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I'm with you on this one. I don't love purely defensive decks, but they're a distinct flavor that should have a place in the game - especially as they've existed for the last year or so. Things like the Risky Skipper warrior combo or even the earlier builds of control priest last expac that focused heavily on the Samuro+Apotheosis combo seem like they should have a recurring place in the game.
I think where the frustration comes in is the control decks with 6 board clears, infinite spot removal, and cheap threat generation. Those decks just have so many ways to ignore your threats that they're just about as uninteractive as super degenerate aggro decks that kill you by turn 5 with burn. That said, those decks rarely truly exist. I've only played since Witchwood but Cubelock and the Rise of Shadows era Control Warriors were about the only decks that ever got that bad IMO.
FWIW, I agree that a purely defensive deck should have a place in Hearthstone. The same is true for decks like treachery warlock, mill rogue, freeze mage, etc. We're just unlikely to make those styles very popular or dedicate a large suite of cards to them. If someone wants to play a 38% mill deck because it's their favorite thing in the game, great. If that deck is 54% and exists as 15-20% of the population, that's not so great.
I think this context was lost here because this response wasn't meant to be exhaustive thoughts on control decks. I was trying to make the point that just because warlock and mage have decks that ignore fatigue damage, that doesn't mean they counter all control decks as a result. It means they counter fatigue decks, which we're okay with.
Iksar, thanks for this response! I definitely understand where you're coming from, but as a person who just so happens to prefer slow, grindy control decks and exactly mill decks (your other example), I think I would just reply that "oh you can play it, it will just be very bad and have a 38% win rate" isn't much better than saying "it doesn't exist."
I converted from Magic because I was already invested in Blizzard games and because I wanted to play with friends, and my deck preferences in MtG were mill decks and mono-blue control styles. I had long ago given up hope that mill decks would be meaningfully viable in Hearthstone, but with this phrasing, it feels like both of the archetypes I prefer will just not be viable going forward, and I gotta say, that feels super bad. I'm not sure that you can (or should) do anything about it, but I did want to add my voice to say that I don't feel included in the plans you're laying out, here.
Again, slow grindy control decks are fine and will continue to exist. I'd argue we just came out of a meta where a slow grindy control deck was top-tier (Priest). Mill decks and fatigue decks are niche strategies that will always have some place in the game, just not in a highly competitive capacity. Outside of maybe exactly odd warrior, this has always been the case in Hearthstone. This isn't a change in design philosophy. If you've been happy with the mill or control decks of the past that you've played, then you'll likely still be happy looking forward into the future.