here's a few reasons. ANd there's a Summary at the bottom. Just look for the Bolded letters if you don't want to read an essay.
1. The attacker has the priority choice of target. This makes it much more viable to focus on tempo as you can more easily tear down opposing minions or ignore them to hit the face. The simple fact that if I send a 8/1 out against you and can be sure it hits your Lich King or your face and not your Silver Hand Recruit is a big factor in making actually fighting aggressively worthwhile.
2. The old triangle never really works out properly here. In MTG, the original balance triangle was Aggro -> Control -> Combo -> Aggro.
(yes note that 'Midrange' isn't in the original trilogy.)
Thus the original idea is that Combo decks are meant to keep Aggro at bay. But true combo decks have a tendency to tear EVERYTHING up outside of the most greediest on Control. The combo decks we allow nowadays are more 'control-combo' that drag the game out rather than rush through their cards. They honestly fit more of the Control mindset than the Combo mindset (thus they die to fast aggro).
In any case, this means we don't really allow many decks that reliably kill Aggro. When we do they tend to result in cries of "OMG NERF!"
3. The ladder demands speed.
Someone a long time ago calculated that it's faster to play an aggro deck that loses a lot than a higher winning control deck. The simple raw number of games you can run through makes it the better choice. Also when you're playing hundreds of games at a time you want your deck simple so you don't burn out.
Thus even when aggro doesn't win well, you're best off playing it until the upper legend or tournaments when every game counts.
4. aggro is a newbie killer.
Aggro was dead in 2015. Patron Warrior killed EVERYTHING that wasn't Handlock or Fatigue Warrior. There really wasn't a point to playing any other deck competitively at that time.
What were the forums complaining about? Zoo. Tempo Mage. Secret paladin (though that was a tempo deck. See #3). Decks that couldn't hold a candle to Patron. Why? Because most players don't play well enough to reach that competitive level where Patron slaughtered all.
Aggro is VERY good at killing bad decks. It's also very good at killing bad players that would rather rant than play decks that can deal with aggro or play in a way that lets them deal with it. Over 95% of the player base plays badly (not an exaggerations. you REALLY get a distorted view of the 'average player' when you hang around forums like these and just watch key streamers). This makes aggro always viable as it always has easy targets to hit.
5. We keep changing what 'aggro' is.
This time last year, aggro decks relied on Bonemare as a key card.
That line should make no #*$()#$#) sense.
Bonemare was a 7 mana card. Why, in all that is good and right are we declaring a 7 mana card a good AGGRO TOOL!? And it wasn't even a finisher most of the time!
Seriously, go find some 2014 face hunter decks or click on the link I'm providing right here for an example. Aggro, when not held back, kills you by turn 5. THAT was why we made things like the Face Song back then.
The 'aggro decks' that we are seeing nowadays aren't what aggro used to be. They are tempo decks. Decks that rely on constantly threatening you from turn 1 to turn 20. They sacrifice absolute aggression for staying power but still having the ability to end games quick if the opponent can't hold them. That's why 'aggro' decks either have that constant 'reload' where wiping the board means nothing or are 'sticky' where you can't seem to ever remove EVERYTHING and grab the board from them. They are also more than willing to fight for the board if it means more damage next turn.
Old Paladin is a lot slower than old style aggro decks. Odd Rogue is probably the closest thing and only the fastest versions.
The community has a habit of marking whatever the fastest deck at the time as 'the aggro deck'. It's due to every game having a 'beatdown' or 'aggressive' opponent and a defensive or 'control' opponent, and that's determined by who's the faster deck. When it's Shudderwock Shaman vs Hadronox Druid, the Druid will be the 'aggro' deck. And teh Shaman, if they lose, will come to the forums complaining about 'aggro never going away'.
TL:DR summary:
Aggro has a slight advantage due to the nature of the game from the getgo.
Decks that naturally eat aggro in other games don't balance well here, thus our balance triangle is messed up.
Even when aggro is weak, you will want to use it to rank up faster with it in the ladder,
Even when the meta makes aggro worthless despite all of that, it still makes a great newbie and bad deck killer, thus most players will still see it as a problem
And when the meta is so absolutely lobsided against aggro thus that, despite ALL OF THE ABOVE, aggro still fails, we simply move the goalposts and name the current fastest deck 'the aggro deck' even if it wasn't considered aggro before.
And that is why aggro stays around.
I just want to point out what a super post this is. Said everything I wanted to, and a few things I didn't think of. The "moving the goal posts of what aggro is" bit is particularly true.
Can anyone think of some minion come back mechanics that dont just become so poweful that aggro has to start using them as well? The only cards i can think of in the whole game that fit that description are Doomsayer and Wild Pyromancer.
I remember Kripparian posted a video a while back about "First Strike". Sounded promising but could just turn into another Tar Creeper, great for protecting Vicious Fledgling and not much else.
A lot of things came into my mind but 4 reasons stand as most important.
1. Dust cost. Not as much as MTG but Hearthstone is expensive. Aggro decks offers high win rate with relatively low dust cost. When you consider the dust investment and return, even in a meta where mid-range/control/combo deck dominates, aggro will still be a thing. In fact, I have playing Hearthstone since the season 3 (rainbow card-back), and I cannot remember meta of any season that had no aggro decks (though early aggro decks were less opressive).
2. The way ladder system works. Because your rank gain or loss is not a function your game length, given a two decks of equal win-rate, the deck with shorter average game length is superior than the deck with longer average game length. And yeah, aggro deck have shorter game length.
3. Consistency in game performance. Imagine there are two decks. One is a late-game deck designed to play an average 20 turn game, and the other is an early-game deck designed to play an average 6 turn game. And now imagine their mana-curve. Since late-game deck have to prepare for late games beyond turn 6, it has to dilute early game cards and that make late-game deck's early game always inconsistent in comparison to early-game deck. This can only be counter by Blizzard printing better early game cards for late-game decks without these cards being used by early-game deck, but Blizzard is just terrible at this. So many cards were printed to counter aggro-deck and got used by aggro-deck and it's not even funny at this point.
4.The nature of minion combat. Because by default, minion cannot attack for a turn after being played and combat is solely initiated by attacker during his turn. This give player who fill the board early with an advantage because he gets to initiate early. This is more or less a fundamental flaw that existed since the day one. Although rush mechanic was invented in an attempt to offset this, Blizzard was too conservative to print good rush cards.
I feel like I'm missing something here. A number of the posts above mention aggro being necessary to keep control in check, but that's not the case. Aggro is to keep combo decks in check. Control decks are favored vs aggro most of the time, but combo wrecks control because control decks are slow. If you look at the matchups in HS that's pretty much the case across the board. I can't figure out where people are getting the reverse.
There will ALWAYS be a game when you just mulligan like shit, and welcome to hearthstone - it is the first 5-6 cards that matter, if you don't answer the first couple of turns versus aggro you lose game, does not matter how good a player is, does not matter what kind and how good the deck is.
The resource system of the game makes aggro work and reliable. With aggro it is very hard to have bad opening hands, while midrange and especially control are more likely to get punished for the mulligan because in most cases you can't play expensive cards in the early game.
The mana system, and other similar mechanics in other card games, allows for things like so called Curvestone to happen where you vomit stuff almost as soon as you draw it and if played intuitively can not get super punished by most board clears since board clears typically need to be balanced by giving such effects high mana costs for clearing a board.
Aggro is always going to exist because aggro is relative. Back before GVG rotated, decks like mech face shaman and face hunter could run you over in a matter of a handful of turns. In the current meta, aggro can still run you over, but it is much slower paced and more board focused. The only thing that is consistent between the archetypes then and now is that both are the aggressor.
Aggro will always exist because there will always be a deck that is in the meta that will be an aggressor more often than not. In metas where this kind of deck does not exist, greed would grow in excess to the point where aggro would eventually be able to punish the greed.
Manacurve and draw consistency. If games would start at 3 mana (and stay at 3 mana for 3 turns), control would be far more reliable.
aggro decks would then add a fuckload of 3 mana cards instead of 1 mana and kill you even faster.
Well, and you can drop at least something more often. And 3drops are usually not as powerful as 1-2 drops. Classes like priest could directly counter the 3 drops with pain or death before they snowball. Just gives a lot more options to defend while aggro gets trickier. Drop one 3 drop? Or three 1 drops (usually stronger but your hand is empty afterwards) and risk running them into a taunt that is not bullshit.
There is an opportunity cost to playing expensive cards - when you draw them early, you effectively skip your draw phase for that turn, and are potentially down a card for the entire game. That's a really big deal, since you only start the game with three cards in hand. As an aside - opportunity cost needs to be factored into the "value" of late-game cards. Playable late-game cards can't simply be worth their mana-cost. They have to be worth their mana-cost, plus capable of regaining their lost value as dead draws - War Golem is a 7-drop worth only 7 mana, so he never recovers that lost value, but Dr. Boom is a 7-drop worth 12-ish mana (he's kind of like a 9/9 which casts Cinderstorm as a deathrattle, since the Boom Bots average 5-damage.) The five extra mana of "oomph" made him worth it.
There is also an opportunity cost to playing cheap cards - you might draw them late, when they make little impact on the game. But that's a little different. You never really lose a game because you top deck Fire Fly on turn 9 - rather, you lost the game because you were playing a fast deck that didn't win prior to the late-game (and there are lots of reasons why that may have happened . . .) In contrast, you lose all kinds of games precisely because you draw The Lich King on turn one. In general, fast decks are much less likely to have a hand clogged with unplayable cards - as a result, they tend to do well against the decks that do.
Incidentally, one of the reasons that cheap cards like Righteous Protector, or the new Glow-Tron, are really good is that they are sometimes good draws in the late-game. RP blocks a pair of attacks for one mana, potentially allowing your depleted board to survive another turn, doing a little more damage, and allowing you another opportunity to top-deck a game-saving play. Similarly, GT provides the opportunity for late-game combat tricks, allowing an otherwise dead minion to stick on the board after a trade.
Aggro has some other advantages (besides all written above) - its easier to play and severely punish control misplays,
it also "punish" non refined decks (like on expansion launch) and sometimes home-brew/ fun decks
I think this is spot-on. I may be wrong here but I think aggro decks usually become less frequent at higher ranks because there are less control misplays and players' increased ability to play more complex decks.
This is a serious bummer for homebrew/fun decks because
they are are typically played at lower ranks (lack of cards/time, casual play)
there is more aggro at lower ranks (faster climb)
So there isn't much fun in playing homebrew if you lose a lot on turn 4. So people start netdecking aggro themselves (or a deck to counter aggro... which they can't play/lack cards).
This results in a high% of net decking probably starting at rank 20 which I find digusting for new players to go through.
a) It's braindead. Do not try to sweeten the pill, it's true. I have been up to 187 legend and i use aggro decks when i want to play but i am tired to think up head.
2)Immune to bad draws. Self explanatory.
3) Easy to build. Add op cheap stuff, burn and some tempo cards and you are ready to play. Control and other slower decks, not only are harder to optimise but required constant tinkering to what you face the most.
As much as I love your post and b/white way of thinking, I'd so NOT want to meet you in a dark alley..
i wouldnt want to meet anyone in a dark alley. but i wouldnt be particularly afraid of someone with anime pictures as his signature.
Oh lighten up will you.
This was clearly at tongue in cheek comment here mate. Jainashot is a bit of a forum personality and one I enjoy talking with. I'm pretty sure this peer is on top 10 most banned list round here :p
Can anyone think of some minion come back mechanics that dont just become so poweful that aggro has to start using them as well? The only cards i can think of in the whole game that fit that description are Doomsayer and Wild Pyromancer.
I remember Kripparian posted a video a while back about "First Strike". Sounded promising but could just turn into another Tar Creeper, great for protecting Vicious Fledgling and not much else.
Against true aggro, the 'all to da face' kind, a lot of the current low cost cards fit the bill. 1/3s actually suck as an aggro card but rock in stopping aggro. Which is why decks have gotten more Tempo based than the original real aggro.
The current fast decks are Tempo decks and it's best NOT to pretend that's nitpicking. Tempo decks don't really rely on that early game push (though they'll end the game fast if you let them) but in never letting you rest Odd Paladin's ability to put out a semi-decent board with a hero power + 1 card is a good example of this. Thus the real problem isn't stopping the early push, but in dealing with the consistent drain they put on you as they reload and reload and reload and wear you down and wear you down.
You want the ability to 'reset' everything and force the opponent to spend resources they can't afford to spend. For example, Saronite Chain Gang. Yes, Tempo deck do use it, but it works better as an anti-Tempo card than a Tempo one given that Control has more tools to remove them and because they don't provide a lot of threat, letting Control drag the game out. Cheap healing also works out as well as semi-cheap board wipes. If this is sounding like the cards Shudderwock has then you see why that deck is so widely used.
Low cost, high health minions that are sticky. Board wipes. Healing/armor mechanics. And have a real win condition in late game. That's how you stop Tempo decks.
I feel like I'm missing something here. A number of the posts above mention aggro being necessary to keep control in check, but that's not the case. Aggro is to keep combo decks in check. Control decks are favored vs aggro most of the time, but combo wrecks control because control decks are slow. If you look at the matchups in HS that's pretty much the case across the board. I can't figure out where people are getting the reverse.
For the same reason why people keep declaring Odd Paladin an Aggro deck when the thing can't get more than 4 damage on the board by turn 4.
It really isn't that honest to put old Patron Warrior, 2014 Miracle Rogue, and Shudderwock Shaman as combo decks. They aren't even close to the same style of play. Shudderwock is more than happy to drag the game out to fatigue. It has to drag it to at least turn 9 obviously. it draws but not excessively, instead opting to play reactive and control the board while gathering it's pieces. It acts more like a Control deck with a direct Win condition.
This is a big deal because it explains its strengths and weaknesses.
Regular Combo decks, like Miracle Rogue and old Patron, wipe the floor with aggro decks. They carry a ton of removal and rush out their win condition so that winning by turn 7 isn't unusual for them. Tempo has a chance since you can keep up the pressure but it's not REALLY all that tested (Tempo wasn't really that strong in the early years and the strong Combo decks were nerfed when Tempo gained it's current power level. Though I will note that Secret paladin was a pretty strong Tempo deck and couldn't stop Patron).
SLOOWWW control decks could beat them. Patron was a 50/50 vs Fatigue Warrior and Handlock actually had an advantage against it. Anything less was at a disadvantage. I imagine Shudderwock shaman could stand up to old Patron nowadays.
The slow 'Control with a win condition' "combo" decks we have now, again, work like very greedy control decks, which suffer to aggro since they are..well.. slow and greedy.
And note, most fast decks nowadays are Tempo decks while most Control decks are..well... 'control with a win conditon'. Tempo loses to Control: always has in Hearthstone, probably always will.
AGGRO always had an advantage against slow Control. This has been true before the internet even existed. Fast Aggro is the way you stop overly greedy decks.
Bonemare was a card used in Tempo lists most of the time. Perhaps some used it for aggro, but it was mainly a tempo card.
That's the point of #5. Those decks that used Bonemare weren't Aggro decks. They were Tempo decks. But they were faster than the decks people wanted to play so they were 'aggro'.
I promise you, if the fastest deck played at Tournaments was Hadronox Druid, the public would start calling it an aggro deck. I HAVE seen people argue that 'Alexstraza into Grom' killing plays were 'aggro'.
Aggro, according to #5, is whatever is the Beatdown deck in the meta.
It's simple. Aggro decks will always draw threats, but control decks won't always draw answers. As control, you need to respond to whatever threat they put on the board or you will lose.
Lower learning curve, less adaptive meta cards needed, lower curve cards means less bad starting hands. In the hands of a skilled player all formats perform relatively similar, but aggro will always be a better win rate overall.
Lower learning curve, less adaptive meta cards needed, lower curve cards means less bad starting hands. In the hands of a skilled player all formats perform relatively similar, but aggro will always be a better win rate overall.
Throughout most of hearthstone, aggro decks actually had a lower win rate overall than other archetypes. Many of the most popular ones tended to be blow 50% on the whole.
Where they were strong at was in the lower ranks when nearly any deck can work but aggro won faster. They are also good in these first few early days when people keep making VERY greedy, and VERY bad slow decks.
But no, aggro doesn't always carry a better win rate.
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One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
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I just want to point out what a super post this is. Said everything I wanted to, and a few things I didn't think of. The "moving the goal posts of what aggro is" bit is particularly true.
Can anyone think of some minion come back mechanics that dont just become so poweful that aggro has to start using them as well? The only cards i can think of in the whole game that fit that description are Doomsayer and Wild Pyromancer.
I remember Kripparian posted a video a while back about "First Strike". Sounded promising but could just turn into another Tar Creeper, great for protecting Vicious Fledgling and not much else.
A lot of things came into my mind but 4 reasons stand as most important.
1. Dust cost. Not as much as MTG but Hearthstone is expensive. Aggro decks offers high win rate with relatively low dust cost. When you consider the dust investment and return, even in a meta where mid-range/control/combo deck dominates, aggro will still be a thing. In fact, I have playing Hearthstone since the season 3 (rainbow card-back), and I cannot remember meta of any season that had no aggro decks (though early aggro decks were less opressive).
2. The way ladder system works. Because your rank gain or loss is not a function your game length, given a two decks of equal win-rate, the deck with shorter average game length is superior than the deck with longer average game length. And yeah, aggro deck have shorter game length.
3. Consistency in game performance. Imagine there are two decks. One is a late-game deck designed to play an average 20 turn game, and the other is an early-game deck designed to play an average 6 turn game. And now imagine their mana-curve. Since late-game deck have to prepare for late games beyond turn 6, it has to dilute early game cards and that make late-game deck's early game always inconsistent in comparison to early-game deck. This can only be counter by Blizzard printing better early game cards for late-game decks without these cards being used by early-game deck, but Blizzard is just terrible at this. So many cards were printed to counter aggro-deck and got used by aggro-deck and it's not even funny at this point.
4.The nature of minion combat. Because by default, minion cannot attack for a turn after being played and combat is solely initiated by attacker during his turn. This give player who fill the board early with an advantage because he gets to initiate early. This is more or less a fundamental flaw that existed since the day one. Although rush mechanic was invented in an attempt to offset this, Blizzard was too conservative to print good rush cards.
Meta changes the moment you switch your deck.
Hearthstone has a lot of extremely powerful early game minions and synergies that do a lot of damage when unanswered and are difficult to deal with.
because they're easier to build, and because a friggin expansion was released 2-3 days ago.
I feel like I'm missing something here. A number of the posts above mention aggro being necessary to keep control in check, but that's not the case. Aggro is to keep combo decks in check. Control decks are favored vs aggro most of the time, but combo wrecks control because control decks are slow. If you look at the matchups in HS that's pretty much the case across the board. I can't figure out where people are getting the reverse.
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There will ALWAYS be a game when you just mulligan like shit, and welcome to hearthstone - it is the first 5-6 cards that matter, if you don't answer the first couple of turns versus aggro you lose game, does not matter how good a player is, does not matter what kind and how good the deck is.
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The resource system of the game makes aggro work and reliable. With aggro it is very hard to have bad opening hands, while midrange and especially control are more likely to get punished for the mulligan because in most cases you can't play expensive cards in the early game.
The mana system, and other similar mechanics in other card games, allows for things like so called Curvestone to happen where you vomit stuff almost as soon as you draw it and if played intuitively can not get super punished by most board clears since board clears typically need to be balanced by giving such effects high mana costs for clearing a board.
Aggro is always going to exist because aggro is relative. Back before GVG rotated, decks like mech face shaman and face hunter could run you over in a matter of a handful of turns. In the current meta, aggro can still run you over, but it is much slower paced and more board focused. The only thing that is consistent between the archetypes then and now is that both are the aggressor.
Aggro will always exist because there will always be a deck that is in the meta that will be an aggressor more often than not. In metas where this kind of deck does not exist, greed would grow in excess to the point where aggro would eventually be able to punish the greed.
Manacurve and draw consistency. If games would start at 3 mana (and stay at 3 mana for 3 turns), control would be far more reliable.
this is true like the time when everybody spiteful priest it is because it cheap
Well, and you can drop at least something more often. And 3drops are usually not as powerful as 1-2 drops. Classes like priest could directly counter the 3 drops with pain or death before they snowball. Just gives a lot more options to defend while aggro gets trickier. Drop one 3 drop? Or three 1 drops (usually stronger but your hand is empty afterwards) and risk running them into a taunt that is not bullshit.
There is an opportunity cost to playing expensive cards - when you draw them early, you effectively skip your draw phase for that turn, and are potentially down a card for the entire game. That's a really big deal, since you only start the game with three cards in hand. As an aside - opportunity cost needs to be factored into the "value" of late-game cards. Playable late-game cards can't simply be worth their mana-cost. They have to be worth their mana-cost, plus capable of regaining their lost value as dead draws - War Golem is a 7-drop worth only 7 mana, so he never recovers that lost value, but Dr. Boom is a 7-drop worth 12-ish mana (he's kind of like a 9/9 which casts Cinderstorm as a deathrattle, since the Boom Bots average 5-damage.) The five extra mana of "oomph" made him worth it.
There is also an opportunity cost to playing cheap cards - you might draw them late, when they make little impact on the game. But that's a little different. You never really lose a game because you top deck Fire Fly on turn 9 - rather, you lost the game because you were playing a fast deck that didn't win prior to the late-game (and there are lots of reasons why that may have happened . . .) In contrast, you lose all kinds of games precisely because you draw The Lich King on turn one. In general, fast decks are much less likely to have a hand clogged with unplayable cards - as a result, they tend to do well against the decks that do.
Incidentally, one of the reasons that cheap cards like Righteous Protector, or the new Glow-Tron, are really good is that they are sometimes good draws in the late-game. RP blocks a pair of attacks for one mana, potentially allowing your depleted board to survive another turn, doing a little more damage, and allowing you another opportunity to top-deck a game-saving play. Similarly, GT provides the opportunity for late-game combat tricks, allowing an otherwise dead minion to stick on the board after a trade.
I think this is spot-on. I may be wrong here but I think aggro decks usually become less frequent at higher ranks because there are less control misplays and players' increased ability to play more complex decks.
This is a serious bummer for homebrew/fun decks because
So there isn't much fun in playing homebrew if you lose a lot on turn 4. So people start netdecking aggro themselves (or a deck to counter aggro... which they can't play/lack cards).
This results in a high% of net decking probably starting at rank 20 which I find digusting for new players to go through.
Oh lighten up will you.
This was clearly at tongue in cheek comment here mate. Jainashot is a bit of a forum personality and one I enjoy talking with. I'm pretty sure this peer is on top 10 most banned list round here :p
Golden Hero Collections thus far; -
Europe: Druid, Hunter, Paladin, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior (9/9)
Americas: Druid, Mage, Paladin Shaman (4/9)
Everywhere else: Workin on it.. (0/9)
Against true aggro, the 'all to da face' kind, a lot of the current low cost cards fit the bill. 1/3s actually suck as an aggro card but rock in stopping aggro. Which is why decks have gotten more Tempo based than the original real aggro.
The current fast decks are Tempo decks and it's best NOT to pretend that's nitpicking. Tempo decks don't really rely on that early game push (though they'll end the game fast if you let them) but in never letting you rest Odd Paladin's ability to put out a semi-decent board with a hero power + 1 card is a good example of this. Thus the real problem isn't stopping the early push, but in dealing with the consistent drain they put on you as they reload and reload and reload and wear you down and wear you down.
You want the ability to 'reset' everything and force the opponent to spend resources they can't afford to spend. For example, Saronite Chain Gang. Yes, Tempo deck do use it, but it works better as an anti-Tempo card than a Tempo one given that Control has more tools to remove them and because they don't provide a lot of threat, letting Control drag the game out. Cheap healing also works out as well as semi-cheap board wipes. If this is sounding like the cards Shudderwock has then you see why that deck is so widely used.
Low cost, high health minions that are sticky. Board wipes. Healing/armor mechanics. And have a real win condition in late game. That's how you stop Tempo decks.
For the same reason why people keep declaring Odd Paladin an Aggro deck when the thing can't get more than 4 damage on the board by turn 4.
It really isn't that honest to put old Patron Warrior, 2014 Miracle Rogue, and Shudderwock Shaman as combo decks. They aren't even close to the same style of play. Shudderwock is more than happy to drag the game out to fatigue. It has to drag it to at least turn 9 obviously. it draws but not excessively, instead opting to play reactive and control the board while gathering it's pieces. It acts more like a Control deck with a direct Win condition.
This is a big deal because it explains its strengths and weaknesses.
Regular Combo decks, like Miracle Rogue and old Patron, wipe the floor with aggro decks. They carry a ton of removal and rush out their win condition so that winning by turn 7 isn't unusual for them. Tempo has a chance since you can keep up the pressure but it's not REALLY all that tested (Tempo wasn't really that strong in the early years and the strong Combo decks were nerfed when Tempo gained it's current power level. Though I will note that Secret paladin was a pretty strong Tempo deck and couldn't stop Patron).
SLOOWWW control decks could beat them. Patron was a 50/50 vs Fatigue Warrior and Handlock actually had an advantage against it. Anything less was at a disadvantage. I imagine Shudderwock shaman could stand up to old Patron nowadays.
The slow 'Control with a win condition' "combo" decks we have now, again, work like very greedy control decks, which suffer to aggro since they are..well.. slow and greedy.
And note, most fast decks nowadays are Tempo decks while most Control decks are..well... 'control with a win conditon'. Tempo loses to Control: always has in Hearthstone, probably always will.
AGGRO always had an advantage against slow Control. This has been true before the internet even existed. Fast Aggro is the way you stop overly greedy decks.
That's the point of #5. Those decks that used Bonemare weren't Aggro decks. They were Tempo decks. But they were faster than the decks people wanted to play so they were 'aggro'.
I promise you, if the fastest deck played at Tournaments was Hadronox Druid, the public would start calling it an aggro deck. I HAVE seen people argue that 'Alexstraza into Grom' killing plays were 'aggro'.
Aggro, according to #5, is whatever is the Beatdown deck in the meta.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
It's simple. Aggro decks will always draw threats, but control decks won't always draw answers. As control, you need to respond to whatever threat they put on the board or you will lose.
Lower learning curve, less adaptive meta cards needed, lower curve cards means less bad starting hands. In the hands of a skilled player all formats perform relatively similar, but aggro will always be a better win rate overall.
- Aggro decks are usually cheaper than control ones
- Games with aggro are much faster than games with control
- Aggro decks are MUCH easier to play than control decks
- When you make mistake with aggro, it does not really matter, when you make mistake with control, it might cost you the game
Throughout most of hearthstone, aggro decks actually had a lower win rate overall than other archetypes. Many of the most popular ones tended to be blow 50% on the whole.
Where they were strong at was in the lower ranks when nearly any deck can work but aggro won faster. They are also good in these first few early days when people keep making VERY greedy, and VERY bad slow decks.
But no, aggro doesn't always carry a better win rate.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.