MUA: Reno Lock vs Face Shaman

Introduction

Hello everyone, today I decided to write something quite different than what I use to write: Today I am writing the Renolock MUAs. Not only one, but I will try to write MUA guides for all the most common matchups Renolock can face in the ladder.

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.

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

This time the deck we’ll be be discussing is Face Shaman. Face Shaman is the new archetype brought to us by League of Explorers thanks to tunnel-trogg and sir-finley-mrrgglton. In this matchup you’ll want to look for responses for their early game threats as well as doomhammer.

In the mulligan phase, the cards you’ll be looking for are:

• mortal-coil – Kills Leper Gnomes are completes the damage to kill bigger minions.
• zombie-chow, dark-peddler and imp-gang-boss – Overall good cards
• dark-bomb – To deal with Tunnel Trogg and other 3-health threats.
• acidic-swamp-ooze – a Timely response for Doomhammer.
• sunfury-protector – To taunt up your other minions.
• earthen-ring-farseer – Heals + Board presence.
• hellfire – Deals with a built-up board with feral-spirits protecting other stuff, keep this only if you have The Coin.
• imp-losion – Only keep this if you have The Coin.

Gameplay Strategy and How to Win

Face Shaman is the most aggressive matchup you’ll “face” in this metagame. However, there are some interactions pertinent to Face Shaman that people fail to realize when talking about the deck: it is a slow building ultra-bursty deck. The deck usually starts off very slow, and then at turn 5 it drops doomhammer and the clock starts ticking. If you are capable of responding Doomhammer you probably won, if you don’t, the on-going pressure the Weapon applies combined with the arsenal of reach Shaman has will eventually overcome you.

Face Shaman has opening hands that allows their pilot to obtain a very strong board position early in the game, but this possibility is rare.

The strongest opening of Face Shaman will usually happen with an unresponded tunnel-trogg that happened to snowball into the few strong early board presence cards the Shaman deck has, such as totem-golem and feral-spirit.

In this matchup you’ll want to get board Control as soon as possible, after that all you have to do is administrate that position by healing yourself and setting up taunts.

This matchup is favorable to the Reno Warlock player because of the absurd number of Healing cards the Reno Lock player has, combined with Acidic Swamp Ooze that destroys Doomhammer.

Face Shaman doesn’t play for board presence and completely disregard board position, trying to win the game with pure burst damage, throwing all of its spells at the Warlock’s Face.

Once the Warlock isn’t at a safe health, all it has to do is play Reno Jackson and the Face Shaman won’t be able to get back from that – Face Shaman is usually a deck meant to deal 30-ish points of damage before it runs out of steam.

• Kill everything they drop, even the most harmless 0/2 totem can get buffed by abusive-sergeant.
• Play around their Charge minions – Set up taunts!
• Try to count the damage they might have and play around the perfect scenario for the Shaman – If you are not safe, heal yourself!
• Once you are safe, try to close the game quickly.
• Remember Face Shaman is a deck made to win the game quick, don’t feel afraid to waste resources because the game will usually be over very quickly, one way or another.
• The best card you’ll get from Dark Peddler is soulfire– it kills totem-golem, feral-spirit and tunnel-trogg efficiently. In case that option doesn’t show itself to you, try to go for a Taunt minion like voidcaller or a small heal-up with voodoo-doctor.

Keep in mind that as an Aggro deck, a perfectly unresponded hand can steal you a couple of games here and there, and you shouldn’t feel upset by that.

Since this is a very Early-game intensive matchup, and because Face Shaman usually runs out of steam pretty quickly, if you get to the Mid and Late game here you probably already won.

Conclusion

Reno Warlock is the very reason Face Shaman dropped in popularity, but despite the matchup being favorable for the Warlock, try to not be sloppy and play right in order to win.

I hope this guide helped you a little more in the matchup, see you around!

Much loves~~

Nuba

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