Hello and welcome to the Casual Chat!

Today I wanted to talk about something that has existed for, to my knowledge, as long as card games have been around.

Deck archetypes are not something new, every card game has them, but what I wanted to talk about was the three primary deck archetypes that are common in almost every card game I have played or taken a look at.

Aggro, Combo, and Control.

These three archetypes are synchronous with card games, and they all have at times been dominant within a format of a card game.

The other reason I wanted to talk about these three archetypes is because they exist as a sort of rock-paper-scissors trio that can help keep a card game in check.

First, I want to talk about the strategies as a whole, why they appeal to some people, and why they may not appeal to other people.

Aggro

The Aggro archetype is pretty easy to define, but complex in its execution. Aggro is short for the word aggressive, which means that the way the deck intends to win is by going all in on damage, either via burn or creature attacks, and win as fast as possible.

Usually the deck plays cards that are cheap to play and low to the ground creatures in abundance where the goal is to overwhelm the opponent.

While simple in idea, the hardest part to understanding the Aggro game plan is having the right amount of damage dealing cards and cheap creatures to consistently be able to play.

Oftentimes the biggest weakness Aggro decks have is that they run out gas so to speak, meaning that they use all the cards in their hand and if they haven’t won the game, then they will need to rely on top-decking to win.

If they cannot win within a few turn, then the opponent can stall their way to a win. There have been many times when I have been playing against an Aggro deck in Magic where if I play enough removal and blockers, and the opponent has nothing else, they lose the game.

Aggro is an all in strategy, and that draws in people who want to win efficiently and quickly, while also annoying people for games ending quickly. People want to play as much of a game as possible, and depending on the Aggro deck, that can feel short to some players.

Control

If Aggro is about going as fast as possible, then Control decks are the complete opposite of that.

The goal of a Control deck is to deny your opponents of resources, either by removing them from the field, hand, or graveyard, and slowly accumulate your own resources until you can press an advantage.

Control is slow and methodical, wanting to make sure that you can play all of your cards while making sure your opponent can’t play any of their cards.

Card advantage is the name of the game, so if they can play their card while denying you resources and gain more from it via drawing cards or getting rid of multiple things with one card, they are in an advantageous position.

“Draw go” is a term that I believe came from Magic in where a Control player would draw their card for turn, play a land, and pass their turn, leaving mana up. The idea of this is to make sure that you have enough resources to play your cards, while your opponent needs to think about their strategy to avoid your traps.

While this keeps certain decks in check, the weakness that Control has is that it is a slower deck, and any deck that can out speed it can beat it. Now it isn’t impossible for a deck to be faster and still lose to Control, it’s just in an uphill battle.

Control is a slow strategy that seeks out denying your opponents resources while you gain more, and people have the opposite problem with Control decks as they do Aggro decks in that games take way to long to finish.

Combo

Combo decks are one of the trickier deck archetypes to build, and that is for a variety of reasons.

Short for combination, Combo decks are wanting to use a combination of cards that can win the player a game.

Combo decks are the trickiest decks to play because they need certain pieces in order to make the deck work, and if those cards are removed or unable to be played, then there is a chance that the Combo deck doesn’t work.

However, a good Combo deck is able to plan around this by having a few contingency plans, whether that be another Combo, or a way to retrieve their removed resources.

When a Combo deck goes off, it can be hard to interact with and when complete can put the Combo player in a winning position, or just outright win the game.

There are even times in many card games where an “infinite” Combo is made, which means that a through a combination of cards, the same effect repeats over and over creating what’s often called a loop, which depending on the game can be a technically infinite number of times.

Yu-Gi-Oh! is famous for being a Combo centric game, in which cards are played in a sequence to put yourself in an advantageous position, while your opponent does the same and whoever can persevere through your opponent’s interaction will win the game.

And therein lies the biggest weakness of Combo decks, and that is interaction. If an opponent can interrupt a Combo player enough times that they are unable to proceed through their Combo, then the Combo player loses.

Combo is a tricky strategy, making sure that players understand what their decks can do and overcome their shortcomings, which means that players who are not skilled pilots of the deck play slowly, making other players frustrated.

Aggro vs. Combo vs. Control

Like I mentioned earlier, there is a rock-paper-scissors aspect between Aggro, Combo, and Control that form the base of a lot of cards games.

Aggro decks can often beat Control decks because Aggro decks are much faster, while Control decks can beat Combo decks because of how much interaction they have, and Combo decks can beat Aggro decks because of how resilient a good Combo deck is can make Aggro run out of gas.

This is not always a perfect analogy because sometimes certain decks are much stronger then the others based on the available card pool and the format.

For example, Aggro decks tend to have a hard time in Commander, Combo decks rule Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Control is the black sheep of deck archetypes because a lot of people don’t like their opponents dictating the pace of the game.

However, these deck archetypes can also run in concert together to make hybrid deck archetypes.

Combo-Control is a deck that intends to win with a Combo strategy, but has a control package to back itself up. Midrange is a deck archetype that straddles the line between a Control deck and an Aggro deck, being able to switch between the two as necessary.

There are even decks that combine all three, which while less common, acts as a toolbox to pivot into a variety of ways to play the game while not being stifled if an opponent takes out a piece of another strategy.

In Conclusion

The three primary deck archetypes are very interesting in how they play and interact with each other.

A lot of games tend to have these three archetypes as a base to start things out and developing hybrid archetypes or new archetypes to help evolve a game.

Having these deck archetypes as a fundamental building block of a game can lend a sense of familiarity to new players if they come from other card games, or can be easily understood by new players if they have never played a card game before.

Thank you for reading, see you next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual