Aggression (8 C 1)

[SGollum]

Does anybody know why Aggression (8C1) is banned in Pre-Shadows Multipath? It doesn't seem powerful to me at all. It seems no more powerful than Delving to me. I'm sure it's banned for a reason, I just don't know what that reason is.

[menace64]

Aggression is just a way-too-cheap and way-too-splashable source of both damage bonuses and card draw. There are a dozen cards in that Aggression busts in the game - basically any card looking for Dwarves with hefty damage bonuses.

Great Day, Great Hour + Aggression = exhaust any minion
More Yet to Come + Aggression = board wipe
Battle in Earnest + Aggression = board wipe
Blood Runs Chill + Aggression = hand wipe
Counter of Foes + Aggression = kill anything
Honed + Aggression = free crazy pump
Unheard of + Aggression = kill anything

Now the rebuttal here is that Dwarves have ample access to damage bonuses and card draw even without Aggression, so why is it banned? Well, yeah, that's correct. Dwarves already had AMPLE access to these mechanics, and Aggression put beyond too-far-above-the-power-curve.

[Legion]

I thought the issue was less the damage bonus (Lord of Moria is fine, after all) and more the card draw. It effectively is 'add 1 to draw 4 cards'.

[SGollum]

Now that I think about it, it's probably the combination on Aggression and Lords of Moria stacked on each other.

Not to mention that it's 1 twilight and a crazy card draw.

[Dictionary]

Defending the Keep = 8x Aggression, which almost always draws 4 cards and doesn't clog because it isn't an event.