[Trick]

What did you think? Agree disagree? Want more? Less? Tell us!

-- Trick

[esternaefil]

I definitely agree, but I think the primary difficulty is in building your deck around creatures that are singular threats (kird ape, scab clan mauler, watchwolf, serra avenger all come to mind) as opposed to 1/1s and 2/1s that are not at all frightening.

The problem with a lot of aggro decks is that their strength lies solely in numbers, which provides that inherent weakness to control strategies.  The best aggro decks are the ones with redundancy, resiliency, and singularity. 

Having redundant threats (see: vanquisher and battalion in post-eventide elves) allows you an incredible consistency in your gameplan.  Knowing what you are going to be doing when is a strong tool that control decks often cannot afford.  Also, having redundant threats on the board (see a 2/2 spellstutter sprite and a 1/1 scion of oona) might convince a control opponent to wrath away what is otherwise not a particularly damaging board but merely by the fact that you have multiple synergetic creatures in play and the potential to exponentially grow your forces further can requier a very drastic effect prematurely.

Being resilient to removal is the next big key.  Shroud is a nice ability for an aggro creature (giant solifuge), but most importantly is having a high enough toughness to dodge the important removal spells such as firespout in this format.  Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers is a good choice if you seek to dodge the fire...  But one mustn't forget the most resilient aggro threat in the current type 2... bitterblossom.  Traditional removal spells do nothing but slow it down, and even most of those have trouble containing this powerful card.  Most decks seek to fight creatures with creature removal, so being resilient to traditional types of creature removal (damage-based, destroy effects and mass removal) goes a long way to helping to maintain aggressive posture in the face of a 'prepared' control opponent.

And lastly, singularity is perhaps one of my most important aspects to sucessful aggression.  You want your men to pose such a threat that you force your opponent to throw away removal spells in single creatures.  This time last year, Kird ape was one-such threat, as were watchwolf, and Scab-clan Mauler.  Nowadays we have similarly singular threats: Wrens-Run Vanquisher, Tarmogoyf, Mistbind clique, Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers.  Your opponent has to either contain or remove those creatures quickly before the large amounts of resilient damage defeats them outright.  These are creatures so threatening that oftentimes a control opponent will not hesitate to throw away a wrath of god to ensure they don't take such a large portion of their life in a single attack.

There are very few cards in type 2 that fulfill all of these qualities, Bitterblossom is one, Tarmogoyf is another; while Mutavault is a third in some situations, and these are all cards that perform similar roles in control decks as well.  There is a reason these cards fetch the prices they do, and that is because they are in any cases the last best hope of aggro decks in what might otherwise shape up to be a control metagame.  While they do fill comparable-yet different roles in control decks it is the massive redundancy that they provide the aggro player that determines their true strength.

I liked the article Trick, I think that while it touched on some aspects of aggressive gameplay, I would have liked to read something a bit heavier.  The starbucks analogy is great, but avoidable with adequate design and development.

[fmfisdead]

I dont have anything real heavy to comment on but that I thought the article was a really cool reference back to a real world scenario. Like I could imagine myself thinking of that hearing of Starbucks closing and I thought it was really funny and just a quick reminder DON'T OVEREXTEND.

[enkimdu]

A late comment, entirely not to do with the content of the article:

Lessons. Not Lesson's. Please. It makes the eyes bleed.

Content-wise, the article was good. One of the things that makes Kithkin such a PitA in Block is that they can afford to nearly overextend, holding back just a Cloudgoat Ranger or a Spectral Procession. Then you sweep them, they play out three to four new threats, and you grumble and hope to try into more solutions.