What does aggro mean?
General forum
Posted on Sept. 5, 2013, 6:46 p.m. by miel94
Hello, could somebody explain what aggro means?
At frist I thought it stood for a deck that mainly has cheap mana cost cards. Thus more or less decks with a great early/mid game but bad lategame. Kinda like rushing when ur playing age of empires.
However, other people I know use it as a term to tell a deck is focused on offensive tactics (such as battle cry, vampires getting +1/+1 counters when they deal damage to a players life points and other effects from attacking etc...)
Than other people use it to indicate a deck has a lot of "until end of turn" so again the rushy aspect, good for one turn, but not much permanent benefits.
So what the hell is aggro? Ive seen all diffrent sort of decks with the tag aggro, so I gues the community in general all has different vieuws on what aggro truly is.
Cobthecobbler says... #3
I think of it as a low-cost creature deck that uses various ways to win as fast as possible (Usually turn 6 or earlier.)
So utilizing offensive mechanics, pump spells, and other means of speeding the game up would be optimal for these kinds of decks.
September 5, 2013 6:51 p.m.
cartwheelnurd says... #4
Aggro accounts for pretty much a quarter of all decks, and one of the three main archetypes. There are Aggro, Midrange, Control, and Combo decks which make up most of the game. Aggro tries to win by applying enough pressure that you can kill the opponent before they can establish a board presence. While many aggro decks run red and fewer are blue, they can still be found in every color. Since the aggro deck wants to win as soon as it can, it usually plays mostly cheap creatures and almost never more expensive ones than 4 or 5 mana. Other aggro decks try to take one creature and buff it to insane proportions and then kill you with it. The one trait aggro decks all share is that it tries to be very fast and consistent. While a lot of control lists mare many 1 ofs or 2 ofs, an aggro list is mostly a bunch of 4ofs of creatures and spells so it can be consistent enough to beat you before you can react.
September 5, 2013 7:02 p.m.
Schuesseled says... #5
Aggro is an aggressive deck, that uses a downwards sloping mana curve that usually starts at 1 or 2cmc. (i.e higher amounts of lower costing creatures). Aggro decks tend to top out their curve at 4 or 5, i.e. no monsters that cost more.
Non creature spells are usually limited (at least in mainboard) to less than ten, as to what those spells are? well you can find, removal, burn, planeswalkers, auras, buffs, etc.
And then ontop of that you can get Aggro-x hybrids that combine aggro with other strategies, I myself am build a Jund Aggro-Ramp hybrid for rotation, Revel in Power. To do this I've kept the mana curve aggro-esque, downwards sloping, (mostly), topping out at 5cmc, but including creatures and spells that normally wouldn't work in an aggro deck, but do work when you have lots of extra mana floating around.
September 5, 2013 7:11 p.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #6
Zoo, Pump Infect, and Red Deck Wins are all great examples of Aggro, or aggressive decks. To add to the comment above, 4x copies of each card are ran for consistency, most Aggro decks (Zoo and RDW in particular) run a 20/20/20 split with the converted mana cost (CMC) at no greater than 3 typically. A 20/20/20 split is 20 creatures, 20 spells, and 20 lands.
An example of a Red Deck Wins list is here:
Crimson and Ash
September 6, 2013 5:33 a.m.
"Aggro" is short for "aggressive" and is used in many different gaming comunities. In MTG it is a deck archetype. In online computer gaming it is used for aggressive creatures that will attack players. "Aggro" can also be used as a verb - to "aggro" is to aggressively attack a specific target.
Urban Dictionary "aggro" entry
Many MTG players also play online video games so it is more than likely the case that the word could get used for its multiple meanings, but the most important and frequently used meaning for "aggro" in MTG is as a reference to a specific deck archetype as described by others above.
September 6, 2013 6:16 a.m.
Thanks all, so basicly this deck can by concidered aggro?
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/goblin-like-a-boss-need-opinions/
HarbingerJK says... #2
it's an aggressive deck that plays a lot of creatures to reduce the opponent's life total to 0 as quickly as possible. Aggro usually does use cheaper and smaller creatures as opposed to midrange which uses larger, more expensive creatures
September 5, 2013 6:48 p.m.