MUA: Reno Lock vs Entomb Priest

Introduction

We are back with more of the Renolock Matchup Analysis!

A week ago we started to write the Renolock Matchup Analysis series, which included all the Tier 1 decks in the metagame: Midrange Druid, Mirror Match, Face Shaman and Secret Paladin.

These are the strongest deck in the metagame and the more urgent decks for you to get familiar with the matchup.

Renolock is a new archetype created after League of Explorers’ release, thanks to reno-jackson, Life Tap (Warlock’s Hero Power), and Warlocks arsenal of redundant spells, Reno Lock became one of the most powerful decks to be played in this metagame.

This week I am starting the Tier 2 decks MUA for the Renolock deck.

Sample Decklist

Thanks to the high number of utility cards available in the game right now, the versions of Reno Lock can vary a lot. There are simply thousands of ways you can build your Reno Jack Warlock deck, but regardless of this I decided to post here the most updated Reno Warlock list  up to date.

This list runs acidic-swamp-ooze as a response to Aggro Shaman’s Rise on the metagame, it also run the voidcaller demonic Shell (but only 1 of each) which adds up consistency to the Deck as well as extra survivability.

Most of the cards contained in this deck are, however, standard to most Renolock decks, and only part of the Techs such as the ones mentioned above (among other techs) will change from Renolock to Renolock.

Mulligan Guide

Control Priest is another of these pure Control matchups where you’ll be fighting for resources a lot more than for board Control or to stay alive. Sometimes you’ll be able to rush down your opponent and he will be able to do the same to you, but these situations are so rare we would rather mulligan as if we’re going to be playing the Control Game anyway.

The cards we’ll want to see in our starting hand are:

zombie-chow, dark-peddler and imp-gang-boss – These are the dudes that make the early game shine. Sometimes you’ll be able to snowball the board out of Control and force the Priest into doing bad plays because of a good start, and it often happens because of these dudes.

darkbomb – Kills early game.

twilight-drake, piloted-shredder and voidcaller – Helps you with the early game presence.

In case you have a Voidcaller in hand, feel free to also keep doomguard and/or malganis.

How to Win

This is an extremely favorable matchup for the Reno Lock. The Warlock draws a lot more cards than the Priest and the Priest will eventually run out of gas as the Warlock will keep pumping threats. Having no burst outside of an occasional auchenai-soulpriest+flash-heal combo, Control Priest has a very slow time closing out games, and that gives the Reno Jackson Warlock the edge it needs to take full advantage of all its cards in order to win the game, including lord-jaraxxus, a game winning card.

Early Game Strategy

You’ll both start the game by dropping some small minions on the board, or it is usually how it happens. Sometimes you or the Priest won’t be developing the board earlier, if that happens with you it isn’t a problem but usually Priests suffer in this matchup when they don’t start with some small value-generating minions.

Never let them keep that northshire-cleric on board, no matter the costs, drawing cards is one of the ways Priests can win against Reno Warlocks.

Some Control Priests also run velens-chosen, which is yet another reason to keep Priest’s board clear early in the game – But don’t force yourself to clear something if you don’t have to, however don’t let them take advantage of their Hero Power, Priest’s hero power generates the value of almost a single card whenever they’re able to use their Hero Power to heal their minions, and we don’t want that.

Here, the card you’ll want the most out of dark-peddler’s discover is corruption, followed closely by power-overwhelming (which should be picked over Corruption if you’re winning on board, in the Mid or Late game).

Mid Game Strategy

Here you probably already know he has at least one copy of entomb in hand. Try to have a decent board presence but play around double lightbomb as much as possible.

Keeping board Control is the key to win the Mid game war in this matchup: forcing the Priest into weak-value Lightbombs can surely secure your win later in the game.

During the Mid game you’ll also want to draw as much as possible, to keep your resource count up, in case there are turns where you’ll need to spend your full mana, but don’t cripple your plays just to Life Tap – Play wise!

Late Game Strategy

If you haven’t overwhelmed your opponent with pure value by now, try your best to set up for a lord-jaraxxus turn. Dropping Lord Jaraxxus and generating a lot of value from him is the most sure way of winning a game vs Control Priest, most of the times the Renolock will lose the fatigue Wars if they don’t happen to have Lord Jaraxxus to play (let’s say you had the misfortune of getting it played by voidcaller, for example) since Priest’s have tons and tons of sweepers to deal with Renolock’s board presence, Priests can consistently heal up and the Warlock probably drew a lot more cards than the Priest did.

Also, try your best to count how many flash-heals the Priest used during the matchup as well as auchenai-soulpriest, playing around possible 10+ burst damages from these cards can sometimes save your game, but don’t cripple your plays so much that you’ll avoid winning if you do so.

Conclusion

Due to Warlock’s excessive drawing this matchup is heavily favored for the Warlock, even on the worst case scenario the Warlock will still have Lord Jaraxxus with endless value to deal with Priests and since there are so many ways for the Warlock to win the matchup is something very easy for the Renolock to win.

I hope you guys have been enjoying these MUA I have been doing, see you all in the next one!

Much loves~

Nuba

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