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So I'm new to card games and can't wrap my head around the difference between the two. I've read the explanation here, but it doesn't really help me understand if a deck is midrange or control. I feel like if I did, it might help my gameplay :D
Is the basic idea that a control deck would have more removal (i.e more spells and weapons) with a lot of high mana cost stuff like rag, whereas a midrange tries to have a more even curve with good value minions throughout the game?
And how would the two different styles play out differently during a game? Can someone bring some specific examples? =P
So like this is my shaman - http://puu.sh/8NiUm.jpg - not the most optimal perhaps, based on the Trump f2p deck. Since it has barely any plays other than removal and utility before turn 4, would it be a control deck?
http://puu.sh/8NiZH.jpg - mage, also based on Trump f2p, has stronger minions on basically every point on the curve, so it would fall more towards midrange?
I play both of these decks basically the same - making good trades if I can and trying to keep the board clear if possible/I feel the minions could pose a threat, going for face otherwise.
Thanks.
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If I had to keep it simple I would say control is reactive and midrange is proactive. Control will stall and stall to get to late game with big threats and outlast. Midrange will "curve out" and try to "control" the board by actively playing minions and developing the board. Midrange asks questions, control has answers.
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The idea of a midrange deck is that they hit hard enough in the lategame to do stronger in that respect than aggro, but can come out faster and harder than control. Typically this means a solid curve of minions peaking around the 3-4 mana spot, and topping off with probably a couple 6 mana creatures. They run enough removal to help win in the fight for board control, but the primary focus is typically on minions. For a fairly archetypal example, consider midrange Hunter. Instead of running lots of cheap charge minions and weapons and damaging secrets like an aggro hunter, they focus on a more stable lineup of beasts in the midgame and early game, with 2 Savannah Highmanes as their big drops, plus a number of ways to buff their minions along the way.
Control is more about getting to a dominant win condition (normally an overpowering lineup of lategame minions) by using a lineup of removal, board sweepers, stall tactics and specific staller minions to answer what your opponent puts out along the way. For an archetypal example, consider Control Warrior. They run a ton of removal spells like cleave and execute and shield slam, board sweepers like brawl, weapons for extra removal, cards like shield block and armorsmith to help stall...and then usually anywhere from 4-6 uber-elite legendaries of 6 or more mana, give or take some faceless manipulators along the way.
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Hmm, so the examples in my 3rd paragraph would be more or less correct?
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On May 16 2014 00:18 mordek wrote:
If I had to keep it simple I would say control is reactive and midrange is proactive. Control will stall and stall to get to late game with big threats and outlast. Midrange will "curve out" and try to "control" the board by actively playing minions and developing the board. Midrange asks questions, control has answers.
Since the OP doesn't know the difference between midrange and control, I don't think using "curve out" is going to make sense.
But the idea is what he said, midrange decks are trying to be playing increasing threats each turn ("curving out" minions means playing minions that use your turns mana, i.e., a Scarlett Crusader on turn 3, a Chillwind Yeti on turn 4, a Druid of the Claw on turn 5, etc.). Each turn, the threat is a little bigger, and the decision for midrange is what you use those minions for. If your opponent is trying to kill you fast with an aggressive deck, then you want to be trading your increasingly strong minions for their weaker ones. If they stalling with removal and such, then they are going to have better threats later in the game (they are a control deck, and will eventually be playing Ysera, Ragnaros, for example), and you will want to use your minions to try to kill them before their big threats come out.
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On May 16 2014 00:33 Magixxxx wrote:
Hmm, so the examples in my 3rd paragraph would be more or less correct?
To a point, but midrange and control don't actually play exactly the same. The advantage of midrange is it can play control vs aggro and aggro vs control. But that also requires recognizing when you should be doing what. If you're playing midrange vs control and focusing purely on making good trade and controlling the board, you may run into trouble, because there's a good chance that a combination of board clear and crazy strong lategame minions will beat you if you haven't won before they come out. At a certain point with midrange vs control, you need to shift into a much more aggressive style, focus on ending the game before he can draw his answers and win condition. Against aggro, you want to be doing the opposite. Not racing, but rather answering what he throws out and trying to flip the board and take control of the game at some point in the midgame.
Control is virtually never trying to race, except in certain very rare situations in ultra-lategame in control vs control matchups. 95% of the time, its focused on answering what the opponent does while building to a win condition.
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On May 16 2014 00:41 convention wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2014 00:18 mordek wrote:
If I had to keep it simple I would say control is reactive and midrange is proactive. Control will stall and stall to get to late game with big threats and outlast. Midrange will "curve out" and try to "control" the board by actively playing minions and developing the board. Midrange asks questions, control has answers. Since the OP doesn't know the difference between midrange and control, I don't think using "curve out" is going to make sense. But the idea is what he said, midrange decks are trying to be playing increasing threats each turn ("curving out" minions means playing minions that use your turns mana, i.e., a Scarlett Crusader on turn 3, a Chillwind Yeti on turn 4, a Druid of the Claw on turn 5, etc.). Each turn, the threat is a little bigger, and the decision for midrange is what you use those minions for. If your opponent is trying to kill you fast with an aggressive deck, then you want to be trading your increasingly strong minions for their weaker ones. If they stalling with removal and such, then they are going to have better threats later in the game (they are a control deck, and will eventually be playing Ysera, Ragnaros, for example), and you will want to use your minions to try to kill them before their big threats come out.
That occurred to me but he did say "every point on the curve" so I didn't think it was too much of a stretch.
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On May 16 2014 00:18 mordek wrote:
If I had to keep it simple I would say control is reactive and midrange is proactive. Control will stall and stall to get to late game with big threats and outlast. Midrange will "curve out" and try to "control" the board by actively playing minions and developing the board. Midrange asks questions, control has answers.
This are the conventional definitions, I believe. Although I do think that "Midrange" is a fairly new term -- back circa 2005 when droped off of MTG, decks currently known as "midrange" or "tempo" would all be lumped together as "aggro-control".
In general TCG terms, the definitions are as follows:
* "Aggro": swing to the face early (either with creatures or direct damage spells) early and often and hope to defeat your opponent before they can contain you.
* "Control": contain the opposing player until you can drop a game-altering win condition that's difficult to deal with
* "Aggro-Control"/"Midrange"/"Tempo": anything that's a combination of threats and disruptive cards; the idea is not to fully contain the opponent, but to slow them down while they takes a beating.
These concepts are necessarily related to whether you play minions or spells, they are more a reflection of what phase of the game you attempt to win in: aggro decks seek to win early, control decks seek to survive the early phase and win late; midrange seeks to win mid-game (before a control player's large threats are ready to arrive).
Of course, HS is not MTG, so you have to alter definitions accordingly; you can be a control player even by playing creatures if you're going to use them to remove opposing threats.
However, a deck that swings mostly to the face will be classified as aggro; a deck that seeks to do a combination of swinging to the face and trading creatures is probably some form of midrange; and a deck that looks to trade creatures / sweep the board until they assemble their win condition is probably control.
Hope this makes sense.
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On May 16 2014 00:54 mordek wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2014 00:41 convention wrote:On May 16 2014 00:18 mordek wrote:
If I had to keep it simple I would say control is reactive and midrange is proactive. Control will stall and stall to get to late game with big threats and outlast. Midrange will "curve out" and try to "control" the board by actively playing minions and developing the board. Midrange asks questions, control has answers. Since the OP doesn't know the difference between midrange and control, I don't think using "curve out" is going to make sense. But the idea is what he said, midrange decks are trying to be playing increasing threats each turn ("curving out" minions means playing minions that use your turns mana, i.e., a Scarlett Crusader on turn 3, a Chillwind Yeti on turn 4, a Druid of the Claw on turn 5, etc.). Each turn, the threat is a little bigger, and the decision for midrange is what you use those minions for. If your opponent is trying to kill you fast with an aggressive deck, then you want to be trading your increasingly strong minions for their weaker ones. If they stalling with removal and such, then they are going to have better threats later in the game (they are a control deck, and will eventually be playing Ysera, Ragnaros, for example), and you will want to use your minions to try to kill them before their big threats come out. That occurred to me but he did say "every point on the curve" so I didn't think it was too much of a stretch.
I know basic HS terms, just the distinction between these two that never made sense to me =P
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On May 16 2014 00:54 mordek wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2014 00:41 convention wrote:On May 16 2014 00:18 mordek wrote:
If I had to keep it simple I would say control is reactive and midrange is proactive. Control will stall and stall to get to late game with big threats and outlast. Midrange will "curve out" and try to "control" the board by actively playing minions and developing the board. Midrange asks questions, control has answers. Since the OP doesn't know the difference between midrange and control, I don't think using "curve out" is going to make sense. But the idea is what he said, midrange decks are trying to be playing increasing threats each turn ("curving out" minions means playing minions that use your turns mana, i.e., a Scarlett Crusader on turn 3, a Chillwind Yeti on turn 4, a Druid of the Claw on turn 5, etc.). Each turn, the threat is a little bigger, and the decision for midrange is what you use those minions for. If your opponent is trying to kill you fast with an aggressive deck, then you want to be trading your increasingly strong minions for their weaker ones. If they stalling with removal and such, then they are going to have better threats later in the game (they are a control deck, and will eventually be playing Ysera, Ragnaros, for example), and you will want to use your minions to try to kill them before their big threats come out. That occurred to me but he did say "every point on the curve" so I didn't think it was too much of a stretch.
Ah, yeah. Sorry, it's always so random what terms people know.
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To me both the decks in the OP are midrange. The shaman deck tops out at 6 and has no lategame threats. It's relying instead on value, tempo, and board control to push through. Even though there aren't many minions in the first few turns, totems become creatures through the application of flametongue so it is development in that sense and is still trying to play beatdown vs control decks and control vs rush decks. It's in the middle, hence midrange. It's not surpising to me that OP plays both decks similarly. I think it's correct to say that the shaman is the more controlling of the two decks, though.
If you take a look at these two decks from Dreamhack you can see a clear difference in philosophy on how the decks are designed to win:
+ Show Spoiler +
Gaara can't even attack except with hero power until he's played at least a 4 drop, and Yeti is a singleton. His creatures don't really start until 5 mana and then he plays Sunwalker, Ancient of War, and Faceless is basically another 7+ drop body in combination with mark of the wild. There's no Force of Nature/Savage Roar because he expects the opponent to be near 30 life by the time he has 9 mana. The deck is control, he's not trying to win by life he's trying to win by putting out big taunts and running the opponent out of gas, at which point the big guys clean up.
Strifecro is playing the midrange druid here, his plan is to curve out on minions and get in enough damage that Force/Savage is a legitimate finisher at 9 mana. He wants his opponent to be at 14 or lower by 9. And he does that with a nice hybrid of token/watcher druid with good value minions on every point from 2 to 6. His biggest and most expensive creature is Ancient of Lore at 7, which has the body of a 5 drop.
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As far as Hearthstone is concerned, the difference between midrange/control, and really aggro is to simply define what a deck's win condition is. The lower the mana curve of the cards you're playing, the sooner your ideal win condition generally can occur, which is why midrange is called midrange, as it's a middle ground between the ideal turn 5 win of an aggro deck vs a control deck which might win by turn 10 or later. Midrange will generally close out a win between turns 6-10. Closing out a win doesn't necessarily have to mean reduce opponents' health to 0 either, but can mean to reach a board state where victory is all but certain.
There isn't a static line where the definition is drawn either. A deck can be much more "control-like" than other midrange decks, but because its mana curve is closer to most midrange decks than control decks, it will be called midrange.
This also ties in the dynamic of how the three basic archetypes interact; this interaction often coined as "who's the beatdown?" Two decks will generally take the part of aggro and control -- the aggro deck which is putting out the threats which the control deck has to react to. The deck with the lower manacurve generally plays the aggro, which puts a midrange deck in the unique position of being stuck between an aggro deck and a controldeck. Versus aggro, the midrange will play control-like, but when the midrange fights a control deck, the midrange has the opportunity to play more aggressive, making midrange a very flexible playstyle. Incidentally, if one aggro deck has a slightly lower curve than another aggro deck, the slower aggro deck may find itself having to play more reactively (control) because their win condition (to race their opponent to 0 health) will be too late vs the faster aggro deck.
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Ez.
Midrange gets weaker as turn 9 and 10+ come, where control gets stronger (if you played correctly!) as turn 9 and 10 + come. Enjoy.
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It's easy to think of most decks in a spectrum (there are a few that fall outside of this, especially combo heavy decks, but ignore those for now).
On one end of the spectrum are very aggressive decks, that have a lot of cheap cost cards to burn through. These are the face hunter and aggro warlock decks in hearthstone. They try to win by doing a lot of damage quickly, and not worrying about the late game. They won't be too concerned about card advantage, because they are winning on speed.
The other end is control decks, that try to stall the game out longer and longer, because they have bigger (cost wise) and more card advantageous stuff coming later. Control warrior and ramp druid are good examples of this in hearthstone.
Midrange are in between these two. They will be the strongest in the middle stages of the game, as they will be playing "bigger" stuff than aggro decks, but not as many "big" things the control decks. They tend to play control against aggro decks, and aggro against control decks. Most of these have some sort of burst combo as their "win condition" in hearthstone, where they try to stabilize the board in the early and mid game then hit you with a big burst combo in the middle or beginning of late game to end it. Watcher druid (with savage roar/ force of nature), and the bursty shaman decks are good examples of these.
Thinking about it in terms of a spectrum helps with understanding a meta. You can have a control deck, but if there are bigger, slower control decks out there, you have to aggro them down, even with your control deck. You might have an aggro deck, but yours might be slower and bigger than what you're up against, so you have to try to control against it.
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When 2 decks fight, 1 is the aggressor because it has less late game threats, and the other is the control. When a deck is the aggressor in almost all match ups, it is an agro deck. A control deck will play defensive in almost all match ups.
The decks in between which must be aggressive vs the control decks because of the end game threats the control decks have and must be defensive against the aggressive decks are mid range decks. Mid range will vary depending on meta but generally are decks which are strongest in the 5-7 mana spots while the control decks are strongest in the 8-10+ mana spots.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ccCfmjx.jpg)
