From my own observations, the way it’s sorta supposed to work is: aggro beats combo/OTK, control beats aggro, OTK/combo beats control.
Now i know that in practice, control has often done poorly throughout hearthstone’s history, so aggro has often held the upper hand against control, and there have been a lot of combos and OTKs that go off around turn 5 or 6, thus defeating aggro quite frequently. But as a rule of thumb, would the above rule be approximately what the designers are going for?
That one is simple by a card game perspective.
You want it to exist but not enforced very hard. Basically in an ideal cardgame rock gonna have around 55% to 65% chance of beating scissors depending on the meta.
It not always look like that and my explanation was very oversimplified but it’s better to be too basic than not deliver a meaningfull answer.
You’re pretty much right.
Generally, it goes like this:
Aggro is a proactive deck that is looking to defeat a deck that is wants to actively do something later.
Control is a reactive deck that is looking to defeat a deck that is trying to actively do something.
Combo is a proactive deck that is looking to defeat a deck that isn’t doing something sooner.
So, Aggro counters Combo because Combo is setting up for something later. Control counters Aggro because it is reacting to what Aggro is doing. Combo counters Control because Control is a reactive deck and Combo doesn’t allow for reaction.