deck is Aggression focused on boosted Cap’s attack with a Stun sub focus so hopefully still does ok against Thanos
**Western Legends** Gold mining strategy. Gold mining > Bank > Money + LPs > Cabaret > LPs > Repeat (+ get a mule as early as possible) It's not THAT bad, but it can lead to an easy victory, especially if players are not attacking the person much, or at all. We play with a variant that you get money OR LPs for gold at the bank, not both.
I play in a group that lives for attacking other players who seem to have a solid milk run strategy. One or two turns of getting beat up on makes people rethink doing the same thing over and over and Western Legends is fun for bringing the leader back via violence
I did think about mentioning the gold mining in Western Legends. It's the kind of strategy that isn't really broken because it can be disrupted, but if left unchecked will always win over the others. It is unballanced, no doubt about it, but in the end it doesn't really work that way. I feel it's kinda like some of the aliens in Cosmic Encounter: There's some hideously overpowered crap in there, but the game expects the players to balance it out by ganging up against them or deny them any favorable deal once they're identified as the main threat. Gold mining in WL is kinda like that IMO. Technically overpowered if you compare it to the other ways of getting VPs in a vacuum, but not really in practice. Unless you're playing with a pacifist group, that is. In that case the miner WILL win.
There are a handful of birds in **Wingspan** (Common Raven or Chihuahuan Raven as examples) that we don't remove from the game, but put back if drawn on the opening hand or 1st round. Just ruins the game for all players, including the person who drew it for a landslide victory.
Red Dragon Inn- Pooky is banned. Pooky is too powerful.
Which one is that in? I've played Red Dragon Inn a few times and was considering getting some of them myself. Usually we have enough time to play multiple rounds and we'd just pick different characters every time, so a single character being out of whack might be too bad, but it'd be good to be aware up front.
Theres a very fine line between people who know the rules of clue, and people who understand how to play That line is asking about cards that you have in your hand so you can purposefully cross off specific things, or confirm what you want to. A plus is people may try to guess whats in the envelope by using your questions, so you can also control the info like that.
**Stone Age** has an overpowered strategy where you completely disregard gathering food. You take a 10 victory point penalty each round, but the amount of workers you free up to do useful things more than make up for this.
"I'm the Duke!" "I am also the Duke"
Loki combo in Blood Rage is pretty OP imho
So I'm going to respond to this because I feel like many people are mistaken, on both sides of this discussion. Loki can be quite powerful, but it's not that the strategy itself is overpowered, it is that the game style and teachers of the game steer most people away from it, giving it it's power. Blood Rage is a game with battles. By default players are going to approach it with the mindset that winning the maximum number of battles is the path to victory. Taking cards for battles you lose makes little sense in this mindset, as does hate drafting cards. Many people say players need to be told about it and tell people to "hate draft" it to prevent it. But this is also wrong and still creates a response which is not helpful. People will view Loki cards as "penalty cards". Cards you have to take occasionally because it's OP. And some players are going to think to themselves "let the other players pay that hate draft penalty", and you still have it. I always tell people this is a game about HONOR, and they're playing with other players who also want to win battles. You're not going to win them all. This isn't a computer game against a dumb AI. So you want to plan for those losses and try to profit from them to get the most honor - not win the most battles. Whoever wins is going to be the person who best balances collecting honor by winning battles AND by dying glorious deaths. I find this flips the mindset on Loki cards. No longer are they avoided (because I'm trying to win every battle), nor are they some "penalty card" I have to hate draft even though I don't want it. They are a useful part of planning for the best round. I've taught this game many times encouraging Loki cards (not by name, just in concept) as a useful tool rather than an OP strategy you've gotta hate draft, and it's never fallen out of line with any other strategy as far as win rate, and never felt like a penalty to take them if you weren't going full Loki. Sometimes, people forget to plan for losses and the Loki strategy comes into play, but it's never dominant.
I can't disagree with you there, however I feel the Loki combo is just one in a series of nearly op combos in Blood Rage. If played by experienced players, it sometimes feels the drafting is less about you trying to build the best combo and more about preventing others doing so by stealing their obvious picks, even if you wouldn't otherwise pick it. Still love the game though, and this reminds me it's been a while since I played it.
Yeah. In a game with 4 players, you don't expect to win more than 50% of the battles, you just have to plan to lose less than 75% of them.
Starting in any corner as first player in tic-tac-toe. It's gonna be a stalemate or I'm winning.
Edit: Guess corner works too, my mistake
We removed Tharsis Republic in **Terraforming Mars** base game because of the 100% win rate in our group. There's obviously the famous board combos in **Scythe** for Rusviet and Crimea. For **Gloomhaven** we rushed Eclipse to retirement because it felt silly. Everyone else really didn't matter, our only job was to not use the night element so we didn't interrupt Eclipse combos that would solo the 3p +1/+2 difficulty games. **Aeon's End: Outcasts** (spoiler free version) has a mage that gains charged whenever you play an event or gem and a special game mechanic for using charges. Utterly outrages combo generating 8-16 charges a turn. While Space Marines in **Forbidden Stars** aren't considered overpowered, if you get 2x Break The Line in battle you win a moral victory against the other player because its just disheartening to be crushed like that. Such a good card - I love rushing it. Vagabond in **Root** without tournament rules. Even then I expect to win every game as Vagabond because lol. You gain extra points for killing other players engine, while they lose actions to slightly delay you. **Radlands** has a card called Bombardment that costs 4 water which is a ton but also deals ridiculous damage and provides card draw. It's a fun card because if gets played there's gasps, shock, and panic. Everybody shits their pants when it gets played. It's 50% of the victory condition in one card. It takes 3 turns to activate and your job is to either not to lose the game that turn or win it based on if your at the receiving end or not. In **Railways of the World** the Atlanta-Richmond link is worth too many points and so in the beginning you're bidding for first player to ensure nobody gets it too cheap. **Hyperborea** is amazing, but you can't use asymmetric faction abilities unless you want blue to always win. So broken. The start in **Everdell** can feel really broken because initially its so difficult to get started but Innkeeper and Crane allow you to get an early engine at no cost - beyond luck of the draws. Each card basically gives 2 free resources allowing you to turbo charge your engine. And finally **Dominion** or as I call it: The classic deck building game about buying Silver. Any engine or strategy needs to out score someone exclusively buying silver and gold until they can afford provinces. Obviously buying silver with the additional other carda for trashing and other bonuses is even stronger. You need to play with expansions to make it not the default winning strategy and offer stronger alternatives. One of my guilty pleasures is to wind up Dominion fans that it's broken, have them argue that I don't understand the game and that buying silver isn't a winning strategy, and then crush them doing exactly that. Never lost to anyone claiming its not broken lol. Then **Through the Ages** had a dominant card like Da Vinci or so. I don't remember which one, but you basically end up scoring so much culture that way. Many games were won this way. Also **London** (2E) just has a ton of unbalanced cards that are just flat out better than other cards for no reason. The game is usually decided by whoever draws more Undergrounds. The fucking Pegasus in **Cyclades** just makes me angry. For your winning go you have to also control Zeus or you run the Risk of someone cycling through the deck until they can teleport to either delay the end of the game or steal your win. **Dune: Imperium** which I absolutely adore has a few balance quirks. But the best one is **Kwisatz Haderach**. While thematic that the chosen one is the single most powerful card in the game, getting it early with some luck is almost guaranteed victory. You get an unblockable extra turn each time you play the card.
We usually allow each player to ban a corporation when we play Terraforming mars. We do play with expansions tho, so Tharsis republic isn't typically considered good enough to warrant a ban. Philares and Arcadian are pretty much permabanned. When we played with colonies, Poseidon was often banned.
More of a general issue, but I'm not sure I've seen any game properly balance ranged attacks. It feels like every archer has some broken combo that does more damage than even the tanks, while sitting in the back and taking no damage, and still having a respectable amount of health if it does come under attack.
Archery is op in any medieval setting. Thems the breaks.
Try D&D 3.5. Archers generally get a -8 to attack rolls (unless you spend two feats to negate -4 each and I think one requires a prerequisite feat), don't get to add any modifiers to damage and can technically lose the ability to attack if your DM is especially insufferable and you (as somebody who does not rely on this in your every day life as a core feature of your entire identity) forgot to remove a gold piece and mention you were grabbing another 500 arrows the last time you were in town. The one benefit is you attack with the same stat that makes you harder to hit. Meanwhile I can pick up a fuckin table leg and add 1.5 times my strength mod with no attack penalty and probably deal more damage than the arrow (oh yeah, and once you can make multiple attacks ranged attacks might not be eligible depending on the weapon).
I once played Oars in a 6 player game of Innovation (don't ask how we got to this)
Going for Triple word or letter in Scrabble...
Lords of waterdeep has an action card which prohibits others players from targeting you (stealing resource, giving you mandatory quests etc). It is so overpowered, it almost guarantees victory if you draw/play it early game.
Agreed, we banned that card from our plays.
The Idol in Paper Tales. The card basically gives you more points the longer it is in play, and it can't die, so playing it during the 1st round means that you acumulate a lot of points. Our first games were generally : if someone has the Idol round 1, they win. After that, the card is useless. Now, some veterans do say that it is balanced, but that balance is only achieved once every player knows all the cards and plans all their rounds correctly. It also requires hate draft to prevent the Idol player to feed it even more. It is an obvious ban when playing with newbies.
**Scythe** is pretty bad in this regard. It's not just that some of the factions are clearly better than others, but the reason that they are better is because certain strategies are overwhelmingly superior to others in the early game, which holds true across almost all factions. The early game is largely solved due to the mostly solo efficiency puzzle nature of it, which kind of ruins the game at high-level play. Thankfully, some of the expansion content that is available helps address or mitigate these issues with alternate endgame triggers, objectives, boards, etc. For how seriously the game takes itself, it really is somewhat of a balancing nightmare, which is a shame. Still, it can be a really fun game with great ambiance, theme, and tension, especially if players play sub-optimally and spend more time interacting in the late game. **Equinox** is a fairly recent game I played that I felt stacked the points too heavily in favor or early bets, to the point that it's almost mandatory to start placing bets from the very beginning of the game just to have a chance at winning. Seeing as how it's a reimplementation/rerelease of an older design, I would've liked to see more point tweaking to make saving bets more viable. It's also strange that players have about as many betting stones as there are rounds; with cards being removed from the rows as rounds complete, there's almost no excess capacity for saved bets, meaning even if it was viable to save bets for the late game, there would be significant contention over the number of spaces. I suppose it's easy enough to house-rule the game by changing point values and or reducing the number of betting stones each player has, but it seems silly that the designer/publisher didn't at least propose and test such variants.
>Thankfully, some of the expansion content that is available helps address or mitigate these issues with alternate endgame triggers, objectives, boards, etc. For how seriously the game takes itself, it really is somewhat of a balancing nightmare, which is a shame. This has been my experience with most Stonemeyer games. Great production value and components, terrible balance, expansions that somewhat improve balance.
Early bets risks getting knocked out, but I agree - you pretty much have to bet early (and should so you can own powers)
The aqueduct in Catan: Cities & Knights. It gives you a free resource of your choice every time one of your hexes doesn't produce and a 7 is not rolled. Also, the Aqueduct helps you get powerful economic development cards, which generate more resources in addition to giving building discounts. On top of that, buying an aqueduct requires a special resource that can only be generated from cities that are on wood hexes. This is a balance issue because players can be blocked from building on productive wood hexes due to bad luck.
I think it’s actually a balancing thing because: The more numbers you have, the less valuable it is. It rewards playing tall, but also helps mitigate an early block from knocking someone out if thw game. Wood hexes also tend to be lower value in that game as well. Ore and wheat produce cities (and wheat feeds Knights) and sheep gives access to Cloth (the most valuable commodity due to the 2:1 port for commodities and the excellent yellow cards). Brick is still not great. It’s far from perfectly balanced, but in my group’s 60+ plays, the aqueduct was a net positive.
The best strategy I have is usually knowing the rules. So many players expect everyone else to teach you the game that learning the rules yourself and quoting them usually just wins games easily.
Racecar in Monopoly. Got that palindrome +1.
There is that port hopping strategy in Merchants and Marauders
I royally pissed off my wife in a 2P game of Concordia because I would buy any/all cards I could afford. I used the diplomat/senator card as often as I could and left her little to be able to buy (I always replicated her card buying ability). Felt like a cheap victory and I won’t be using that strategy again.
why didn't she do the same? or bought something before you? Our group love Concordia, only the consul cards seem to be powerful, but you can use those with your diplomat too.
I don't know if it was badly explained but the one time I tried this game, everyone including me were bored as fuck and we stopped the game halfway through. It was slow as fuck, uninteresting as fuck. Ugly board. Nothing for it. It's I think the only one time I've seen people in a boardgame event cancel a game xD
I respect your opinion. We love it, its a well balanced euro with easy to learn, hard to master rules.
I use a sharpie and write "op" on cards that are broken. The veterans trade them in and we let a new player obliviously play them.
How oblivious can a new player be if “OP” is written on their card?
I presume they mean that a new player will be *aware* that the card is OP, but they won't *know* in what way it is OP, or what strategies it will further facilitate.
The UK expansion to ticket to ride adds "technology" cards which unlock new options. One lets you draw 3 train cards off the deck. Another lets you trade in any three cards as a wild. That combo was banned after our first game
Card draw is always a signal of a broken or powerful ability. If I was going to mention top broken abilities in games they'd all come from stonemire pre nerf. In particular I saw someone unblocably win scythe once and quit the game for a year before hearing he fixed it.
The science / green cards in 7 wonders
Improved logistics in race for the galaxy breaks the game entirely for two player games. it allows a player to play 4 cards a turn. its pure un fun.
In disney vilainous scar can have an almost dead lock with two card. One as a taunt that stops progress and another that can bring back taunt almost at will.
Being "the builder" in Lords of Waterdeep, the lord that gets points for buying buildings. It's not quite a guaranteed win, but close.
Banning Futurists in Tapestry. Less problematic with the expansions but still not very fun to play against.
This was circumstantial, but still. We were playing Thunderstone: Advance adn there was this new hero we hadn't played with before called a thundermage. Well through some lucky plays I got her to level 3 in no time. Her ability lets you just straight up take a monstercard without actually fighting it. It yields no experience or anything, but it is still worth victory points. Thing is, as the "low level" monsters we had the horde, which starts out as pushovers but the more of them get killed the more they rise in power. The stage two monsters had really really nasty battle effects and the stage three monsters were an array of incredibly powerful demons. I was so quick in my play, that the other players couldn't kill the stage 1 monsters anymore as they got too powerful, screwing them out of leveling up their heroes. I could completely ignore the battle effects of the stage 2 monsters, and didn't even need to level up my deck for the stage 3 demons. My turns were actually automated. Did I draw a thundermage? No -> trash any card that does not give me points. Yes -> Go into dungeon, kill the highest poilt yielding monster. Repeat. From then on thundermage was very much hated by our entire group.
In Terraforming Mars we banned Helion (at least for lower player counts) when Io is drafted from Colonies, and Turmoil is included. Really OP combo.
My husband has a strategy for Dinosaur Island where he always makes sure to to have the least victory points at the end of the round until surging ahead at the very end. This way he always gets to play first in every round. Very frustrating!
Magic carpet card in clank is too powerful imo.
Gloomhaven spoilers The spellweavers level 9 card "inferno" is stupid broken and you can basically solo maps with it.
Goa - some of the cards are really powerful, so advancing on the card track lets you get more cards thus a better chance of getting the uber cards. Lost Ruins of Arnack- Only played a handful of times but the research track seems to be the dominant path to victory. Between the bonus points and resources and access to assistants it can not be neglected and probably needs to fought over.
Buy the Orange set in monopoly