Sorry for not reading the millionth Hearthpwn thread on this subject, but the answer is:
Only bad players say aggro takes less skill than other archetypes.
only bad players make absurd blanket statements.
Again I pose the question - given unlimited dust and a limit of 100 games, what archetype would yield the best result for a brand new player who has never played a competitive card game?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Sorry for not reading the millionth Hearthpwn thread on this subject, but the answer is:
Only bad players say aggro takes less skill than other archetypes.
only bad players make absurd blanket statements.
Again I pose the question - given unlimited dust and a limit of 100 games, what archetype would yield the best result for a brand new player who has never played a competitive card game?
Aggro, no question. But that's a question of skill floor, when presumably we are speaking of higher levels of play.
Whenever someone decides to take the question of "difficulty" seriously and not just as a trolling vehicle, you have to decide what you're asking (difficult to play at what percentage of total win potential?).
It is probably true that it is easier to win . . . I'll pull an illustrative number out of thin air . . . 80% of the total number of games you COULD have won with aggro than with control or combo.
It is also probably true, as I illustrated earlier, that as you approach 100%, or in other words, as you approach "perfect" play, the difficulty evens out, and in some cases actually flips to the aggro archetype being more difficult to play.
Just a question of defining terms.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Sorry for not reading the millionth Hearthpwn thread on this subject, but the answer is:
Only bad players say aggro takes less skill than other archetypes.
only bad players make absurd blanket statements.
Again I pose the question - given unlimited dust and a limit of 100 games, what archetype would yield the best result for a brand new player who has never played a competitive card game?
Aggro, no question. But that's a question of skill floor, when presumably we are speaking of higher levels of play.
Whenever someone decides to take the question of "difficulty" seriously and not just as a trolling vehicle, you have to decide what you're asking (difficult to play at what percentage of total win potential?).
It is probably true that it is easier to win . . . I'll pull an illustrative number out of thin air . . . 80% of the total number of games you COULD have won with aggro than with control or combo.
It is also probably true, as I illustrated earlier, that as you approach 100%, or in other words, as you approach "perfect" play, the difficulty evens out, and in some cases actually flips to the aggro archetype being more difficult to play.
Just a question of defining terms.
If aggro takes less skill to play and win at lower levels, and as you climb the ladder the amount of skill required to win trends closer and closer to equal, then overall aggro still takes less skill.
if A < B, and C = D, then A + C < B + D.
Simple math.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
Sorry for not reading the millionth Hearthpwn thread on this subject, but the answer is:
Only bad players say aggro takes less skill than other archetypes.
only bad players make absurd blanket statements.
Again I pose the question - given unlimited dust and a limit of 100 games, what archetype would yield the best result for a brand new player who has never played a competitive card game?
Aggro, no question. But that's a question of skill floor, when presumably we are speaking of higher levels of play.
Whenever someone decides to take the question of "difficulty" seriously and not just as a trolling vehicle, you have to decide what you're asking (difficult to play at what percentage of total win potential?).
It is probably true that it is easier to win . . . I'll pull an illustrative number out of thin air . . . 80% of the total number of games you COULD have won with aggro than with control or combo.
It is also probably true, as I illustrated earlier, that as you approach 100%, or in other words, as you approach "perfect" play, the difficulty evens out, and in some cases actually flips to the aggro archetype being more difficult to play.
Just a question of defining terms.
If aggro takes less skill to play and win at lower levels, and as you climb the ladder the amount of skill required to win trends closer and closer to equal, then overall aggro still takes less skill.
if A < B, and C = D, then A + C < B + D.
Simple math.
So, in your analogy A = low level difficulty of control, B = low level difficulty of control, C = high level aggro, D = high level control?
I assume anyway, that's the only way I can figure to interpret it. If that is correct, then adding A and C and comparing to B plus D has no bearing on anything.
Regardless, if you want to talk about the actual math of the situation, it hinges on what I called "relevantly different" lines of play. The definition of "relevant" in this case is as follows: A line of play is relevantly different from another IF and only IF one line has the potential to produce a loss and the other has potential to produce a win in any given game. As you approach higher levels of play, what constitutes a mistake gets more nuanced, and there are more instances where you win or lose the game based on individual choices in play.
In other words, at rank 25 (generalizing of course) the outcome of the game is less likely to hinge on one early game choice than at #20 legend. Therefore, the choice to play an Argent Squire or a Voidwalker in your zoo deck at r25 may not qualify as two relevantly different lines of play at low levels, and may indeed qualify at higher. Thus, under what I consider to be the only possible definition of "difficulty", the zoo deck is quantifiably more difficult to play at #20 legend than it is at r25.
Since there is no reason to assume this increase is linear, It is perfectly possible that a deck which is easier to play at lower levels is more difficult to play at higher levels. Since you made a function for me, I'll illustrate with a couple of my own.
Say, the control difficulty function is y = x
Say, the aggro difficulty function is y = x^2 ; where x is the variable of level of play
Then, at "difficulty level" 0 to 1 non-inclusive, control is more difficult. At difficulty level 1, they are equal. At difficulty greater than 1, aggro is more difficult.
I can't believe I actually had to illustrate this point, but since you brought math into it . . . well, there it is.
TL;DR: The math is actually not all that simple, but you are incorrect when you say that a deck which is easier to play at lower levels MUST be easier to play at higher levels.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Sorry for not reading the millionth Hearthpwn thread on this subject, but the answer is:
Only bad players say aggro takes less skill than other archetypes.
only bad players make absurd blanket statements.
Again I pose the question - given unlimited dust and a limit of 100 games, what archetype would yield the best result for a brand new player who has never played a competitive card game?
In a perfectly balanced meta, I believe your hypothesis is correct that a brand new player would have a higher win percentage with aggro, but not entirely because the strategy of aggro is easier to understand, but because aggro exploits situations where players draw sub-optimal cards. Aggro is commonly less affected by your opening hand of cards (and mulligans) because aggro decks are often comprised of low cost (and relatively high attack) minions. So yes, a strategy of play all your minions and go all in face works when your opponent has bad draw.
The basic control strategy of play removal and heal/armor up/play big taunt is not hard to understand. Since there is a lot of aggro in every meta, I expect a new player could have decent success playing a variant of control warrior. Would they win many mirror matches? Nope, but they could punish aggro decks. Honestly, I wouldn't expect a new player to win many mirror matches of any deck. I expect they would win favored matches, lose unfavored matches, and lose mirror matches.
Regardless of deck type, I think the best players win nearly all favored matches, win many mirror matches, and win some unfavored matches. The best players having an optimal understanding of both their deck/strategy and their opponent's deck/strategy.
For what it is worth, i believe new players gravitate toward aggro because the decks are lower cost. I don't think new players view control decks as too hard to master. I believe they simply don't have the cards/dust for control decks.
If A < B in terms of skill required to climb ladder, and C = D in terms of skill required to climb ladder, then A + C < B + D.
The overall skill required to pilot aggro is less than the overall skill required to pilot control. At the end of the day, aggro is still "play minions, go face." At the end of the day, control is still "how close to the death can I afford to go?" Resource management for control is lot more complicated because the answers are far outnumbered by the questions posed by tempo/aggro decks. The number of cards you have to play around (and be hard punished for if you don't) is a known amount and is far fewer than the threats you can pose, as an aggro/tempo deck. The concepts such as "don't over extend" and "should you go all in or not" are relatively simple compared to "my opponent has 8 off lethal on board, can I afford to draw cards or do I need to use removal on something and if so, what?"
And as I clearly explained, there is no reason to believe C = D in all cases.
It could just as easily be the case that C > D. It can also be the case that C < D. Figuring out which is the case requires a sophisticated program, a fast processor, and lots and lots of game replays. Fortunately for me, I'm not the one arguing, as many do, that one archetype is UNIVERSALLY more difficult to play. Therefore, I only need to show the possibility.
In a real world example, if you were to look at Token Druid vs Big Spell Mage, you would certainly find that Token Druid presents more potential lines of play, simply because there will be more opportunities to play multiple cards per turn (or not) which magnifies the possibilities. It would require a lot of time to decide which of these are "relevantly different" in terms of game results, but certainly it is possible that the result would be that Token Druid scores higher on the difficulty rating when played to its best.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Aggro is always the same, if you know one you can play them all:
play on curve
Trade efficiently
Choose when to go face, and then go face
Other archetypes tend to have more decisions and also more options per decision. On top of that, these choices and decisions vary vastly per deck, so you have to figure out how each deck actually works.
it's kind of the same thing for control though, now, i've seen so many players lose unlosable games while playing control decks because they decided not to go face when they should have, even control has to start going face at some points, hence why ragnaros was a staple in so many control decks of the past, i see way too many fatigue addicts and value addicts that lose games on the spot when they decide not to push for the win once they get ahead, way too many players have forgotten that the sole objective of control is contro the game until you can play something that's really hard to deal with to push for the win instead of remove everything and sort of hope opponent dies to fatigue, i'll tell you something, the later deck would lose every game if the fatigue didn't exist and you simply lost when you couldnt draw a card in the draw phase, like in other card games.
Aggro would need to be far more difficult to play at higher levels than control in order for it to be overall more difficult than control.
I'm just not seeing how that could possibly be the case. Higher levels would need to be made up of primarily different aggro decks where each person is playing near perfectly.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.
only bad players make absurd blanket statements.
Again I pose the question - given unlimited dust and a limit of 100 games, what archetype would yield the best result for a brand new player who has never played a competitive card game?
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
Aggro, no question. But that's a question of skill floor, when presumably we are speaking of higher levels of play.
Whenever someone decides to take the question of "difficulty" seriously and not just as a trolling vehicle, you have to decide what you're asking (difficult to play at what percentage of total win potential?).
It is probably true that it is easier to win . . . I'll pull an illustrative number out of thin air . . . 80% of the total number of games you COULD have won with aggro than with control or combo.
It is also probably true, as I illustrated earlier, that as you approach 100%, or in other words, as you approach "perfect" play, the difficulty evens out, and in some cases actually flips to the aggro archetype being more difficult to play.
Just a question of defining terms.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
If aggro takes less skill to play and win at lower levels, and as you climb the ladder the amount of skill required to win trends closer and closer to equal, then overall aggro still takes less skill.
if A < B, and C = D, then A + C < B + D.
Simple math.
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
So, in your analogy A = low level difficulty of control, B = low level difficulty of control, C = high level aggro, D = high level control?
I assume anyway, that's the only way I can figure to interpret it. If that is correct, then adding A and C and comparing to B plus D has no bearing on anything.
Regardless, if you want to talk about the actual math of the situation, it hinges on what I called "relevantly different" lines of play. The definition of "relevant" in this case is as follows: A line of play is relevantly different from another IF and only IF one line has the potential to produce a loss and the other has potential to produce a win in any given game. As you approach higher levels of play, what constitutes a mistake gets more nuanced, and there are more instances where you win or lose the game based on individual choices in play.
In other words, at rank 25 (generalizing of course) the outcome of the game is less likely to hinge on one early game choice than at #20 legend. Therefore, the choice to play an Argent Squire or a Voidwalker in your zoo deck at r25 may not qualify as two relevantly different lines of play at low levels, and may indeed qualify at higher. Thus, under what I consider to be the only possible definition of "difficulty", the zoo deck is quantifiably more difficult to play at #20 legend than it is at r25.
Since there is no reason to assume this increase is linear, It is perfectly possible that a deck which is easier to play at lower levels is more difficult to play at higher levels. Since you made a function for me, I'll illustrate with a couple of my own.
Say, the control difficulty function is y = x
Say, the aggro difficulty function is y = x^2 ; where x is the variable of level of play
Then, at "difficulty level" 0 to 1 non-inclusive, control is more difficult. At difficulty level 1, they are equal. At difficulty greater than 1, aggro is more difficult.
I can't believe I actually had to illustrate this point, but since you brought math into it . . . well, there it is.
TL;DR: The math is actually not all that simple, but you are incorrect when you say that a deck which is easier to play at lower levels MUST be easier to play at higher levels.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
In a perfectly balanced meta, I believe your hypothesis is correct that a brand new player would have a higher win percentage with aggro, but not entirely because the strategy of aggro is easier to understand, but because aggro exploits situations where players draw sub-optimal cards. Aggro is commonly less affected by your opening hand of cards (and mulligans) because aggro decks are often comprised of low cost (and relatively high attack) minions. So yes, a strategy of play all your minions and go all in face works when your opponent has bad draw.
The basic control strategy of play removal and heal/armor up/play big taunt is not hard to understand. Since there is a lot of aggro in every meta, I expect a new player could have decent success playing a variant of control warrior. Would they win many mirror matches? Nope, but they could punish aggro decks. Honestly, I wouldn't expect a new player to win many mirror matches of any deck. I expect they would win favored matches, lose unfavored matches, and lose mirror matches.
Regardless of deck type, I think the best players win nearly all favored matches, win many mirror matches, and win some unfavored matches. The best players having an optimal understanding of both their deck/strategy and their opponent's deck/strategy.
For what it is worth, i believe new players gravitate toward aggro because the decks are lower cost. I don't think new players view control decks as too hard to master. I believe they simply don't have the cards/dust for control decks.
A = Aggro at low ranks
B = Control at low ranks
C = Aggro at high ranks
D = Control at high ranks
If A < B in terms of skill required to climb ladder, and C = D in terms of skill required to climb ladder, then A + C < B + D.
The overall skill required to pilot aggro is less than the overall skill required to pilot control. At the end of the day, aggro is still "play minions, go face." At the end of the day, control is still "how close to the death can I afford to go?" Resource management for control is lot more complicated because the answers are far outnumbered by the questions posed by tempo/aggro decks. The number of cards you have to play around (and be hard punished for if you don't) is a known amount and is far fewer than the threats you can pose, as an aggro/tempo deck. The concepts such as "don't over extend" and "should you go all in or not" are relatively simple compared to "my opponent has 8 off lethal on board, can I afford to draw cards or do I need to use removal on something and if so, what?"
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
And as I clearly explained, there is no reason to believe C = D in all cases.
It could just as easily be the case that C > D. It can also be the case that C < D. Figuring out which is the case requires a sophisticated program, a fast processor, and lots and lots of game replays. Fortunately for me, I'm not the one arguing, as many do, that one archetype is UNIVERSALLY more difficult to play. Therefore, I only need to show the possibility.
In a real world example, if you were to look at Token Druid vs Big Spell Mage, you would certainly find that Token Druid presents more potential lines of play, simply because there will be more opportunities to play multiple cards per turn (or not) which magnifies the possibilities. It would require a lot of time to decide which of these are "relevantly different" in terms of game results, but certainly it is possible that the result would be that Token Druid scores higher on the difficulty rating when played to its best.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
it's kind of the same thing for control though, now, i've seen so many players lose unlosable games while playing control decks because they decided not to go face when they should have, even control has to start going face at some points, hence why ragnaros was a staple in so many control decks of the past, i see way too many fatigue addicts and value addicts that lose games on the spot when they decide not to push for the win once they get ahead, way too many players have forgotten that the sole objective of control is contro the game until you can play something that's really hard to deal with to push for the win instead of remove everything and sort of hope opponent dies to fatigue, i'll tell you something, the later deck would lose every game if the fatigue didn't exist and you simply lost when you couldnt draw a card in the draw phase, like in other card games.
Aggro would need to be far more difficult to play at higher levels than control in order for it to be overall more difficult than control.
I'm just not seeing how that could possibly be the case. Higher levels would need to be made up of primarily different aggro decks where each person is playing near perfectly.
Kaladin's RoS Set Review
Join me at Out of Cards!
No, it doesn't.
Ever heard of Pirate Warrior and The Juggernaut?