Who said anything about smorcing? I said that in plenty of matchups you win by playing for tempo, not relying on the combo. For example vs Aggro druid, Quest Warrior and Face hunter among others.
let’s skip the ‘‘I right you wrong’’ useless banter and go straight to the point. Do you think Garrotte rogue is a tempo deck?
I have been playing trading card games competitively off and on for over two decades, and I still don’t have anything resembling a coherent definition in mind when I hear the term “tempo.”
Pretty much just means “hipster midrange” to me.
Tempo is basically playing where you constantly have advantage the entire game.
You set a tempo, a speed, and you keep it going. Think of it as momentum. You gain it, always have it, and don’t lose it. You keep applying pressure and they can’t stop it.
So, for example, Opponent plays a minion, you drop a 3/3 minion that kills that minion. Now you have board control. Opponent tries to answer with their minion, you eliminate it and you keep going adding more and more momentum on your side. It’s basically how Rogue plays.
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I perhaps should have clarified that I understand tempo in terms of game state, just not archetype. Obviously, every deck has to consider tempo — if you just give up board control you take damage and quickly die. But even though every deck fights for tempo, only some archetypes are called tempo decks. To me that description of yours said nothing, because if I’m playing literally any aggro deck ever, for instance Aggro Druid, I need to hold onto the board long enough to set up lethal. How is EVERY deck, or at least every non-control deck, not a tempo deck by your definition?
Because a tempo deck will usually combine removal with threats.
So an aggro deck just dumps threats and hopes you can’t deal with it. It generally isn’t reacting to you, it forces you to react to it. Example: Here’s my board full of 1/1’s coming at you extremely early in the game hoping you can’t stop me.
A tempo deck will react to your threats usually at the same time it is putting down its own threats, usually with a card or combo that does both to create swing and momentum. Example: I eliminate your minion with my SI:7 Agent. I swung the tempo to my side and now have board control. You play something else on your turn, I will eliminate it and replace it with something of mine to maintain momentum.
A control deck generally reacts to the opponent and then later on puts out its own minions that you can’t deal with. I often say this is a “I deal with your deck, now you deal with mine”. Example: Opponent just spit out a board full of 1/1’s. I play condemn and eliminate. Now I let you try again. I answer that. Now I let you try again. I answer that. Finally after you aren’t a threat anymore, I play my style and see if you can deal with that.
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Well you were comparing it to a control deck earlier in the thread. Garrotte Rogue is a combo deck but it doesn’t rely entirely on the full combo to score wins. The key to be successful with the deck is to know when you have to play straight tempo. I consider it to be a tempo/combo hybrid.
Right, that’s how I see it as well. It’s basically a combo deck that is looking to stall the game out until it hits its combo. At the same time, it’s capable of winning the same way a tempo deck does because of its removal and cheap minion plays.
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I think what you said falls apart very shortly after “hopes you can’t deal with it.” I mean, let’s say I play a Vibrant Squirrel turn 1 with Aggro Druid, then your play is Cult Neophyte. I could just go face with Squirrel, but then you’d get to trade with the Bonechewer I’m playing, so I trade in. Or to put it another way, I’m reacting to you now. Furthermore, although I know no such card exists, it’s the same as if I played a card that said “deal 2 damage to a minion, shuffle some Acorns in your deck, transform Squirrel into Bonechewer Brawler.” Aggro in practice is very often playing cards, trading, then playing more cards, and it’s completely irrelevant if the opponent’s threats are handled by what you played this turn or by what you played last turn, what matters is board state and Health totals end of turn.
I mean, if you want to get technical about it, trading or going face isn’t aggro v tempo, it’s aggro v control. If you’re the control you want to trade, if you’re the aggro you want to go face, but certain game states can make you want to flip to control real quick then back to aggro again or vice versa.
Now, one thing I have recently been reminded of is that flexible damage is, well, flexible. For instance, that SI:7 Agent’s “Battlecry” (I use the term loosely) can either go to a minion, or go face. When playing Odd Hunter in Wild, after getting the first Quest complete, the Hero Power can go to a minion, or it can go face. That flexibility can feel very different from typical Midrange because you can be more aggressive than most Midrange, if you need to be, and you can also be more controlling than most Midrange. I haven’t felt that a lot in Hearthstone but it gave me good RDW vibes from Back in the Day ™ playing Magic the Gathering. That deck was commonly referred to simply as “burn” but the folks I thought had the big brains called it “aggro-control” which is kinda like calling something “dry wet” but given the flexibility it still kinda made sense.
Now I’m not saying, for sure, that Garrote Rogue is or isn’t “aggro-control” but that’s because I know it’s a high skillcap deck. What I do know is that when I look at it, I can’t see how it can do the aggro part of that flexibility AT ALL.
I agree on that. I understand my comparison with control may be too far fetched, but in some matchup you have to ‘‘control the board’’ by using minions like prize plunderer, brain freeze, etc etc. While its not your typical rez priest, the first part of the gameplan include stalling the board.
I think I’d classify it as a ‘‘flexible’’ combo deck with some tempo component to it and some control as well (stalling, pushing for late game wincon).
De gustibus non est disputandum is a rule of debate and has been for a very long time. You can say control is more fun and you are correct and I can say it sucks and I am correct because it’s a preference. Arguing about preferences is bad form and silly.
You still missed my point, lol. That isn’t what I said at all. I said people like you hide behind “I make my own decks for fun” to explain away how actually bad they are and how poor their decks are made. Plenty of people play for fun and make their own decks and rank legend… they don’t say “well I am in bronze because I make my own decks” as some badge of honor.
Lol… I played an N’zoth druid mostly yesterday. It’s pretty fun to ramp and snowball and shock people who aren’t expecting you to start dropping 9 and 10 cost taunts. It’s decidedly not meta and actually isn’t even listed on HSreplay stats.
Sure, things like does coffee taste better than tea, are burgers better than pizza, is connect four more fun than jenga, etc. Those are things we can’t debate.
Cheers, mate! Have a lovely day!
Tempo decks generally feel like every turn is efficient, you are always able to use all your mana, and don’t have issues withdrawing cards. I played a tempo rogue from Asmodai for a few months straight several expansions ago & it’s pretty fun. If you grab a tempo deck off hearthpown and mess around with it you’ll see the difference in how it plays.
Because most sensible people that do that will point out that there are “smart” control AND aggro decks. Similarly to how there are both control AND aggro decks that play themselves.
In short, how hard a deck is to pilot is irrelevant to its speed.
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Errr that’s not what “aggro-control” is at all.
Aggro-control means a deck that develops early aggro threats (aggro part) usually in the form of scaling 1-2 drops, and then spends the rest of its turns protecting those threats through control and disruption (control part of the deck).
Those decks, in mtg, are also the ones labelled as “tempo” decks.
And that’s why one of the very few such HS decks, old tempo mage (that relied on mana wyrms and protected those as much as it could with freezes, and counterspell, and minion removal before closing with a bit of burn in the face) was named as such (tempo mage).
Since then, in hs, what is called “tempo deck” has changed. But, similarly to how “zoolock” was named, old initial names were taken from mtg etymology.
Whatever. None of that has strategic relevance.
What is important is whether you’re the aggro or the control in any particular matchup.
Let’s not forget Odd Hunter. And (IMO) pirate hunter. Wild is braindead because of it.
Could throw mage ignite in there possibly too.
I took Odd Hunter to legend this month. It wasn’t braindead on my end, there actually is some decision-making that will make the difference between, say, losing to Reno or not losing to Reno, or when to pivot from control to face against Pirate Warrior.
It’s just kinda overpowered, especially if you think occasionally. Different concept from skill cap.
I built Ignite Mage too but my phone is cheap so I gave up. Roping myself on animations.
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Yeah I feel like tempo through misunderstandings of what it really is has come to mean many different things. So to give an example of what I believed the first initial tempo meaning came from was it was typically decks that while they could play 1 thing in a turn, they often held it back for the turn after to be more synergistic or so they could board wipe or you play something that gives you some advantage in hand that is held back for later or play it there and then depending like a mana biscuit. Take for instance early days of secret mage, often I had a 2 drop and I wouldn’t play it if I was planning to flame ward the next, so the idea of tempo is that you are choosing how much power to put down on each turn, you don’t necessarily play turn 1 kabal lackey because as tempo dictates it’s often better to play it later and chain some card that needs a secret in play for it to be of full effect, you could play it on turn 3 or 6 for synergies. Secret mage now I feel is not really tempo as much as it was, I would call it an aggro-midrange with some disrupt tools depending on how you build it. Rigged fair game for instance has made it so that turn 1 kabal lackey is pretty much the golden T1 play and given that extra draw you’re holding back cards a lot less often now, it’s no longer a battle for value and essentially that is usually a lot of the time when tempo shined, in sustain battles.
I think to some extent most tempo decks really are the last example of a deck that plays every turn efficiently, they often pack heavy combo elements. Unless I’m heavily mistaken as there are several people on the forum here who seem to think that is what tempo means, but I have been playing TCG’s for over 20 years now.
There is some decision making perhaps, but overall I still believe it’s fairly braindead with how little interaction is needed for it. I’m roping every odd questline hunter I fight, and happy doing it so that no one else has to fight these players.