Can someone explain aggro to me?

[RedSpade-1307]

A win is a win if the game recognizes it, no matter how it has been achieved.

[Bob-2923]

Aggro = hit face, only bother with enemy creatures if 1 They stop you hitting face or 2 They can kill you.

Simples!

Aggro decks are my favourite decks because games are quick, win or lose. You collect rewards faster.

Control decks are anti-fun, boring as hell and waste your precious limited time on this planet.

[Beaky-1601]

@SquidLips-1655

Yeah, this is a real winning post right here. Just start it out as insulting as possible.

Perhaps I should open by questioning someone else’s mental faculties or attempting to manufacture a reply to a post that I blatantly did not read? You are choosing the wrong thread to get up on your high horse.

@SquidLips-1655

This is the most baseless argument I have ever seen. I get why you might think that, but it doesn’t actually work out if you really think about it. I already covered it in a previous post. Here is an example instead, Pirate Warrior was a high power, low skill deck. People easily climbed to legend with it because it tore apart basically every other deck and took little to no skill to pilot. It was so bad that it actually coined the derogatory term, “Pirate Warrior Legend” to mock the people who only got to legend because Pirate Warrior is so easy to play, rather than their own skill. It is no coincidence that Pirate Warrior is also one of the most aggressive decks in the history of Hearthstone

Pirate Warrior, along with Agro Token Druid, Jade Druid and Murloc Paladin, were overpowered. They will naturally perform better at all levels of play.

This may be a little advanced, but the issue isn’t how deck A performs relative to deck B, the issue is how deck A at rank 20 performs relative to deck A in top 5 legend.

Again, I have also addressed that you referencing skill floor. Again, I welcome you to argue for agro or control having a low or high skill floor, as I have no opinion one way or another as I have not had the chance to experience that level of play in a long time.

@SquidLips-1655

Quest Rogue was about as easy as Pirate Warrior, maybe slightly less. It is the only deck I know of where you can make huge mistakes, mess up your own combo, and still somehow have an overwhelming victory. I also have no idea which “OTK Priest” you are referring to considering there have been many of those in the past.

I refer you to the skill floor/skill ceiling discussion from earlier. Quest Rogue had huge potential for complex and nuanced combos, allowing top players to maintain near 70% win rates in top 10 legend, a rank where, I remind you, the best of the best are playing nothing but the best decks tailored to their opponents.

There has not been a higher skill cap deck at that level of competition since Patron Warrior.

OTK Priest you can pretty much take your pick - Valen, Inner Fire, APM, Highlander, etc. all saw significantly inflated performance towards the top end of play.

@SquidLips-1655

Except you yourself listed Patron Warrior, which is a control deck and widely regarded as one of the highest skill decks of all time.

Control Warrior is a control deck. Patron Warrior is a combo deck. It drew fast and OTK’d its opponent. It had huge armour gain and solid removal, sure, but it had no intention of playing the fatigue game, outside of maybe a Freeze Mage match-up. Don’t argue decks you don’t understand.

@SquidLips-1655

Take your own advice. Is it clear enough that I read your original post in this thread?

Yes. It should go without saying that I expect you do this for all future posts of mine that you intend to reply to. Thank you.

[Mugwump-1573]

@Nizzler-2634

Can an aggro player please explain to me why you like playing the game like this? I honestly dont get it at all.

Netdecking wins for gold, better ranks, and a golden hero portrait. I agree it’s boring, but whenever aggro is meta for a class that I’m not golden with yet, I play it to net lots of wins and gold. So far, I’ve done it with Mage (Burn), Warlock (Zoo) and Paladin (Odd).

[Mikey-12989]

Emphasis on ZERO thinking. Its ironic that both the OTK meta we just suffered through and this hand barf meta that we have now have something in common: No skill or thought to pilot the most powerful decks. None. Nadda. Zippo.

Its great for bad players though so I guess thats a silver lining of sorts.

[Wardrum-1200]

Explain Aggro?

It hits the face and scores the win, or else it gets the hose again.

[SquidLips-1655]

@Beaky-1601

Perhaps I should open by questioning someone else’s mental faculties or attempting to manufacture a reply to a post that I blatantly did not read? You are choosing the wrong thread to get up on your high horse.

No, you really shouldn’t. The whole point is that you can give feedback and constructively argue with someone without including personal insults. There is no such thing as a right or wrong thread to call out trolling.

@Beaky-1601

Pirate Warrior, along with Agro Token Druid, Jade Druid and Murloc Paladin, were overpowered. They will naturally perform better at all levels of play.

Thanks for conceding that these aggro decks were overpowered

@Beaky-1601

This may be a little advanced, but the issue isn’t how deck A performs relative to deck B, the issue is how deck A at rank 20 performs relative to deck A in top 5 legend.

No, it’s not. That would never be a debate that anyone would ever participate in, it doesn’t even make sense. Decks are very obviously going to perform differently at different ranks for a wide variety of reasons. One reason is meta. I don’t care how skilled you are at using rock, you are going to lose in a meta full of paper.

@Beaky-1601

Again, I have also addressed that you referencing skill floor. Again, I welcome you to argue for agro or control having a low or high skill floor, as I have no opinion one way or another as I have not had the chance to experience that level of play in a long time.

Skill floor applies at all levels of play, even you allegedly high level. You could also think of it as a deck’s consistency, which is valued even at the legend rank. When you talk about the skill of playing a deck, skill ceiling and skill floor are the two halves of what you are talking about, you can’t just ignore one.

@Beaky-1601

I refer you to the skill floor/skill ceiling discussion from earlier. Quest Rogue had huge potential for complex and nuanced combos, allowing top players to maintain near 70% win rates in top 10 legend, a rank where, I remind you, the best of the best are playing nothing but the best decks tailored to their opponents.

Yeah, very nuanced combos for a high skill ceiling. It also had an absurd amount of forgiveness giving it a high skill floor. Like I said, I’ve seen people one minion to completion manage to lose all their remaining copies, complete the quest with another minion, and still win the game. The deck was so effective, it didn’t really matter how you played it because you would inevitably have more 5/5’s than your opponent could ever hope to deal with.

High skill ceiling, but also low skill floor.

@Beaky-1601

Control Warrior is a control deck.

Nice observation…

@Beaky-1601

Patron Warrior is a combo deck. It drew fast and OTK’d its opponent. It had huge armour gain and solid removal, sure, but it had no intention of playing the fatigue game, outside of maybe a Freeze Mage match-up. Don’t argue decks you don’t understand.

First of all, cut the elitist crap. Control doesn’t mean literally trying to go to fatigue. Especially in modern Hearthstone, a control deck should have some other form of win condition. This condition is usually a combo, considering those don’t take up too much space in a deck typically.

@Beaky-1601

Yes. It should go without saying that I expect you do this for all future posts of mine that you intend to reply to. Thank you.

In your dreams. It’s clear to me by now that you are nothing but an infuriating troll

[Wardrum-1200]

Furiously munching popcorn

[ilikeeggs-1243]

@SquidLips-1655

Skill floor applies at all levels of play, even you allegedly high level. You could also think of it as a deck’s consistency, which is valued even at the legend rank. When you talk about the skill of playing a deck, skill ceiling and skill floor are the two halves of what you are talking about, you can’t just ignore one.

It is not a deck’s consistency; it is the minimum level of skill required to achieve some level of success with the deck (this isn’t strictly defined, but let’s just call it ranks 10-15).

It is heavily related to a deck’s consistency, but the two are not synonymous. You can have inconsistent decks with a low skill floor and fairly consistent decks that still somehow have a high skill floor.

@SquidLips-1655

Yeah, very nuanced combos for a high skill ceiling. It also had an absurd amount of forgiveness giving it a high skill floor. Like I said, I’ve seen people one minion to completion manage to lose all their remaining copies, complete the quest with another minion, and

Quest Rogue absolutely had a low skill floor. This is true of most combo decks with “inevitability”, because at low ranks people just don’t know how to close out games as well.

But if we are talking about actually measuring skill level, I don’t think it makes as much sense to include “skill floor” in the discussion, because in all but the rarest cases it just doesn’t apply in the “competitive” sector of the game. (We certainly can discuss it, but I don’t think it’s the most natural topic to focus on to answer the original question).

In terms of actually succeeding with the deck at high levels, and especially in terms of playing optimally, Quest Rogue was near the top (of that metagame), if not at the top, in terms of difficulty.

Yes, the skewed matchup spread could obscure that fact (if a deck has exceptionally easy/hard matchups, the skill factor gets blurred), but the above was still fairly evident when you considered Quest Rogue against the entire field.

@SquidLips-1655

Control doesn’t mean literally trying to go to fatigue. Especially in modern Hearthstone, a control deck should have some other form of win condition. This condition is usually a combo, considering those don’t take up too much space in a deck typically.

The above is all true. But, in terms of Patron Warrior, the majority (at least) of pre-nerf iterations were definitely not “control” decks. They played nothing like that. Usually no Brawls, or Shield Slams. Only control elements were Execute, Whirlwind, Unstable Ghoul, and Armorsmith. These are all combo pieces as well as defensive tools. The entire deck’s playstyle just screams “combo”, and it doesn’t play like any “combo-control” decks that I can think of.

@SquidLips-1655

No, it’s not. That would never be a debate that anyone would ever participate in, it doesn’t even make sense. Decks are very obviously going to perform differently at different ranks for a wide variety of reasons. One reason is meta. I don’t care how skilled you are at using rock, you are going to lose in a meta full of paper.

I think it’s a very reasonable debate. I am hesitant to use that type of evidence universally, because as you said, the metagame change can easily account for a 2-percentage-point difference.

But also, change in metagame and change in skill requirements are the only 2 factors that I can think of which would result in a change in win rate. So if the metagame looks roughly the same at ranks 1-4 as at ranks 10-15, and deck A performs worse at higher ranks, it makes sense to call out the possibility that the deck has a lower skill ceiling.

(This is still risky in my opinion, because it could just as easily mean the deck is easier to mitigate/play against, rather than being easier to play optimally. These are 2 different things. For example, Token Druid still takes a lot of skill to optimally pilot, but really good players are well aware of how to mitigate that strategy, which is part of the reason for the drop-off at legend, even though “teching” against the deck is less common.)

Still, if the performance of an entire archetype is universally higher at ranks 10-20 than ranks 1-5, it is a very real possibility. Midrange Hunter has long been an example of this, displaying higher win rates against lower competition. This was at least partly because the deck had few options for dynamic play: the optimal decision was usually the on-curve play. (This does not apply to the current iteration of Midrange Hunter, because the deck actually has card draw, combo pieces, and the ability to alternate between short and long game.)

[Vailnite-1351]

@Nizzler-2634

Can an aggro player please explain to me why you like playing the game like this? I honestly dont get it at all.

They get to win / experience success for a change. That’s why they play like that.

[dawgiestyle-1127]

I like Aggro and I will stomp you is the attitude you need.

[jawsofwar-1341]

Why do people assume aggro decks never trade?

You do make favorable trades to maximize your chances of winning.
You also have to know what spells and minions to play around as well.
Simply loading all your minions on the board will cause you to lose to control
most of the time. You have to make board clears as awkward as possible.

[Emrakul-11983]

Mojomaster heals Zoo

Class: Warlock

Format: Wild

2x (1) Fire Fly

2x (1) Flame Imp

1x (1) Glacial Shard

2x (1) Kobold Librarian

2x (1) Voidwalker

2x (1) Voodoo Doctor

2x (2) Darkbomb

2x (2) Gnomeferatu

1x (2) Vulgar Homunculus

2x (3) Fungal Enchanter

2x (3) Happy Ghoul

2x (4) Lesser Amethyst Spellstone

2x (4) Spellbreaker

1x (5) Leeroy Jenkins

1x (5) Loatheb

1x (5) Zilliax

1x (6) Mojomaster Zihi

2x (6) Siphon Soul

AAEBAfqUAwavBPoOl8EC8dACoIADwI8DDDCEAfIFwgjMCK0Q68ICrs0Cn84C8tACiNICh+gCAA==

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Because Heal Zoo is stupidly fun, that’s why. My question to you, is why haven’t you tried all of the archetypes in this game? You won’t have a complete understanding of the strategies this game has, if you don’t try a bit of every archetype.

[jawsofwar-1341]

Exactly sometimes the best thing is to play the deck that you are losing to.
Helps to better understand their weaknesses and strengths.

[Swift-11896]

@Nizzler-2634

why you like playing the game like this? I honestly dont get it at all.

Complete matches faster for ranking/gold portraits.

Completing quests.

Grinding XP for classes.

Pretty easy to figure out.

[Beaky-1601]

@SquidLips-1655

First of all, cut the elitist crap.

As ilikeeggs, as usual, provided a thorough and in-depth rebuttal, I just wanted to take a moment to remind you that you are the one attempting to tell people that they should not play a certain way because it does not fit the way you want the game to be played.

Elitist - You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[jawsofwar-1341]

Inconceivable

20 char

[SquidLips-1655]

Elitist - demonstrating a superior attitude or behavior associated with an elite.

@Beaky-1601

Don’t argue decks you don’t understand.

Acting all superior like you are so much better than me and everyone else. Acting like opinions of players with lower skill than yours do not matter and are totally invalid.

[Beaky-1601]

@SquidLips-1655

Acting all superior like you are so much better than me and everyone else. Acting like opinions of players with lower skill than yours do not matter and are totally invalid.

The observation, factual as it may be, that you do not understand Patron Warrior lead you to that conclusion? I’d hate to see what happened if I called you a temperamental debater.

Again, I would assume that a basic understanding of the topic you are trying to debate would be a requirement to be able to debate it.

[SquidLips-1655]

@Beaky-1601

The observation, factual as it may be, that you do not understand Patron Warrior lead you to that conclusion?

Still being snobby I see. Just because you claim something as fact does not make it true

@Beaky-1601

Again, I would assume that a basic understanding of the topic you are trying to debate would be a requirement to be able to debate it.

Then you completely fail to see the point. There are more levels of play than the top. By your own logic, you are utterly unqualified to talk about most levels of play, because you clearly lack a basic understanding of any level of play aside of your own.