I will agree that Zoo is hard to play perfectly. That said, even played suboptimally it's pretty fucking strong. Control played suboptimally is pretty fucking bad, by contrast.
A deck being good and a deck being easy still isn't the same thing.
I will agree that Zoo is hard to play perfectly. That said, even played suboptimally it's pretty fucking strong. Control played suboptimally is pretty fucking bad, by contrast.
A deck being good and a deck being easy still isn't the same thing.
That's a fair point but suboptimal zoo is still way easier to play than optimal control.
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As a mostly control player, I can tell the only control deck that required high skill ceiling was handlock. All other control decks are pretty straight forward and easy to play. Easiest decks to play are midrange decks, they are the least to get punished with few options each turn. Current meta control decks are pretty much as hard as agrro decks (easy to play), anyone saying otherwise is delusional.
Control plays as linearly as aggro. While you have to worry about is clearing a board, aggro worries about their board getting cleared. And guessing what board clears are in your hand is a lot harder than looking at the board and counting the health of enemy minions.
And you'll say oh, but Aggro can win just by dropping a perfect early curve if I have no answers. Right, you'll lose if they open a good hand and you open a garbage one. The same applies for literally any other deck.
And then people think, oh Aggro only goes face, so that's just dumb. Well no, they don't. It only feels that way because you never put down a board to trade into, or otherwise the trades are so horribly inefficient that it makes no sense to.
So yeah, no deck is harder to play than any other deck, now let's all enjoy this horrible children's card game.
Aggro Shaman takes close to no skill, you cant get a bad draw since 50% of the deck is less than 3 mana, so you should always curve out with the hardest turn for this deck usually being turn 2, should you play flametounge totem and trade or totem golem or two more 1 drops and often all will be fine because you will have out tempoed your opponent anyway.
Zoo takes a moderate amount of skill, arguable a lot of skill to hit high legend ranks with it and to be played perfectly, however its also designed so that if you screw up its ok because you can just draw more crap to throw on the board and hope it sticks. It also has a few really broken cards right now in darkshire councilman and power overwhelming. Every class would love a 1 mana deal 4 damage card with essentially no drawback mechanism. CW also takes a moderate amount of skill. Of all the control decks this is the easiest to play in my opinion because of the forgiving nature of its removal, the removal spells being so cheap allows for faster tempo flips, which is why it is often the best choice against aggro decks right now. Priest are suffering from the opposite problem their removal is often more expensive than the minon they are trying to remove or about the same. Its when they find huge difference between the cost of removal and the minion they are killing that they can finally flip the game.
Midrange decks are usually on the more simple side of things (i.e. secret paladin) however midrange hunter takes some thought and good luck with midrange druid right now.
Freeze Mage, Miracle Rouge, Control Priest, Patron Warrior all take real skill to achieve high win rates but can also beat almost any deck when played correctly other than their hard counters and when they get unlucky.
Anyone who labels all aggro easy, and all control rocket science...or vice versa is stupid. Plain and simple. You want to talk about face hunter or control warrior or specific decks and how much skill they take to pilot optimally, that is fine. Talking about entire archetypes makes one look ignorant. All control isn't the same, all aggro isn't the same.
The root of such prejudice is one wants to label the other guys deck (aggro usually) as brainless and dumb, and one's own deck as rocket science to pathetically excuse oneself from accepting their losses. It is just sad. Stop with such pitiful threads.
Praise this thread. Shoes on the other foot. How does it feel?
It feels horrible. because it proves one thing:
A lot of people on this website are unable to spot their errors when playing control decks, and yet they give out advice on how to play them and comment on how easy they are to play. The first is understandable, the ramifications of control plays are often not apparent untill 14-15 turns later. The second is ignorant and rude.
Aggro decks on the other hand is simpler, the gameplan is "maximize damage fast" - which means errors usually manifest themselves on the immediate turns following misplays. "Oh I should have used it as removal", "Oh I should have traded", "Oh I should have went face" is usually the gist of it.
And really the entire thread rests on an OP who begs the question ("control decks are easy, therefore they are easy"), which is irksome.
This comment is basically everything that's wrong with the control nazis on this board - the presumption that control versus aggro is somehow a chess versus checkers comparison, the overarching feeling of superiority, and the attempts to refute an alleged flaw in logic with their own flawed logic.
On the time it takes for the ramifications of an action to become evident - most plays, no matter what the stylistic match-up, have immediately evident impacts. From a practical perspective, only in control mirrors and possibly control versus combo match-ups (the latter unlikely) will a game even go to turn 14 or 15. And if they do, the most important factor in determining the outcome is the RNG of which cards are drawn when, not what play A did on turn 3.
It's convenient to say that Aggro is simply "Maximizing damage fast," but all you're really doing is making a reductive statement about a win condition that can be made about any other class - combo is "Stall and draw until you have your win-con in hand," control is "Survive until you can out value your opponent in the late game," midrange is "Play minions on-curve until your opponent runs out of answers."
Most in-game decisions mirror each other and one side of that mirror being reactive as opposed to proactive does not make it inherently more or less complex. There is as much knowledge of your own deck and your opponent's likely list in making the decision whether or not to extend your board further and push for lethal on a turn as there is counting the damage on the board and anticipating the burn your opponent might have in hand to decide whether to play your AOE now or try to stall a turn and exact greater value from that play. In the first case, the aggro player is managing his hand and board as a resources. In the control case, life and finite AOE are the resources. In both cases, that decision is the critical juncture; and in both cases, the game is essentially decided at that point. The fact that the control player being wrong means the game is actually over on the next turn while it may take another 3-4 turns for the inevitable accumulation of damage by the control player against the out of steam aggro player is really just accounting.
Failing to address the OP's valid points about the linearity of control versus aggro in both directions and reducing (and mis-characterizing) his/her post to a baseless assertion ("Control decks are easy, therefore they are easy") while essentially making your own baseless assertion ("Control decks are hard, therefore they are hard") would be amusingly ironic if it weren't sadly indicative of the mindset of a large, vocal swath of the HS community.
I have said before (I believe in this thread) that control has a higher skill floor than aggro or midrange. However, once you're off the floor and into the competitive world, the three main archetypes just do not vary that much in complexity when playing against one another. The interaction between aggro, midrange and control is largely formulaic and linear and the favored class will win a majority of match-ups, even in the presence of a marked skill disparity. Mirrors and combo match-ups are a different story.
And just for the record, I like control play. Stomping Secret Pally with Control Priest was easily my favorite match-up of pre-WoG Hearthstone. I hope we get better control cards for priest and would like to see the skeleton of potential control decks in Pally and Shaman filled-in in future expansions. I'm simply tired of the toxic sentiment pervasive among so many control players that they are somehow better than people who choose to play different archetypes. Honestly, if we are in the midst of such a ridiculous aggro meta and the control players are half as good as they seem to think they are, rank 5+ should be awash in control. The absence of that either means the meta is healthier than people are saying or a lot of these very vocal control players suck at their own preferred playstyle.
Anyone who labels all aggro easy, and all control rocket science...or vice versa is stupid. Plain and simple. You want to talk about face hunter or control warrior or specific decks and how much skill they take to pilot optimally, that is fine. Talking about entire archetypes makes one look ignorant. All control isn't the same, all aggro isn't the same.
The root of such prejudice is one wants to label the other guys deck (aggro usually) as brainless and dumb, and one's own deck as rocket science to pathetically excuse oneself from accepting their losses. It is just sad. Stop with such pitiful threads.
I have disagreed with you vehemently about other things (mostly the pre-standard nerf threads), but I don't think I've agreed with anything I've seen on this site more than this post.
Control plays as linearly as aggro. While you have to worry about is clearing a board, aggro worries about their board getting cleared. And guessing what board clears are in your hand is a lot harder than looking at the board and counting the health of enemy minions.
And you'll say oh, but Aggro can win just by dropping a perfect early curve if I have no answers. Right, you'll lose if they open a good hand and you open a garbage one. The same applies for literally any other deck.
And then people think, oh Aggro only goes face, so that's just dumb. Well no, they don't. It only feels that way because you never put down a board to trade into, or otherwise the trades are so horribly inefficient that it makes no sense to.
So yeah, no deck is harder to play than any other deck, now let's all enjoy this horrible children's card game.
I....hmmmm
I have to agree and disagree at the same time. I think without a doubt there has been decks that are harder to play than others, and same goes for easier decks. Patron warrior and miracle rogue are tough, and they require a lot more critical thinking thank most other decks (control or aggro). And at the same time, in my decks, I've found myself making many more straightforward plays in certain decks. (Of course some of them aggro, but also midrange and even control in some cases)
On the flip side, of course people over exaggerate the skill gap. These people obviously don't even play the decks, and if they did, they used it to beat a few rank 20 retards and claim that they have "extensive experience". If you were to play something like shaman or zoo in the brainless way you think they are played, I doubt you would get anywhere farther than rank 10. And the whole "my deck is so hard to play" argument has been used for so much outside the skill gap argument, as they are insecure and need to make themselves feel smarter/look smarter.
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I returned to this game much like how a recovering alcoholic can relapse.
I'm sure it has been said somewhere but I think all decks require some amount of skill to pilot them correctly and bashing aggro, midrange, or control decks singularly and saying one is more skillful then the other is stupid. Myself I'm more of a control player and that's just the playstyle I enjoy and it might just be me which I don't mind but the cancer decks everyone talks about such as aggro shaman requiring no skill and super easy to climb with isn't correct and I generally do poorly with it probably because I don't have the skill of a person who main decks it all the time. In short to each there own on what they prefer to play and all decks require skill to a degree.
Pretty much all decks are ''easy to play'', but control and combo deck's are MUCH harder to master than aggro is. But plz dont say that aggro is a ''brainless archeype'' - to play a aggro deck perfectly also require a fair load of experince.
At the other hand it usually feal a lot more frustrating to lose to a aggro deck by turn 6 than it does to play a game with a length past turn 10 to a control deck. :P
There is a difference between aggro and face. Face means putting some charge or op low-mana minions together with some damage spells in your deck and simply go face and trade only with a very high value minion if it's about to die. Aggro means taking the board early and conserving it until you are in a good position to try to kill your opponent.
Also, I don't understand why control players have to think their decks are rocket-science compared to aggro. I find no difference between playing a Sylvanas or Rangaros on curve and playing the 7/7 Flamewreathed Faceless. You just drop it and wait to the see how the opponent misplays trying to play around it.
Control plays as linearly as aggro. While you have to worry about is clearing a board, aggro worries about their board getting cleared. And guessing what board clears are in your hand is a lot harder than looking at the board and counting the health of enemy minions.
And you'll say oh, but Aggro can win just by dropping a perfect early curve if I have no answers. Right, you'll lose if they open a good hand and you open a garbage one. The same applies for literally any other deck.
And then people think, oh Aggro only goes face, so that's just dumb. Well no, they don't. It only feels that way because you never put down a board to trade into, or otherwise the trades are so horribly inefficient that it makes no sense to.
So yeah, no deck is harder to play than any other deck, now let's all enjoy this horrible children's card game.
Control requires you to think far ahead to win sometimes. You have to weigh how much damage you can take before you have to act. In Hearthstone, control is different from other games because you have to play like an aggressive/midrange deck to get to the midgame. Let's use the example of Control Warrior. They run War Axe, a couple small minions for utility and the rest of the deck is 4-10 mana cards. When I play CW, I focus on minimizing the potential for the opponent to stay on the board and remove my midgame threats. War Axe, Ghoul, sometimes you have to shield slam/execute for tempo, doomsayer etc. You also have to think a few turns out as to "what's the worst case scenario?" For instance, against Shamans, I will mulligan for Shield Slam, War Axe, Slam, Execute so that I can hopefully deal with Tunnel Trogg, Totem Golem, Flamewreathed on turn 4. since this is fairly rare to simply hit this, and considering they might be on the play, Brawl would be nice but it is not as safe as simply trying to disrupt the first few turns of tempo. Again, knowing what hits you can and cannot take is essential, since Brawl is one of the only real value cards in the deck.
So yes, and no, control has more similarities to aggro than in other games, but that has more to do with the way that the game is, rather than the nature of control in general.
Control also requires you to have a working knowledge of a large number of your opponents' decks, so that you know what to counter/destroy. Wasting a removal spell on something and then getting a much better card dropped on you is very likely to lose you the game. The progression of the game is to try to handle early game while putting together a late game strategy without using too many removal/power cards. compared to Aggro's "try and maximize damage output for the first few turns and then,if that didn't end the game,...maaaaybe win if i can topdeck my last damage???" Certainly, there are a lot of calls that need to be made in this, and I would argue that playing perfect aggro is also very difficult, but there is a lot of depth to control and they are often far less straightforward than aggro decks.
Your argument "if you get a bad hand, you are going to lose" has nothing to do with any of this. Yes, decks always have a curve. Even slow decks have a curve.
If you don't believe me, try to play freeze mage/miracle rogue/patron warrior. Anybody who says that control is as hard to play as aggro needs to do this (and yes, I am aware that these are considered combo decks, but they are the most similar decks to what I would consider a true control deck, owing to the "stay alive until you can win" strategy.)
In fighting games, there are characters that are more difficult to learn than others. Now no one in those communities is dumb enough to say grapplers are harder than rush down characters (mass generalizations that are commonplace here)! However people will say this character is good for beginners (not in a demeaning way like here), or this character has some mighty hurdles to be able to play efficiently.
However here in this forum, what is the point of making threads about the difficulty of decks? Ask yourself that, you people who create such threads. Is it to guide players of different experience levels to different decks? Is it for any helpful or noble purpose? Never. So then why these threads exist are for public shaming, name calling, and throwing temper tantrums. As far as 'brainless' not putting such posts in the salt thread takes the cake. Does one not know how to read? These tantrum threads are the real 'cancer'.
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As a mostly control player, I can tell the only control deck that required high skill ceiling was handlock. All other control decks are pretty straight forward and easy to play. Easiest decks to play are midrange decks, they are the least to get punished with few options each turn. Current meta control decks are pretty much as hard as agrro decks (easy to play), anyone saying otherwise is delusional.
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My mandibles which are capable of pressing down and tearing, my talons which are known to intercept and hold.
I agreed. it is just a click bait. I'm gonna start with another thread saying how OP Priest is and Shaman desperately need a buff
Aggro Shaman takes close to no skill, you cant get a bad draw since 50% of the deck is less than 3 mana, so you should always curve out with the hardest turn for this deck usually being turn 2, should you play flametounge totem and trade or totem golem or two more 1 drops and often all will be fine because you will have out tempoed your opponent anyway.
Zoo takes a moderate amount of skill, arguable a lot of skill to hit high legend ranks with it and to be played perfectly, however its also designed so that if you screw up its ok because you can just draw more crap to throw on the board and hope it sticks. It also has a few really broken cards right now in darkshire councilman and power overwhelming. Every class would love a 1 mana deal 4 damage card with essentially no drawback mechanism. CW also takes a moderate amount of skill. Of all the control decks this is the easiest to play in my opinion because of the forgiving nature of its removal, the removal spells being so cheap allows for faster tempo flips, which is why it is often the best choice against aggro decks right now. Priest are suffering from the opposite problem their removal is often more expensive than the minon they are trying to remove or about the same. Its when they find huge difference between the cost of removal and the minion they are killing that they can finally flip the game.
Midrange decks are usually on the more simple side of things (i.e. secret paladin) however midrange hunter takes some thought and good luck with midrange druid right now.
Freeze Mage, Miracle Rouge, Control Priest, Patron Warrior all take real skill to achieve high win rates but can also beat almost any deck when played correctly other than their hard counters and when they get unlucky.
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A deck being good does not make the deck easy.
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My mandibles which are capable of pressing down and tearing, my talons which are known to intercept and hold.
Anyone who labels all aggro easy, and all control rocket science...or vice versa is stupid. Plain and simple. You want to talk about face hunter or control warrior or specific decks and how much skill they take to pilot optimally, that is fine. Talking about entire archetypes makes one look ignorant. All control isn't the same, all aggro isn't the same.
The root of such prejudice is one wants to label the other guys deck (aggro usually) as brainless and dumb, and one's own deck as rocket science to pathetically excuse oneself from accepting their losses. It is just sad. Stop with such pitiful threads.
Hahaha please try any control deck... and then go back to playing cancer decks beacuse you can't reach even rank 15 with them.
I returned to this game much like how a recovering alcoholic can relapse.
I'm sure it has been said somewhere but I think all decks require some amount of skill to pilot them correctly and bashing aggro, midrange, or control decks singularly and saying one is more skillful then the other is stupid. Myself I'm more of a control player and that's just the playstyle I enjoy and it might just be me which I don't mind but the cancer decks everyone talks about such as aggro shaman requiring no skill and super easy to climb with isn't correct and I generally do poorly with it probably because I don't have the skill of a person who main decks it all the time. In short to each there own on what they prefer to play and all decks require skill to a degree.
Pretty much all decks are ''easy to play'', but control and combo deck's are MUCH harder to master than aggro is.
But plz dont say that aggro is a ''brainless archeype'' - to play a aggro deck perfectly also require a fair load of experince.
At the other hand it usually feal a lot more frustrating to lose to a aggro deck by turn 6 than it does to play a game with a length past turn 10 to a control deck. :P
There is a difference between aggro and face. Face means putting some charge or op low-mana minions together with some damage spells in your deck and simply go face and trade only with a very high value minion if it's about to die. Aggro means taking the board early and conserving it until you are in a good position to try to kill your opponent.
Also, I don't understand why control players have to think their decks are rocket-science compared to aggro. I find no difference between playing a Sylvanas or Rangaros on curve and playing the 7/7 Flamewreathed Faceless. You just drop it and wait to the see how the opponent misplays trying to play around it.
Bait of the year award, congratulations OP!
Mostly Harmless
In fighting games, there are characters that are more difficult to learn than others. Now no one in those communities is dumb enough to say grapplers are harder than rush down characters (mass generalizations that are commonplace here)! However people will say this character is good for beginners (not in a demeaning way like here), or this character has some mighty hurdles to be able to play efficiently.
However here in this forum, what is the point of making threads about the difficulty of decks? Ask yourself that, you people who create such threads. Is it to guide players of different experience levels to different decks? Is it for any helpful or noble purpose? Never. So then why these threads exist are for public shaming, name calling, and throwing temper tantrums. As far as 'brainless' not putting such posts in the salt thread takes the cake. Does one not know how to read? These tantrum threads are the real 'cancer'.