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Mulligans
General Mulligans
Audio Medic, Flame Imp, and Void Virtuoso are situational keeps. Don't play Flame Imp turn one if your opponent has removal. You can play Void Virtuoso turn one if you intend to hero power on turn two, but the card gets much better late game when it can negate upwards of 8 damage in one turn. You can keep Impending Catastrophe with Fiendish Circle in slower matchups. Always keep Crescendo against Pure Paladin. Keep Crazed Conductor with Baritone Imp (or Crescendo against Pure Paladin). I guess you could keep Finley with cards you don't want until the end of the game, like Ulthok, but only if there's nothing else you want to keep in your mulligan.
I really wanted to try out the new Elite Tauren Champion/Commander Ulthok combo, so I threw it into an Imp Warlock deck and it sucked. I refined the list to focus more on survivability and draw, and suddenly it worked! Void Virtuoso is a huge player in this list, enabling the fatigue package as your fatigue creeps up to 4, and making cards like Flame Imp and even Tour Guide feel less painful to play. Only time will tell how this deck holds up in Legend, but it seems viable and it’s definitely a lot of fun.
The Tauren/Ulthok combo is a finisher for control matchups. Play Elite Tauren Champion as early as you can afford to, pass the Molten Pick of ROCK back and forth for a few turns, then play Commander Ulthok to force your opponent to lose the rock duel and take at least 12 damage. (Make sure not to play your Tauren if you can’t spend all your mana every turn up to and including the Commander Ulthok turn.) Mage will just play Solid Alibi to reduce the Molten Pick’s damage to 1, but they still have to spend health to deal with your board, and Ulthok can function as the aggro finisher he was designed to be. Beware, any deck can use Finley to get rid of the Molten Pick, and you won’t see it for the rest of the game.
Implock is no longer a fast aggro deck like Shadow Priest or Pirate Rogue. Now more than ever, Implock is heavily dependent on combos, like Fiendish Circle into Impending Catastrophe. Play patiently and defensively until you have enough mana to combo, and use your hero power often, especially while Void Virtuoso is alive. Use Vile Library on Audio Medic to heal when games go long, but don’t be afraid to play Audio Medic on its own for tempo, and to infuse your cards during the early game. This is a high skill cap deck which plays very differently depending on the matchup.
Nobody’s playing Implock right now, so I made this list from scratch. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
