Its not so awful matchup for control warlock, I would say that razakus priest was much worse. I'm playing rin-lock for the 3rd month already, each month up to legend and I have close to 50% winrate with secret-mages.
You should mooligan properly, your choices are Mistress, Pact, Hellfire, Swamp Ooze!! (can be game winning), Dirty rat(now when creeper is nerfed its ok to play it on curve), Coil. Stay with Lackey only if rest hand is good. Librarian is ok only if you are starting first and have spellstone in hand (but anyway its not so good hand). Coil is ok to trade with manawyrm on first turns, but overall it is needed to check Counterspell. Same for Defile.
So basically your goal is board controlling untill voidlord is ingame, lifetaping as less as you can and pray to draw DK early :) If you started with coin its a big bonus to your win chance, use it wisely before hellfiring board or using a heal. And you know, even if you have perfect answers and good heal, all the game is about your DK draw. You got Guldan on t10-t13 - you won. You didn't - you loose. Thats all.
Cubelock has a good matchup against Secret mage. Lifegain + Voidlord is almost a safe win unless the mage is drawing his anti-Voidlord tech.
So don't blame the class just because you fail to win with your build. Learn what secrets they play and play around them
Cube Warlock don't match up good vs secret mage, sure can win some, but mage will win a little more in this match up.
The good was more aiming at the OPs comment of "Warlock can't beat mage" rather than Cubelock being highly favored against secret mage. Playing the match from both sides quite a bit I#d say it's close to 50-50
For what it's worth, I made a decent winrate (better than 50%) against Quest/Secret Mage with this Counter-Counter control Warlock deck, esp. that it specifically techs emptying their hand and deck with Rin and, while protected from a few other classes, it does not do as well against Silence/Spiteful Priest esp. with the new K&C cards like Psychic Scream and Mass Dispel. IMHO, Priest is a bigger threat than Secret Mage in this meta.
Controllock is unfavored but the matchup is not broken. Im r2 right now and my matchup vs tempo mage is 15-22, so it's still ok. It's important to get a lot of heals, predicting the opponent's secret and furthermore the correct mulligan.
Also, it's important to NOT use your hero ability each turn as you should try to always stay above 20health if mage hasnt used his burn and it's important that you never ever lose your Lesser Amethyst Spellstone and Sacrificial Pact to a counterspell.
Maybe you can post your list for more advice but good tech cards would be Dirty Rat and also Acidic Swamp Ooze (which is also ok against cubelock, aggro and control/exodia pala, hunter).
Sacrifical Pact, bru ? Really ? :D
Ok I'll admit running double SP along with Dark Pact would be a serious approach hard countering Tempo Mage with your Mass Heal, but at what cost ? The card is trash, well even Dark Pact isn't good by itself, but at least can be used on every minion.
But by running SP + DP you WILL suck in every other matchup, as other stuff is required to win against Priest or Druid for example.
Matchup is entirely broken, no chance at all with this class.
PS: I play Control Warlock
PPS: I've tried double Secret Eater and also Mass Taunts, but they just shit on it.
PPPS: Meta is full of that cancer, climbing is almost impossible for me at this point
You choose rock, don't complain too much about losing vs paper...
Its not so awful matchup for control warlock, I would say that razakus priest was much worse. I'm playing rin-lock for the 3rd month already, each month up to legend and I have close to 50% winrate with secret-mages.
You should mooligan properly, your choices are Mistress, Pact, Hellfire, Swamp Ooze!! (can be game winning), Dirty rat(now when creeper is nerfed its ok to play it on curve), Coil. Stay with Lackey only if rest hand is good. Librarian is ok only if you are starting first and have spellstone in hand (but anyway its not so good hand). Coil is ok to trade with manawyrm on first turns, but overall it is needed to check Counterspell. Same for Defile.
So basically your goal is board controlling untill voidlord is ingame, lifetaping as less as you can and pray to draw DK early :) If you started with coin its a big bonus to your win chance, use it wisely before hellfiring board or using a heal. And you know, even if you have perfect answers and good heal, all the game is about your DK draw. You got Guldan on t10-t13 - you won. You didn't - you loose. Thats all.
Yea I've played secret mage vs warlock and lost more than once, they have so much healing and taunts they can sometimes survive the burn.
Cubelock has a good matchup against Secret mage. Lifegain + Voidlord is almost a safe win unless the mage is drawing his anti-Voidlord tech.
So don't blame the class just because you fail to win with your build. Learn what secrets they play and play around them
we have to wait until new expansion. maybe a new godtier deck like razakus will reappear in some shape or form.
Blizzard is a lie for money lul
But by running SP + DP you WILL suck in every other matchup, as other stuff is required to win against Priest or Druid for example.