I never understood this, I always thought aggro decks were for F2P or new players that dont really understand the game and dont want to put money into the game but want to have a deck that they can play on ladder. Why are these decks so strong when they should be designed for learning the basics/players who dont want to put money into the game.
This seems to limit the amount of fun and crazy decks on ladder because you cant run them because they die on turn 5-6.
I’ll start by saying I don’t think aggro is or should only be “designed for learning the basics/players who dont want to put money into the game.” There are expensive aggro decks out there (highlander hunter).
Aggro is typically easier to play. Even long term whales like easy sometimes. Control decks have to have different game plans depending on who you’re facing. Aggro is 90% “hit face.” Note: this is not to say that aggro decks are “brain dead.” That’s elitist crap.
Hearthstone doesn’t have as much interaction between both sides of the board as a lot of other games do. That makes it a lot harder to come back if you fall behind. That’s especially true for the classes that don’t have good board wipes.
Aggro sees a lot more play, which inflates the stats some.
Aggro is healthy for the game. Almost nobody wants a control meta.
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Aggro is not always strong. As I remember it, most metas during the Year of the Raven didn’t have aggro decks dominating the format. Sure, there were some strong decks, but for the most part these were balanced by very strong control/combo decks. And few people look back fondly to a Combostone meta filled with Gallery Priests and Togwaggle Druids.
Despite this, aggro does have a bit of an edge in the game because the game design favors the attacker. Offensive/proactive builds will generally perform better than defensive/reactive builds, which benefits aggro builds.
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Because the dev team don’t know what they’re doing from a balance perspective. 1) a lot of decks are designed to win past turn 5. In fact they printed an expansion revolving around 10 mana old gods 2) they decided to give aggro decks ridiculous card draw, which was suppose to be their weakness 3) they for some reason decided that little or no dedicated neutral anti-aggro cards should be in this rotation 4) demon hunter existing.
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The devs know exactly what they are doing. If they wanted to gut DH? They could. They could nerf a couple cards and the class would drop dramatically off the face of the earth. They’ve done it to other classes and decks.
The reason aggro is strong is because the balance of the game hinges on aggro.
We’ve seen what happens when aggro isn’t that prevalent and when combo isn’t able to handle the control decks that come out.
Warrior vs Warrior with double Elysiana hitting the turn cap. That was a horrific meta. Nobody wants that. Well I’m sure a few people do, but the majority do not.
Aggro being strong ensures quick games whether those are wins or losses for the aggro deck. It means control is kept in check. Which means combo isn’t as necessary. And there’s some tempo/midrange style decks that still are very good, like Shaman/Paladin.
Also the weird thing about anti-aggro cards is they sometimes just end up in the aggro decks anyway to protect their smaller stuff. Tar Creeper was used in Zoo for example.
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Is aggro even strong now? I don’t play standard so much these days but I’m Diamond 7 and everyone seems to be playing either value based Rogue or Evolve Shaman.
I did see one Face Hunter today
“Why is aggro always strong”
That’s like asking “why do scoring points win games” in most sports.
Sure, there may be an argument that having a strong defense matters too, but if both teams have strong defense, you can’t have the score be at 0-0 forever. Somehow there has to be a tie breaker (overtime, penalty shot, rematch, etc), and somebody has to have the offense to score at least 1 point over the other.
Whether it’s hitting enemy face or drawing into your wombo combo, rushing towards your win condition and then executive your winning plan first is almost always better than letting your enemy do it.
Even in a match between two control decks, speed still matters. If you have a guaranteed OTK, you want to rush to it faster than they can reach theirs. If you have a tech against their winning plans, you want to rush to it faster than they reach their winning plan. etc
Agreed; aggro doesn’t seem especially strong right now.
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An aggro deck can still beat a combo deck even if it has to do it on turn 6-7. There’s no reason aggro should have all the current card draw support and other goofy stuff like drawing and playing a secret for 0 mana combined with a lack of general tools to deal with it.
Yes it’s necessary to have but it’s way overtuned at the moment. When you combine the elements I listed any competent design team would recognize you’ll have the face deck dumpster fire meta in standard.
Combo is the counter to control, not aggro.
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dumb question compared to
“why is roping rewarded?”
What a baffling complaint to make in a meta nearly devoid of aggro… That’s partly why evolve Shaman gets away with not doing much until turn 5.
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Well this is wrong. Some aggro decks end up filling that niche because some of them (Hunter, Aggro DH) are quite easy to play, but that’s not meant to be their place in the meta.
Aggro decks are actually important to the competitive eco system to keep greedy long-term win cons in check.
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Some people (not me) consider evolve shaman to be aggro because it “hits you in the face hard.”
I’m sure they think pure Paladin and Soul DH were “aggro” too…
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The issue with that definition is that every deck hits you in the face hard. At some point. The way you win Hearthstone is your opponent’s hp reaching 0. Aggro decks are characterized by playing on a low curve and depleting your hp hard and fast, starting turn 1.
Why do the semantics matter? Well in this case, aggro is actually the counter to Evolve Shaman. Creating situations where they have to fight for board before turn 5 is usually how you beat them. Though I think from your comment you actually know that. But for anyone out there who thinks Evo Shaman is aggro, this is why it’s not.
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There are a few reasons.
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Lower cost cards are more efficient per mana spent at the expense that you run out of cards leading to #2.
IE getting 2 2/1’s is often better than 1 3/2 or 2/3. -
These decks have a lot of draw so they never run out of cards playing their more mana efficient cards.
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The game heavily favors tempo with tempo you snowball and gain exponential power per card played as you get more and better options to trade up or 2+ for 1 while if you are behind you often trade even or down.
My opponent played CARDS!?!?
How aggro does this game get.
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They might not be “aggro”, but they’re face decks.
Soul DH is a face deck. It’s just that it’s a face deck that applies board answers while hitting face, rather than a traditional face deck like the DoD Face Hunter (I wouldn’t consider the current aggressive Hunter decks face decks in the same sense) which fills the board with minions that must be answered.
Pure Paladin is another deck happiest at the Darkmoon Faire’s kissing booth. It can’t do tech cards so it is really poor at answering meta specific issues (unless you play against me and you get double weapon hate from First Day of School), or even taylor the deck. Instead it’s just going to throw stats on board to see what sticks and slam that to the opponent’s face while ignoring their board.
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Ignoring board is a bad idea for Pure Paladin. Letting your opponent dictate trades is willingly putting yourself in the position that makes falling behind so crushingly bad for Pure Paladin.
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