My View On Deck Archetypes
Modern forum
Posted on Jan. 28, 2018, 12:01 a.m. by chaoswalker
I often find everything I ever read about deck archetypes confusing. Aggro goes fast, control goes slow, and combo is doing it's own thing? Everything was either over simplified, or ascribed names to niche things that were certainly a type of deck, but certainly not an archetype of deck. It wasn't until I had read an article challenging the concept of aggro and control that I started to see things from a new angle.
An aggro deck is one which functions well at low ammounts of mana. It can execute a winning play early on in the game, where early is simply defined as faster than the average deck can establish themself in the format. It is an entirely proactive strategy that is in hard to answer due to how effecient their cards are for their mana costs without needing any additional inputs or time.
A control deck is one which functions well with high ammounts of mana. It seeks to disrupt proactive strategies such as to create a game state that is insurmountable. This is usually a card or combination of cards that either outright wins the game or puts an opponent in a situation they can not overcome.
Midrange decks maximize value, and win through a game of resources. They seek to outvalue their opponent, either by generating more board presence than their opponent can, or by grinding the game out in a way other decks can not sustainably do. They are less concerned with the curve, and more with resources like card advantage, life, and board presence.
Tempo decks seek to dictate the pace of the game. This is accomplished by cheating the curve, either with actions that multiply each other or by undoing their opponent's actions. This creates skewed board states such that you can trade favorably.
Lastly, if a deck is inconsistent it is not a strategy, it is a gimmick.
To be clear, I view most combo decks a subtype of control, and decks like green stompy and most tribals as tempo. Its probably not the best way of viewing the game, but it is much less confusing to me than most other things I have read.
And no, I don't remember what article I read that started my though process but it more or less had the same definitions of aggro and control.
Hyperalgialysis says... #3
I would say combo decks are better defined as instant win decks, basically once the combo is up and running they win through whatever the combo is doing. I don't know if you would really call them control decks as sometimes they do use sweepers and countermagic to make it until the combo pieces are assembled, but sometimes they just use efficient blockers and creatures like Augury Owl to find pieces. The rest of your descriptions seem to fit relatively well. I would argue that tempo decks have 2 categories, proactive and reactive.
January 28, 2018 10:40 a.m.
The way I see it, the real deck archetypes are aggro, midrange and control, and combo decks may fall into any of the three categories (and so can tempo decks, in a sense). It really depends on the deck.
Grishoalbrand is aggro-combo. It doesn't interact with the opponent and wants to go off as early as possible.
U/R/x Twin is (or should I say, was) control-combo. It does have a combo as a wincon, but it's in no hurry to go off, and can even switch to a fully dedicated control deck post-board (Twin players used to do that a lot by sideboarding in cards like Keranos, God of Storms and Jace, Architect of Thought).
Knightfall is midrange-combo. It also has a combo as one of its wincons, but can win through attrition with cards like Voice of Resurgence and Scavenging Ooze, which are cheap enough to hit the board early on but also have tremendous late-game value.
January 28, 2018 11:47 a.m.
Why is midrange an archetype and and tempo not?
What about Modern Storm decks for example arent they only combo?
Why should combo not be an archetype on its own, that doesn't make any sense to me.
January 28, 2018 2:06 p.m.
I think these archetypes and other labels are used to identify patterns that are not mutually exclusive and fail to cover the whole possibility space of deck construction. I don't try to make any more sense of it than that.
These are my pattern associations:
Aggro: "aggressive" as in attacking early with efficient creatures (Burn: doing this with direct damage to the face as well as creatures usually involving )
Midrange: getting superior creatures out before your opponent(Ramp: beating the 1 land per turn curve to do this)
Control: stopping the opponent from winning (Stax: stopping them from playing)
Combo: assembling the letters i-w-i-n and putting them in play in the correct order regardless of other game states (synergy: resonating card value around a specific common theme consistently - this could include affinity, infect, and many other keywords and tribal strategies)
Tempo: a series of favorable moves such as favorable trades, stalling bluffs, surprise tricks, and wsted opponent turns and other resources that keep you at least one step ahead of your opponent
Voltron: loading up one creature with lots of enhancements
Swarm: going wide, usually with tokens and some form of anthems
Storm: setting up a big turn involving playing and drawing a very large number of cards
Political (multiplayer): convincing opponents to target each other instead of you
January 28, 2018 2:44 p.m.
chaoswalker says... #7
Like I said, I'm sure this isn't the right way to view deck types. It doesn't allow you to address the gradient, for example aggro decks who rush through by sheer value, vs aggro decks who attempt to be impossible to stop in the first place. Also, my definition of a tempo deck includes space for possibly too many types of decks.
I was interested to see people's perspective on combo decks. To better explain what I mean when I say I see most combo decks as control, they typically fit my control definition of preventing the opponent from winning until you assemble a win condition. On the other hand, some combo decks don't intend to interact at all and just win early or wait for the right moment to pop off the combo as some have pointed out. My definitions don't define these decks very well, except maybe by calling them some strange kind of aggro or midrange decks. I'm inclined to agree wtih square711 though that combo decks are simply variations of the traditional archetypes with varying levels of interactivity ( or linearity as I've heard it called.)
Also the reason I don't see tempo as being on a spectrum between aggro and control is because I see any deck that is "cheating speed" as a tempo deck, and thus it's own class. Merfolk is of course a classic tempo deck, but I also see mono green stompy and mono white allies as tempo decks. They both cheat the curve with multiplicative effects, and prevent the opponent from attacking or blocking their tempo in a meaningful way using protection, trample, hexproof, etc.
January 28, 2018 3:43 p.m.
Well there is nothing that stops us from saying a deck is combo-control Splinter Twin is a good example of this as was pointed out earlier. But there are simply to many decks that dont want to interact or have very little interaction and win cons that are so special that they deserve an archetype on their own.
I read an article about the topic a few weeks ago.
[here] (https://www.modernnexus.com/clarifying-convention-deck-names)
lukas96 says... #2
Well those kind of definitions are simple of course to be able to fit every deck in one of those categories.
Midrange and tempo are a mixture of Aggro and control to me for example, so more a sub categorie because they have much in common with both of the larger types.
To define combo decks as control doesnt make any sence to me, most of them dont even interact with the opponent at all. Their win cons are completely different than aggro or control so it makes sence that they are a category on their own.
January 28, 2018 6:01 a.m.