Combolands Guild Tier List (Community Vote)
Two rankings, two different questions. This tier list is the community one: it tallies the best/worst votes in the launch-week Best & Worst Guild thread on Steam, where 15 players argued it out between 2026-08-28 and 2026-08-30. It is opinion, and small — read it as where experienced players were leaning in week one, not as solved theory. For the hard-numbers view, the ranks page and the guild pages carry the Steam global achievement rates instead.
S Tier
| Name | Role | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Maritime | Self-sufficient scorer | Highest best-guild tally in the thread at 4.5 votes and zero worst votes. The recurring word is consistent: "a very consistent gameplan no matter what partner". Also the lowest victory-achievement rate of the seven at 19.7%, because it unlocks late. |
| Commercial | Gold engine | 3.5 best votes against 1 worst. Early gold via Gold Pan and Vineyard funds the shop, and the Marketplace loop is the single most-cited blowup: "2 marketplaces connected with rainbow paint on them will trigger x10 every turn". |
A Tier
| Name | Role | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Martial | Enabler / demolish access | The most split guild after Frontier: 1.5 best and roughly 2.5 worst votes, but the defence is specific — "probably the strongest just for how good it is at enabling other buildings (and very consistent access to demolish)". Weak alone, strong as a partner. |
| Industrial | Multiplier ramp | 1 best vote, no worst votes. "One of the easiest to get massive multipliers going on". |
| Civic | Plot growth | No best or worst votes of its own, but named inside one player's top tier alongside Agriculture and Industry. Its Tax Collector reset is the mechanic to learn first. |
B Tier
| Name | Role | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural | Enabler with transforms | 2 worst votes, no clean best votes — yet also the loudest defence in the thread: "I am constantly shocked at how low people see agriculture given how strong it is, can very easily win even without the 2nd guild with agriculture on Regent". Highest victory-achievement rate at 73.9%, because it is available early. |
| Frontier | Reroll engine | The thread's own tally-keeper summarised it as "emerging as the least popular, now having half of the worst place votes to itself" — 4 worst votes against 0.5 best. The dissent is that it needs the right rares: "a nothing burger till getting right trinkets (or two rares, a Grove and a Shaman, which just trigger each other)". |
Unlocked Tier
| Name | Role | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Rogues | Secret guild — triggers and money | Not in the vote because it is not one of the 21 pickable pairings. The guide that documented its unlock calls it "the most powerful guild in this game", and endless-mode players credit Rogue Hideouts for runaway xmult. One player's endless pick: "for a push into endless best: Rogue". |
| Arcane | Secret guild — unusual effects | Also outside the vote. Described by the same guide as "overall powerful but not as much as the rogues guild does". |
Vote tally re-read:
The other ranking: how often each guild actually wins
Every guild has its own Steam victory achievement, so there is a second, colder ranking sitting in public — the share of owners who hold it. It disagrees with the vote almost perfectly, and that is the point: guilds unlock in sequence, so this column measures availability much more than it measures power. Maritime is last here and first in the vote.
| Guild | Owners who have won with it | Community vote position |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural | 73.9% | B tier |
| Frontier | 72.6% | B tier |
| Martial | 56.8% | A tier |
| Commercial | 35.9% | S tier |
| Civic | 30.6% | A tier |
| Industrial | 26.5% | A tier |
| Maritime | 19.7% | S tier |
How to read a week-one tier list
Fifteen people arguing on a discussion board is not a solved metagame. Two of them explicitly refused to commit — one wrote "honestly i think they can all be strong", and the player who has the all-combinations achievement answered that "every guild and every combination of guilds can win", before admitting they still would not press random for money. Treat the S tier as "reliable while you are learning", not as a list of correct answers.
If you want the mechanical reasons behind each placement, the guilds page has each guild's scoring loop and named buildings, and the 21 combinations table covers pairings rather than single guilds.