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Hello guys, I am Cursed, you may remember me from innovating the aggro variation of druid a few seasons back or my recent 2nd place in insomnia open championship.

In this article i will present you a reno paladin list i built and have been playing for the past season with great success, both in ladder and in tournaments.I used it to get legend and reach top 100 on eu and na last season and got a fast legend on eu this season as well.I estimate having 70% win rate.
Proof: http://prntscr.com/9zzucr
Decklist: http://prntscr.com/a0040z , http://prntscr.com/a004kb

So what is the point of this deck ? What is different to other reno paladins ?
If you checked the decklist surely 1 thing stood out immediately, even though this is a reno deck we run 2 double cards, minibot and muster.The quality of these cards and the impact they have on the board early on makes it impossible in my opinion to run them as 1 offs, even to make reno a granted 30 hp heal. Furthermore, if you take another look at the decklist you can understand this isn't your typical greedy reno deck that just counts on reno to survive aggression.I actually consider this deck to be midrange, and usually you can seize control of the board early on and never let go.

What is the purpose of running reno in a midrange variation of paladin ?
It's quite simple actually, how does midrange paladin lose ? What is the game plan for most popular decks to beat midrange paladin ? THEY KILL HIM. You will rarely find a deck that can outvalue paladin in the long run.Between the annooying 1/1s from your hero power, easy ways to buff up your small minions, a ton of single target and area removal and strong minions curving into tirion paladin has every tool he might need to win any deck in an attrition war.

How bad is it to make reno a 3 card requirement ?

In hundreds of games i played with this deck i found myself losing because i had reno in my hand but hadn't draw into either muster or minibot only 2 times.Needless to say, drawing consistently into muster and/or minibot early on has surely won me a far greater number of games! Against the very decks that reno is needed, fast, aggressive decks, minibot and muster already do an insanely good job of shutting down the early aggresion and getting you board control.Also do not forget that this deck also runs the typical paladin defensive cards that either heal (healbot, lay on hands, truesilver) or taunt (belcher, argus, coghammer, tirion).

Card Choices and Replacements

I think it is really hard to cut a card from this list as each one exists for a purpose, having either good synergy or being just too good on its own.The only soft spot that i actually tested for a long time before deciding on it is naturally avenging wrath.This slot used to be mind control tech, but since i found it to be underperforming i considered a number of replacements, firstly trying and actually liking quite a lot ragnaros.I also thought going for something even slower with higher value in the long run, like justicar, but you if you pilot games vs slower decks right you should not have a problem beating them.Avenging wrath came to mind after i found my self having to commit using consecration together with equality due to not having any other aoes to combo.Pyromancer has no other synergies in the deck except equality so it didn't really made sense to me to use him.That brought me to avenging wrath,a card that can both clear the board with or without equality and also gives you a huge reach.

Good matchups :

Freeze mage:

Having both very strong mid game pressure and a lot of heals along with the reno heal bomb makes this match up really good for us.Be careful to always leave enough space on the board to play heals or owl/loatheb if your board gets frozen.

Control Warrior:

Control warrior has always been a good matchup for midrange paladin.Usually it came down to warrior trying to push damage and deliver a killing blow with Grommash at some point.That's where reno is exceptional. Be sure to get full value of your cards and hero power and do not over extend into brawls, otherwise you might get outvalued by really greedy control warrrior versions.

Aggro shaman:

Our early game is very strong so we can easily get control of the board and stop shaman from pushing damage with minions.Having a lot of taunts and heals and of course reno gives us the edge, and jones is also there to stop the annoying doomhammer shenanigans.

Secret Paladin:

Our deck has answers for pretty much anything they can throw at us.A lot of removals and ways to shut down big challenger turns(peacekeeper, owl, big game hunter, keeper of uldaman, equality) along with strong early game give us the edge.

Druid:

Although druid can ramp anyone out of the game, having reno allows us to exchange life for tempo early on and take damage while trying to control the board.When druid gets closer to the combo the reno heal can just win the game in the spot.

Bad matchups:

Control Priest:

One of the very few decks that can completely outvalue us.Multiple aoes make it hard for us to establish a good board, even with quartermaster.Also with the recent addition of entomb even our powerful plays like boom and tirion can turn against us.

Rogue:

Either it is oil or miracle, rogue is one of the natural predators of most paladin decks.Cheap ways to deal with our board and get ahead combined with sap on our bigger threats are really annoying to deal with.However,since rogue doesnt have unlimited damage we can outlast them with reno.

Patron:

Though we do have a way of dealing with a board full of patrons in the form of equality, patron if played correctly can create troublesome boards even without patrons and can spawn patrons twice making it hard for us to deal with everything.Still getting that Jones early on can give us an advantage since shutting down a death's bite is essential.

Mulligan:

Mulligan with this deck is extremely important.You need to hardcore mulligan for minibot and muster since you need to draw them for reno to come online.You need to be ready with the requirements so you can use reno whenever you draw him.Exceptions can be made for some matchups where you won't need reno early on and have a choice of keeping a key card,like Jones vs warrior or owl vs freeze mage.Furthermore,even against aggressive decks you can keep some strong cards like chow and owl or creeper.

Give it a try and I assure you it is going to be worth it!

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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Cursed asked me to create topic with his guide on hearthpwn. I just copypaste his topic.

His hearthpwn profile - http://www.hearthpwn.com/members/Cursedhs

Original topic https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/44xzxs/a_different_take_on_reno_paladin/