MUA: Reno Lock vs Tempo Mage

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

Tempo Mage is an odd matchup, but should be played and mulliganed as a standard Aggro matchup.

Given the deck’s high variance and enormous RNG, the matchup can go both ways, but it is usually favorable for the Renolock, given the huge healing burst the deck has and how Tempo Mage usually has limited Resources.

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

• zombie-chow, dark-peddler and imp-gang-boss – The Renolock all-star cards, these are the cards you’ll want to keep in every single game you play, ever.
• acidic-swamp-ooze – Just another early game presence card.
• darkbomb and mortal-coil – Removal.
• earthen-ring-farseer – Another early game presence minion.
• imp-losion – Removal + Board Presence.
• demonwrath or hellfire – Removal.

Basically, you’ll be looking for a lot of removal and early game board presence. The mulligan here is very simple and there are no “ifs”.

How to Win

Tempo Mage is a very inconsistent deck, here you’ll win by either getting a good early game board position and snowballing from that or by keeping the attrition war and eventually Reno Jackson out of burn’s reach.

The only way the Reno Jackson Warlock player will lose here is if the Tempo Mage get a good start, snowballing and the Reno Warlock having no way to respond it whatsoever.

Gameplan Strategy

In this matchup all you need to do is to maintain board presence at all times, try to count their possible damage with fireballs and/or frostbolts. Don’t let them keep any board presence so they can snowball from that, and try, at all times, to keep their board clear.

There is literally no secrets to this matchup that you’ll need to focus yourself on working: if the Tempo Mage is lucky enough, he’ll snowball and defeat you, all other situations you’re likely to win.

Play around mirror-entity and in case it isn’t, you can be sure it is counterspell.

Don’t be greedy with your removal, use them at will as they drop their minions if you have such removal (even if that removal is your own minions) – always remember your cards are better and you’ll always win the attrition war, given you’re capable of healing yourself at some point.

The cards you’ll be looking for with your Dark Peddler are, in this specific order: soulfire, zombie-chow, abusive-sergeant, power-overwhelming and mortal-coil. If you are winning on board early in the game already, then you could also be picking flame-imp.

Conclusion

Sadly, there aren’t many secrets about the Tempo Mage matchup: the RNG decides most part of the game and there isn’t much skill-wise that can be done, by either part, to change the game’s outcome.

However, getting to know that you should use all your cards freely is a much needed piece of knowledge that should be acquired in order to win the matchup by the Renolock’s part.

I hope this little piece of MUA helped solving any questions you might have regarding Tempo Mage, and in case you have any doubts feel free to ask them in the comments.

Keep in mind that Renolock is favorable against every Tier-2 deck, and that is why the MUAs for tier-2 decks are coming very slowly, as the only real needed MUAs are the Tier-1 ones. I will keep those MUAs coming however, since sometimes you might be needing those for any reason our premium users might have :3

I love you guys, a lot!

Cuddles,

Nuba

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