The deck that seeks to take initiative and close out the game. This archetype is obviously well established and pretty straight forward. One distinction we have to make, however, is that Aggro does not always mean fast or swarm style. "Stompy" or "Big Aggro" are slower decks that still fit into this category: their goal is to se [..]

Another well established deck already in Hearthstone. The control deck plans to survive and win out with a smaller number of more powerful threats in the late game. You are a Control Deck if you only play Ragnaros/Ysera/Lord Jaraxxus as win conditions and the rest of your game is just surviving until one of these big threats can win the game for yo [..]

Many of the decks which get classified as "Control Decks" are actually Midrange. To be fair, the line is not hard and fast; however, there are still some distinctions to be drawn. A midrange deck is characterized by trying to gain incremental value on every play: a prime example would be Argent Commander or the buffing creatures. If your [..]

This is the hardest category to build because true combos are hard to find as game designers usually kill them before the game launches. Hunter OTK is the best known Combo Deck we have had to date. Hunter OTK is the less frustrating of the two true Combo branches: interactive and non-interactive. Non-interactive combo is something I would be surpri [..]

This is an archetype more possible in Hearthstone than Magic because of how combat interactions work. An Aggro-control deck will revolve around smaller threats but locking your opponent out quickly. These decks will be slower than pure aggro, but will have more game against a wider variety of decks. I can see weapon based classes fitting this role [..]

Tempo is one of the hardest archetypes to build. Tempo is a non-conventional archetype in that it mostly does away with Card Advantage. The goal of Tempo is to get one or two fast threats out -- Mana Wyrm being the perfect example -- and then prevent your opponent stopping it for the rest of the game. Tempo cards are often things like Freezing Trap [..]

The term for "return a creature to its owner’s hand". This is very common in Tempo decks but do note, this is Card Disadvantage. Bouncing is far worse than killing a creature because they get to keep their card: be careful building with these.

"Deal x damage to y." Fairly straightforward, we just have a word for it. Also see, "burning them out" or "reach": these are things an aggro deck would do if they get you close to dead and then finish you off.

Anything that has the text "draw a card". These cards are obviously good because they replace themselves; therefore, gaining card advantage off of them is fairly straightforward as you are already "card neutral" if you will.

This is term is rarer but is an important concept nonetheless. The "clock" your threats represent is how fast you can kill your opponent if unanswered. On an empty board and at 12 health, an Argent Commander is a 3 turn clock. This is most important to Aggro and Tempo decks, but a Control may consider it in the context of "what kind [..]