diff --git a/configs/gemma-3-27b-it.yaml b/configs/gemma-3-27b-it.yaml
index 9d4bcee..01654ba 100644
--- a/configs/gemma-3-27b-it.yaml
+++ b/configs/gemma-3-27b-it.yaml
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ compute_overrep_words: true
 top_k_words_for_overrep_analysis: 200000
 
 # --- Quotas for Adding Over-represented Words to Slop Phrase Ban List ---
-dict_overrep_initial: 880       # How many of the top over-represented dictionary words to
+dict_overrep_initial: 2000       # How many of the top over-represented dictionary words to
                                 # ban in the first antislop iteration.
                                 # "Dictionary" means the words were also found in the human
                                 # writing corpus.
diff --git a/core/analysis.py b/core/analysis.py
index f6eadcb..4c0766f 100644
--- a/core/analysis.py
+++ b/core/analysis.py
@@ -223,6 +223,9 @@ def update_banned_slop_phrases(
         except Exception:
             pass
 
+    # Track original size for logging
+    original_size = len(existing)
+
     # keep requested quota only
     cand_phrases = cand_phrases[:how_many_new]
     if over_represented_words:
@@ -230,10 +233,15 @@ def update_banned_slop_phrases(
             if w not in whitelist:
                 existing.add(w)
 
+    # Re-add extra_slop_phrases_to_ban from config (matches behavior of update_banned_ngrams_list)
+    for phrase in config.get('extra_slop_phrases_to_ban', []):
+        if phrase and not is_whitelisted(phrase):
+            existing.add(phrase)
+
     merged = sorted((existing | set(cand_phrases)) - whitelist)
     json_path.write_text(json.dumps([[p, 1] for p in merged], indent=2, ensure_ascii=False), "utf-8")
     logger.info(f"🚫 Slop-phrase ban list now {len(merged)} entries "
-                f"(+{len(merged)-len(existing)} this iter)")
+                f"(+{len(merged)-original_size} this iter)")
 
 
 # --- N-Gram Analysis ---
diff --git a/core/orchestration.py b/core/orchestration.py
index 16b063e..20c4997 100644
--- a/core/orchestration.py
+++ b/core/orchestration.py
@@ -318,18 +318,18 @@ def orchestrate_pipeline(config: Dict[str, Any], experiment_dir: Path, resume_mo
             if not _p.exists():
                 _p.write_text("[]", encoding="utf-8")        # write an empty JSON array
 
-        # --- Merge user-defined bans from config (on initial run) ---
+        # --- Merge user-defined bans from config (always, not just on initial run) ---
         # This ensures extra_ngrams_to_ban and extra_slop_phrases_to_ban are included
-        # from the start, not just when resuming.
-        if not resume_mode:
-            if config['enable_ngram_ban'] and config.get('extra_ngrams_to_ban'):
-                merge_custom_bans_into_file(banned_ngrams_json_path,
-                                            config['extra_ngrams_to_ban'])
-                logger.info(f"📝 Merged {len(config['extra_ngrams_to_ban'])} user-defined n-grams into {banned_ngrams_json_path.name}")
-            if config['enable_slop_phrase_ban'] and config.get('extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'):
-                merge_custom_bans_into_file(banned_slop_phrases_json_path,
-                                            config['extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'])
-                logger.info(f"📝 Merged {len(config['extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'])} user-defined slop phrases into {banned_slop_phrases_json_path.name}")
+        # before any iteration starts, regardless of resume mode.
+        # This is idempotent since merge_custom_bans_into_file uses set union.
+        if config['enable_ngram_ban'] and config.get('extra_ngrams_to_ban'):
+            merge_custom_bans_into_file(banned_ngrams_json_path,
+                                        config['extra_ngrams_to_ban'])
+            logger.info(f"📝 Merged {len(config['extra_ngrams_to_ban'])} user-defined n-grams into {banned_ngrams_json_path.name}")
+        if config['enable_slop_phrase_ban'] and config.get('extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'):
+            merge_custom_bans_into_file(banned_slop_phrases_json_path,
+                                        config['extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'])
+            logger.info(f"📝 Merged {len(config['extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'])} user-defined slop phrases into {banned_slop_phrases_json_path.name}")
 
 
         # --- Regex Blocklist (user-supplied, written once if provided, used from iter 1+) ---
@@ -445,16 +445,6 @@ def orchestrate_pipeline(config: Dict[str, Any], experiment_dir: Path, resume_mo
                     if user_regex_blocklist_file and user_regex_blocklist_file.exists(): # User-defined regex
                         regex_file_for_generation = user_regex_blocklist_file
 
-                    # If we are resuming and this is the first iteration after the resume,
-                    # force-merge any new YAML bans into the existing files *before* generation.
-                    if resume_mode and iter_idx == start_iter_idx:
-                        if config['enable_ngram_ban'] and config.get('extra_ngrams_to_ban'):
-                            merge_custom_bans_into_file(banned_ngrams_json_path,
-                                                        config['extra_ngrams_to_ban'])
-                        if config['enable_slop_phrase_ban'] and config.get('extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'):
-                            merge_custom_bans_into_file(banned_slop_phrases_json_path,
-                                                        config['extra_slop_phrases_to_ban'])
-                            
                     _copy_if_exists(ngram_file_for_generation,
                                     iter_analysis_dir / "banned_ngrams_used.json")
                     _copy_if_exists(slop_file_for_generation,