MUA: Reno Lock vs Control Warrior

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 continuing 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 Warrior is the most Controllish of the Control Mirror Matchups. Renolock is slightly-favorable in this matchup but there are some ways of having the Control Warrior win here. Unfortunately for the Reno Warlock he can should not play the Control war here and should focus on dropping bombs until they can’t be responded, the cards the Reno Warlock should be looking for in the mulligan are the following:

zombie-chow – Although will heal the Warrior, can remove those early points of armor the Warrior will gain through Armor Up!

dark-peddler and imp-gang-boss – All-star Renolock cards, together with Zombie Chow, that should be kept in any matchup regardless of what matchup we are talking about.

twilight-drake, piloted-shredder and voidcaller – Good cards that give Warriors some kind of trouble dealing with.

doomguard or malganis – Only if you also have Voidcaller.

How to Win

Hoping to snowball early in the game is how most decks can win against anything, however this will not usually happen so we should focus on how this deck wins most of the times against Control Warrior, which is: lord-jaraxxus.

Setting up a Lord Jaraxxus turn though is really hard, since you’ll be threatened by grommash-hellscream+cruel-taskmaster combo from the moment you do so.

The key to win this game is to exhaust the Warrior out of removal, drop a taunt, have it live and drop Lord Jaraxxus behind it after the Warrior is exhausted. Keep in mind Life Tap will help the Warlock stay ahead in resources from the Warrior, and as a Renolock you should be constantly dropping threats on the board for the Warrior to deal with, but play around brawl.

In case the Renolock can not set up a Lord Jaraxxus turn, the Reno player is bound to lose, as the Control Warrior has enough removal to deal with all Renolock cards on a 30 vs 30 card battle, and the Renolock should snowball out of the Warrior’s Control.

Early Game Strategy

Here you’ll want to draw as many cards as possible. Of course you should be dropping your minions so you can remove your opponent’s armor, but Life Tap is just as important. This happens because from the Mid game onwards you won’t have as much free time to draw cards as you had earlier.

The Warrior should have a couple of Weapons to deal with your minions, but that both strips them of their removal as well as keeps their armor count low.

The Warrior will try to stall the game as much as possible, from turns 4 onwards you should be dropping hard-to-remove threats until the Warrior can not respond them anymore.

Save your sunfury-protector, this card can help you a lot later in the game, this shouldn’t be played as a blank 2/3, ever.

The cards you’ll be looking in your dark-peddler’s battlecry are: flame-imp or any strong 1-drop – Keep in mind Warriors can’t just ping or Hero power away 1-drops, so they’ll have to actually respond those cards.

Mid Game Strategy

Here you’ll want to constantly drop threats on the board to keep the Warrior busy responding them and not dropping their minions, in case they do drop minions try to trade as much as possible and drop newer bombs after, your removal is scarce so trading is the best way of making sure you’ll be able to respond stuff played later.

Remember to use sylvanas-windrunner as a removal/response, not a threat! Only play her after they played something you can’t respond otherwise.

Try your best not to lose your Lord Jaraxxus on a badly-timed voidcaller, I like to think this is one of the fewer ways for Renolock to lose this game.

Late Game Strategy

You are running out of cards in your deck and the Warrior is running out of responses (however he still has a lot more cards in his deck than you in his deck), here you’ll be looking for a way to set up your lord-jaraxxus turn, try to save some sort of Taunt giver (most of the times, that Taunt giver will be that Sunfury Protector you saved earlier in the game) for a post-Jaraxxus board, where your opponent will try to kill you before your board snowballs out of Control with a bunch of free 2-mana-6/6s.

If you played Jaraxxus safely and got value out of it, you probably already won.

However, keep in mind a well-timed post-Jaraxxus harrison-jones can destroy you, so play around it and only Jaraxxus when your opponent will either overdraw (meaning he will burn a lot of cards) or he’ll get into fatigue.

Extra Suggestion

Just a small suggestion here, in case you are facing a lot of Control Matchups with your Renolock deck, try adding the duo stalagg+feugen to your deck instead of Voidcaller+Doomguard+Mal’Ganis trio, also add siphon-soul to the list.

This is the ideal anti-control Renolock build. (<- click me)

Conclusion

I like to think that this matchup is in favor of the Renolock because of how much room the Warlock has to screw and still win with Lord Jaraxxus.

This is it for the Reno Warlock vs Control Warrior MUA, I hope I was able to once again pass my knowledge of the matchup to you guys and that you are able to play this matchup better now that you know how to pilot it correctly.

I hope you guys have been enjoying this MUA series for Reno Warlock, any doubts about this specific article? Want to have more MUAs for other decks? Let me know in the comments below!

Love you cuties, see you around!

Cuddles,

Nuba

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