Defining Play-Styles

[3XXXDDD]

I've been thinking about it for a while and I think I've come to understand that there are three "Major" or "Meta" play styles and any style other than them are simply a variant of one or more. The three Meta being

Aggressive
Throw resources to the wind in exchange for power, putting pressure down on your Opponent and if successful making a lot of that lost resources back from doing so. A High-Risk for High-Reward play-style. This Style is up from the get go. Hit Quick, Hit Hard could be their motto.

Control
The more passive style, takes careful note of resources of each player and attempts to simplify resources on every side but hitting key bits at key moments to amplify that advantage many-fold when the time comes. A low-risk for low-reward (but plenty of it builds up) kind of style. Slowly but Surely could be their motto.

Combo
Each style has their own form of Combo within them but it can exist by itself, acting passively like the Control Style until it gets all it's bits and pieces sorted and then change to the more Aggressive play-style launching their prepared Combo for a game-turning effect. Like the control style though it waits until that key moment to strike. All in good time could be their motto.

Any arguments for or against these three being classed as the Meta-Styles? With any other style being a variant of one or more of these styles?

[Kevashim]

Playing a strange/unique style just for fun. For example an MtG deck with no victory conditions except for those that you steal from your opponent

[3XXXDDD]

Edited my post a bit to give start to some proper potential discussion.

[Turonik]

hmm if you're going with just broad terms then I see 3 styles : aggressive, Defensive, and Neutral. But these don't do much as they are too broad of terms.

The types of decks I see follow one of those 3 but differ from one another. Granted, not all deck types exist in  each game.

Blitz/Rush- the extreme end of aggressive. It focuses on hitting hard and hitting fast, usually with cheap yet useful cards. However, they tend to lose if the game goes on too long as they lack much in the way of late game cards. Swarm decks that focus on pumping out large numbers of characters to overrun your opponent before they can strike back.

Control- there's so many versions of it for every game out there but usually it's about slowing down your opponent until your win condition goes off. Stall is a good example of this where you ball up and build yourself up until you're nigh invulnerable.

Beatdown- they tend to be aggressive but on the slower side, using brute strength rather than speed.

Tool Box- these are neutral decks that rely on just being all around solid decks, They are aggressive when they need to be, and defensive when they need too. They go for the long haul, using cheap cards for the early game, medium cards to maintain, and then a few late game finishers to clench victory.

Combo- either using a specific set of cards or exploiting a rule of the game, these decks can either be just good fun or utilize a certain type of creature/character for their fullest.

Resource control- could be considered a sub type of control but since there's MANY ways to do control I'm going with this as it's own. This type is all about limiting resources, either by making sure they have no cards in hand, no way to pay for cards, or no cards in thier deck.

there's many others I can go on and list but those are the main universal ones

[DNGR]

You forgot about mill and alternate rule change wins

[Kevashim]

Potentially also just plain turtling. At least that was possible in the Megaman TCG where deckout was the win/lose condition. Just focus on regen and defence whilst waiting for your opponent to slowly draw themselves to death.

[Turonik]

actually I didn't. Mill I consider resource control deck since you're limiting the number of cards in there deck and alternate win condition decks via cards that grant that are a combo deck if you brake it down.

And turtling is a stall deck. Though, if anyone wants I can give examples from various games of more exact deck type examples.

[Kevashim]

Ahh, sorry Turonik, should have been more specific. My reply was to 3XXXDDD.

[Turonik]

No worries it's not easy knowing a persons intent in text all the time and I didn't provide much examples.