Hearthpwn

Introduction:

    This version of renolock consist of very powerful mid game and late game that people would consider to be “anti meta”. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as an early game for renolock players. With acceptable trade and good health management, I was able to climb to rank 5 within under 2 weeks of season 34.

The Deck

    Back when I  was playing the version that -twisting nether and -leeroy combo for Jaxx and some other ideal anti aggro cards.  The deck was lacking in burst. Of course, the win rate against pirate was a tag bit higher but against midrange, reno-priest/mage, and dragon priest was a different story. That why I make my own version of renolock and so far it work perfectly.

• Leeroy Combo over Jaxx: I like the burst more than Jaxx. In most cases, you will only play jaxx in a fatigue game or when you are ahead. Unfortunately, this meta is so aggro that Jaxx, in most cases, will not be play 95% of the time. Leeroy allowed great burst and let the user the abilities to play mind games with the opponent. Do they have leeroy? Should I face with Weapon? Should I trade? It force the opponent to manage their health but trust me it not that hard to do 10 dmg and then burst your opponent with 20 dmg in one turn.
• There are also some cards that I really like but cant fit in, ex. Faceless Shamber, Mind Control Tech, and Dirty Rat. The current format should be good enough on it own. Consider it as a hybrid.

• Deck Strategy

• Play wisely and try your best to manage health on turn one.
• Play Mistress of Mixtures on turn 1 if you draw her. From experience, it is very good to be able to get your health back because in most cases you will be tapping on turn 2 or 3. (I'm not saying always tap on turn 2 or 3, play according to the situation)
• Doomsayer is a very tricky card. Against agro I like playing it on turn 2 or 3. Doomsayer honestly isn't that good and I recommend replacing it with Dirty Rat if you don't have doomsayer
• The combo will take some time to pull out. In most cases you need to think ahead and find creative way to do that extra 10 dmg. If you going second then Emperor is not require.
• Playing against control, try and get the value out of Kazakus with Brann.
• Playing against a good agro, try and establish a board. Meaning summon Mistress of Mixture on turn 1, Imp Gang on turn 3 if possible. Turn 4 is very crucial for players to have a 4 drop (mountain giant, azure drake, vender etc).
• Against agro you mostly want to look for early AoE.
• From experience, I kept reno against aggo. it come in handing most of the me because in most cases you will survive until round 6 if you draw atleast one of you removal cards.

Against Shaman

The matchup against Aggro Shaman is pretty even. It mostly depends on the draws from each player – as a RenoLock, you should be able to handle the minion pressure to a certain extent, but what you struggle against is burn damage. Aggro Shaman is really high on the burst, they can often deal up to ~15 damage from their hand, which is more than you can take unless you get the Reno Jackson. So to not die to the burn, you want to take as little damage as possible. But at the same time, life tapping is important, because you want to get to your heals and Taunts. This is one of the hardest decisions in general.

• The first way for the Shaman to win this matchup is to rush you down with their early game pressure. It doesn’t happen often, because it can be stopped by the early Doomsayer, then by the mid game AoEs, maybe even MCT, but generally you don’t want to take too much damage. Drop the minions even if they will get traded for free, because it saves you the damage and puts Shaman’s minions down to the AoE range. Then try to stabilize with the bigger minions, generally after turn 4 each of your minions should get some solid trades.
• The only card you really need to worry about is Flamewreathed Faceless. As a RenoLock, you have simply no way to deal with the 4 mana 7/7. You just hope that Shaman will overload and won’t be able to play it on the curve (or even coin it out on turn 3). You want to set up your board to deal with the 7/7 in a best way. For example, coining out a Twilight Drake while having some extra damage in a form of Shadow Bolt or Hellfire is a good set up.

• In this matchup, even if you draw Reno, it’s not game over already. You first need to SURVIVE until you can play Reno, which might be a hard task by itself. But on the other hand, I won some games without ever dropping Reno – other healings and Taunts saved the day. As long as Warrior can’t deal a lot of damage in the first few turns, you should have enough defensive cards to stop him later.
• Few key cards in this matchup are Mistress of Mixtures, Mortal Coil, Acidic Swamp Ooze, Doomsayer, Demonwrath. Each of them helps you with fighting for the early game board control, making them really precious. Don’t be greedy with them – killing that 2/1 with Mortal Coil on turn 2 is better than tapping, even if you could Tap again + kill it on turn 3. You waste one card, but you save yourself some damage + possibly draw a turn 3 play. Same with Doomsayer – coining it out is often the best play you can make, Pirate Warriors these days are so fast that they can even deal with a coined out Doomsayer. If you go first, absolutely play it on turn 2, even if Pirate Warrior has only two 1/1’s (N’Zoth’s First Mate + Patches).

• Even though Dragon Priest might have some fast openings, you generally treat this matchup as a slow one. You usually tap on t2/t3 to look for your strong t4 plays and then start the game for real. Priest’s early game minions don’t deal that much damage, so you can ignore them for a bit.
• Twilight Drake is a safer turn 4 play than Mountain Giant. Dragon Priest can Shadow Word: Death the Giant, but he has no way to deal with the Drake. It gets worse trades (especially against the Twilight Guardian) but it’s still better than having your turn 4 play immediately killed.
• The game is mostly about the mid game board swing. Dragon Priest should pump out a minion after minion, and you want to fight against that the best way you can. If you just play a minion each turn, they will have to trade, because otherwise Shadowflame would be too punishing. You can also utilize minions like Mind Control Tech or Second-Rate Bruiser quite well, because Dragon Priests will often have multiple minions on the board.