[Article] The Death of Aggro?

[Milton]

Yes, Madness, which can perform quite well and is an upper tier deck. Also, it seems that Goblin Sligh top-8s in many metas, particularly those where people metagame heavily against powered decks. Of course, if we define the direct damage that these decks run as "control" elements, then the answer would be "no". However, I would choose to look at them in a different way: a direct damage spell is an "aggro" spell, which serves to reduce the opponent's life total when going for the speed kill, but it happens to be a flexible component of the deck because it can exert a measure of control against the opponent's creatures. By the same token we can argue that Roar of the Wurm can function as a control spell, because it can negate the opponent's aggressive creatures - it will stop Juggernauts, Su-Chis, Piledrivers, etc.

Most Goblin Sligh decks have either Red Blasts or Pyrostatic Pillars in the board, along with, possibly, Rack and Ruin or Goblin Vandals.

Doesn't Madness have Null Rod?

But, you clearly ask some very interesting questions.  What is disruption and what is not?  Clearly no one would say that Roar of the Wurm is a control spell, but your argument about it negating opponent's creatures is a very good one.  Is Shaman a control spell?  Is it disruption?  Is Ankh of Mishra?  Very good questions.  Where is the line at which a spell becomes control / disruption?

[Dr. Sylvan]

I went back and read rakso's article again to see if I could figure out what the disconnect was in this case, then revisited my earlier comments. I think the negative reactions expressed in this thread are based on poor definitions. Oscar is right to say that pure aggro is dead. However, to point this out makes no sense, since aggro does not exist independent of disruption and never really has.

If you define disruption narrowly enough, I suppose you could construe some decks as lacking it. (As an aside, only a few versions of Madness would fit even a narrow definition, because about half of the RUG lists I've seen winning included Circular Logic.) If any card that causes damage is 'sufficiently aggressive' to miss the 'disruption' category, then I'm sure we could find lists that matched that at some point in the past. I don't think this is appropriate at all, though.

Even the most single-minded decks are designed with tools that enable them to ignore what the opponent is doing, in other words, to ensure that the opponent does not gain control. Why does Madness employ Wonder if not to retain control of the game's tempo, whether by dodging blockers or ignoring a Moat. The selection of cards that discourage players from playing more land (Price of Progress, Ankh of Mishra) are designed to hold back a control deck in its efforts to seize the tempo advantage that its assailant has built.

So even tempo/aggro decks have always needed a way to get out of a game-breaking play. Force of Will ensures that there is no time in the game when a player can rely on being unmolested by his opponent--indeed, he should expect it constantly. Every deck has disruption, so the idea of decks with none is a red herring as far as I'm concerned. Since it's beyond dispute that aggro decks incorporating disruption are successful, and I don't think that decks without disruption exist, my negative reaction stands unaltered. Rakso should have clarified

[Matt]

Doesn't Madness have Null Rod?

Heavens, no! Running five Moxen, Lotus, Sol Ring and an LED pretty much excludes Null Rod from contention.

Though I must admit, I have been meaning to try a Null Rod Madness, using ESG as a pseudo-power replacement.

[Vegeta2711]

I think most of you read the title and didn't read the article.  

Next person who says this should be beatdown. I'm really REALLY sick of people saying this.

Oscar's point may of been correct, but the examples he used and the way he presented them were ugly at best and misleading at worst.

Goblin Sligh. FCG and Madness are the closest things to 'pure aggro' as there is. They barely run anything controlling about them and just want you dead as quickly as possible. Do they fall under the exact definition? Of course not, I don't think anyone is here to argue Stompy is going to ever be good again.

But just because a deck runs Wasteland, Pillar or Bolt (something which can, but doesn't always kill opponents creatures)  I still consider it aggro. Maybe after boarding you can make an arguement, but to me the only pure controlling cards are what your boarding in (and only in some cases) and Wasteland.

Aggro-Control is Sui or Fish, something that particularly goes out of it's way to disrupt the opponent and keep their gameplan intact.

Bleh, whatever, carry on your discussion.

[Rico Suave]

Even pure aggro decks like sligh and Madness have had disruption in their SB since they were created, so as to deal with these combo decks.

So maybe the next article will talk about how control can't survive without card-draw?  I'm really looking forward to that painfully obvious subject too.

[Matt]

It may be painfully obvious, but it's also very important. This would have made a better "beginner" article.

[Ric_Flair]

It certainly would have made a better beginner's article, that is, if we want to confuse beginners and make them AWFUL players.

I think Philip's point needs to be taken seriously.  Aggro without some form of disruption has rarely if ever existed.  FCG and Madness being two very unusual decks that operate as exceptions.  But even in these decks there are cards that function like control elements.  Madness sometimes runs Fiery Temper and FCG sometimes runs Seige Gang Commander, both of which can be used as control elements.  

The issue here is twofold: 1) whether there has ever been a pure aggro deck; and 2) differentiating between disruption and control.

I talked to Jacob about #2 and he had a good working definition.  Disruption is like a speed bump, it slows down or hinders an opponent's game plan.  Control, I would posit, does something different--it stops the opponent's game plan entirely (or at least tries to).  The thing is that a card can be disruption in one deck and control in another.  For example, Duress in Sui is basically there to strip out any card that stops creatures from attacking or provides too great of an advantage.  There is no specific target, just take a card out of there hand.  In Keeper or Tog or combo Duress operates differently.  It is designed either as a counterspell compliment, obviously functioning in a control mode, or as a force through spell, stopping an opponent's game plan, at least for one turn, so that you can win, again more preventative than debilitating.  

I think that is the essential difference between the two ideas: disruption is debilitating and control attempts to prevent an opposing game plan from unfolding.  They may be different ends of the spectrum, but in play they are radically different.  Root Maze is the ideal disruption:  it slows everyone down a bit, but in no way "seizes" up the entire game.  Compare Root Maze, however, to Stasis, and the difference is clear.  Root Maze is the speed bump and Stasis is the car boot.  

The issue is that I am not sure that any purely theoretical definition can be broad enough to define the difference between the two elements and at the same time be specific enough to make sense.  

As a corollary, aggro decks may use some disruption, but do not include purely control type spells, while aggro control includes a few or more purely control type spells (even non-blue control type spells like Smokestack, Duress in its control mode, or Damping Matrix).  

That distinction made, I return to my original assertion:  Oscar's article both in general and in the details is wrong.  There has never an effective been a pure aggro deck--never.  The use of things like Null Rod, Root Maze, and other disruption spells does not spell the end of aggro.  Instead it shows how to intelligently innovate in the aggro archetype.  

Bottom line:  Aggro isn't dead.

[jpmeyer]

Right on.  If you compare a deck like Oshawa Stompy to something like GAT, Oshawa Stompy is using its cards like Root Maze to slow the opponent down enough to be able to get its turn 5 kill.  GAT, OTOH is using its disruption to keep its Dryad/Tog alive long enough to kill.  That's the main difference between aggro and aggro-control.

[dicemanx]

Something else needs to be mentioned: the type and power level of disruption that an "aggro" deck uses factors greatly in its success rate. Disruption such as Null Rod, Blood Moon, Chalice, or Trinisphere can be so debilitating that it pays for the deck to use a two-pronged strategy of attack and defense. The extent of the disruption comes down not only to specifics of the deck type and what its game plan is with respect to winning, but it depends heavily on the metagame as well. It's way too general and even misleading to state that "all decks need disruption" to be competitive. This is a backwards view. Instead, we should state that modern decks have opened themselves so much to vicious hate in the interest of maximizing their goldfish speed/fundamental turn that this *must* be exploited vigilantly by decks that aren't as fast. There is a delicate balance between the monstrously fast decks and the powerful disruption that can contain them; once that balance is tipped where the powered decks are just outracing the hate (like long.dec) then its time for restrictions.

Plus, there are very obvious exceptions to the generalization above - the quality and power levels of the disruption spells are also quite critical to success. So, success of a deck is hardly dependent on the quantity of the disruption it runs; it depends on whether you've successfully matched the correct type of disruption for the decks you end up facing at a tourney. For instance, if I took Oshawa Stompy to a tournament and expected to face control and aggro all day (rather than pure-combo or "half" combo like Hulk or FCG), it would probably be wise to cut down on many disruption elements and focus on beatdown and mass draw engines to overwhelm opponents. The disruption is moved to the SB instead to "fine tune" the MD for games 2 and 3. If I instead went to a tourney where Belcher, Long, Dragon, Hulk, and Stax/wMUD roamed free, I'd pile up on Null Rods and Oxidizes/Naturalizes, and perhaps even Root Mazes to fight against decks that threaten to destroy me turn 2-4.

[Ric_Flair]

Diceman:

First, Angelia is looking SMOKIN' in your sig.  The eyes are awesome.

Second, I disagree with your comments about disruption.  

the type and power level of disruption that an "aggro" deck uses factors greatly in its success rate. Disruption such as Null Rod, Blood Moon, Chalice, or Trinisphere can be so debilitating that it pays for the deck to use a two-pronged strategy of attack and defense.

First, the power level of disruption is unimportant.  This is Vintage.  ALL the cards used in GOOD decks are powerful.  If not, they should not be used.  This has nothing to do with whether they are disruption or not.

The cards you mentioned, while some can be used as control elements, all of them can be used as disruption.  But as I tried to make clear before, disruption is not designed to protect or defend you or your resources, it is designed to attack an opponent's resources.  Disruption, or cards used in disruptive capacities, are NOT defensive cards.

It's way too general and even misleading to state that "all decks need disruption" to be competitive. This is a backwards view.

How is this a backwards view?  Second, I would go so far as to say that without disruption of some sort, non-control decks don't stand a chance, barring some sort of bizarre situation like Pre-banning Long.  Even combo runs disruption of a sort.  Rector runs Cabal Therapy, Draw 7.dec runs Swarms and all the Draw 7s (which function as disruption, forcing an opponent to drop counterspells), and Dragon runs Duress, Swarm, or Force (which acts like disruption, debilitating a control opponent's ability to counter spell.  It is not used as a serious counterspell here).  Aggro has the same overall structure.  Disruption is what makes all non-control, non-first turn combo decks viable in an environment of hyper control, like Vintage.  When Force is on line Turn 1 and Mana Drain Turn 2, disruption is necessary.  

So, success of a deck is hardly dependent on the quantity of the disruption it runs; it depends on whether you've successfully matched the correct type of disruption for the decks you end up facing at a tourney. For instance, if I took Oshawa Stompy to a tournament and expected to face control and aggro all day (rather than pure-combo or "half" combo like Hulk or FCG), it would probably be wise to cut down on many disruption elements and focus on beatdown and mass draw engines to overwhelm opponents.

I don't see how this is related to disruption.  This is called deck construction or metagaming, but choosing which disruption to run has nothing to do with disruption per se.  It just has to do with which cards to run.  I am not sure if I could think of a competitive environment where a non-control deck needs to run NO disruption, even if we assume that certain decks that are "known foil decks" won't be there.  Null Rod in O.Stompy for instance is just so good against all most all top tier decks.  Perhaps an example would help me to see when a deck would need NO disruption.


Thinking about this more, I am unable to find a suitable definition of a disruption card v. a control card.  I think that the speed bump v. car boot analogy works well, but I can't articulate the relationship anymore precisely than I did.  In general there are few cards that are "pure" disruption, like Root Maze, and cards that are "pure" control, like Counterspell or Control Magic.  Most cards exist somewhere in the middle.  I think that the totality of the circumstances defines whether one of these either/or cards is acting as a disruption spell or a control spell.  The circumstances include, but are not limited: 1) the deck; 2) the deck's sideboard; 3) whether the roads to victory is more or less independent (more independent: Morphling, less independent: Karn); 4) the speed of the deck's kill, that is the deck's FT; 5) the metagame; 6) the opposing deck in a given match up.  I think this test is useful in determining all sorts of things, like most relevant recently: WHO'S THE BEATDOWN.

[Matt]

Root Maze is the speed bump and Stasis is the car boot.

So you're saying the difference is only in degree? If a speed bump is tall enough, it stops you from progressing just as surely as a car boot.

1) whether there has ever been a pure aggro deck

Not to my knowledge. But there has never been a pure control deck either - every control deck runs some sort of 'kill card'. A pure control deck would be something like a 64-card Stasis deck that plans to win solely by the rules of the game (larger deck size), and which devotes not a single card to actually killing the opponent. But if a deck runs only four controlling cards (Fiery Tempers in Madness) - which is roughly seven percent of the maindeck - we can characterize that deck as being very aggressive, especially as compares to a deck running four Rods, four Mazes, five Wastelands, and possibly some Naturalizes. The existence (or lack thereof) of 100% pure-archetype decks has no real bearing on the characterization of a deck, especially as regards that important question, "who's the beatdown?", which asks only which deck is the more aggressive, which the more controlling.

Duress in Sui is basically there to strip out any card that stops creatures from attacking or provides too great of an advantage... In Keeper or Tog or combo...as a force through spell,

How is Duressing an StP that would kill your Shade not "forcing a spell through"? It seems very much the same to me.

Thinking about this more, I am unable to find a suitable definition of a disruption card v. a control card.

The definition I've always used is that disruption is a special subgroup of control cards, contained entirely within the larger group. Specifically, disruption is cast preemptively (or proactively) (you seem to agree with me implicitly here when you say "disruption...is designed to attack an opponent's resources," but I won't overtly make that assumption).

Most control spells are reactive in nature - your Counterspell does you no good if I refuse to cast anything. Duress is not like this - Duress can be (in fact, must be) used prior to its target - hence, Duress is proactive. Some cards are usable as both; Null Rod and Moat come to mind as spells that 'hit their targets' equally well before and after the target is in play.

I find this definition useful because it makes unnecessary the distinction between a card's "modes" (though it may be argued that it introduces another term to replace this gain [proactive versus reactive]), though I personally think the pro- or re-activitity of a card is something you'd have to address eventually anyway.

Perhaps an example would help me to see when a deck would need NO disruption.

If Force of Will was never printed, pre-banning Long might never have had to run any controlling cards at all (maindeck, at any rate - Sphere of Resistance might still have been needed to be dealt with via Burning Wish) - it could have been a "pure" combo deck. Type Zero (no-restriction type one) decks are like this, and this is the biggest reason that such a format is a total waste of time, from a competetive point of view. It is by Wizards' and the DCI's sound decisions that no competetive format has degenerated to such a point.

This is also, incidentally, half of the criteria of the 'critical mass' people talk about - a combo deck that is fast enough to outrace even turn-one controlling cards like Root Maze, and powerful enough to shrug off or bulldoze through turn-zero controlling cards (of which only Force of Will and, technically, Foil exist as examples). The other half is that such a deck be comprised of all restricted cards (and hence, further restrictions could not neuter it). Whether such a deck could ever actually exist, should not be debated here - it is presented only a hypothetical example of a deck that would need NO disruption.

[Razor]

Aggro, whilst not pure, is clearly not dead.  I doubt this article would have solicited as much fervor had Rakso stated that neither pure Aggro nor Control has ever existed.  Rare exeptions being flash-in-the-pan decks like Senor Stompy.

For all intense purposes is this discussion not over already?  I cannot fathom why we're still splitting hairs over the following:

Disruption versus Control - I don't differentiate these in my deck design; harassing an opponent, even a little, just helps you to win a lot more.  Pro-active, reactive - who cares unless you're running Chimeric Idol?

Smemmen's 5-point star versus the old 3-point star - the old Aggro, Combo, Control model works just fine for me.  eg.Both Parfait and Stax are Control decks to me, albeit atypical [non-blue] ones.

[Ric_Flair]

But there has never been a pure control deck either - every control deck runs some sort of 'kill card'. A pure control deck would be something like a 64-card Stasis deck that plans to win solely by the rules of the game (larger deck size),

There was one pure control deck:  One of the last iterations of Donais Five Color Control dropped the Uktabi and the Fireball and used Blessing soley to recur cards to indirectly deck an opponent for the win.  I would be willing to say that that is a PURE control deck.  

As for the other points, I think we are in agreement.  Disruption and control are on a spectrum and movement on the spectrum is, among other things, based on the "proactive" use and/or nature of the card.

Suffice to say, even the naysayers don't disagree...aggro, whatever its disruption, AIN'T.

I appreciate your insights Matt.  Thanks for the clarification.

[Matt]

I was not aware that Donais ever dropped the Fireball. That would indeed be a pure control deck.