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Thanks to Fr0zen for allowing us to re-host his guide! Check him out on Twitter and his upcoming Twitch Stream!
Hey guys, I’m Fr0zen! This is my second rank one legend finish this year, and I also recently placed second in Dreamhack Summer. I played Hoej’s N’Zoth Renolock list, but with Harvest Golem instead of Brann Bronzebeard.
I: Deck Introduction
N’Zoth Renolock’s wins games by stalling and eventually building strong late game pressure mainly with N'Zoth, The Corruptor and Lord Jaraxxus. Reno Jackson helps you stabilize after early / mid game pressure. Once you’re at a safe amount of life you can begin pressuring with the late game cards.
This deck has a hard time against aggro decks since it heavily relies on drawing Reno and even Doomsayer. It is much more effective against control because of its late game power with cards like N’Zoth and Jaraxxus.
Why N’Zoth over Leeroy Jenkins Combo? There’s not really any decks like old combo druid where you really need to try and burst them before you die anymore. Against aggro burst like Shaman or zoo it’s better to just rely on heals and board control.
II: Matchup Guide
- Aggro Shaman: (30/70) Worst match-up by far, mulligan for Doomsayer, Hellfire, and Reno Jackson. Don’t waste your time on any other cards.
- Hunter: (45/55): If going first, you can keep Possessed Villager, Sunfury Protector, going second keep Mortal Coil, Possessed Villager, Dark Peddler, Imp Gang Boss.
- Tempo Mage: (40/60): This is a match-up where removal is almost always better than developing minions as your opponent gains tempo by you developing, mulligan for Doomsayer, Demonwrath, Imp Gang Boss, Hellfire, Shadow Bolt and Reno Jackson.
- Aggro Paladin: (35/65): Another very bad match-up, same mulligan as Shaman. N’Zoth Paladin nowadays have to build non-greedily which means if you can get Jaraxus off later, you win as your opponents have no burst.
- Priest (95/5): This should always be a free win, since Life Tap is very strong vs priest. Try to tap as much as possible. Mulligan for Doomsayer to fend off some aggro in case of Dragons then keep your value minions like Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake, and even Lord Jaraxxus, Eredar lord of the Burning Legion.
- Miracle Rogue (35/65) Another bad match-up, keep Shadow Bolt, and other anti-aggro cards. If you can get past turn 7/8 with a close to even board you can usually out value them late game and pressure them with board. Just remember to always play around Leeroy burst if possible.
- Druid (65/35): Mulligan for Aggro Druid, keep Doomsayer early aoe’s, keep villager and sticky early game minions then play for board control.
- Zoo (35/65): Keep Mortal Coil, Doomsayer, Imp Gang Boss, and sticky early game minions to try and hold off pressure until you can stabalize with AoE and heals.
- Warrior: You are probably wondering why you should even play this deck with all those unfavored match-ups listed above. Well fortunately the current meta is very Warrior heavy, with Dragon Warrior being the current flavor of the month deck. If played properly N’Zoth Renolock will farm Warriors.
- Dragon Warrior/Tempo Warrior (80/20) Hard mulligan for your strong early game cards like Doomsayer, Shadow Bolt and Acidic Swamp Ooze. As long as you can deal with an early Frothing Berserker you should be fine.
- C’thun Warrior/Control Warrior (90/10) Try to setup Jaraxxus as soon as you can, as long as C'Thun doesn’t kill you. You can drop N’Zoth to eat brawls and still leave behind a bunch of tokens from the deathrattles. The only way you really lose is if Jaraxxus is in your bottom 2 cards.
III: Card Analysis
- Possessed Villager: It’s a flexible card that can help deal with early pressure similar to a ping. It also has synergy with P.O, and even P.O + Shadowflame.
- Power Overwhelming: This card works really well with deathrattles, cheap minions and Shadowflame. It can function as a high tempo removal, but can also sometimes be used to push lethal damage.
- Harvest Golem: It is a sticky early game minion that contests the board better than Brann. Also has synergy with N’Zoth.
- Infested Tauren: A sticky taunt minion that can help deal with early/midgame board similar to sludge belcher. It’s also really nice to get a taunt off of N’Zoth.
- Mountain Giant: Strong against slower decks, but can still work well with sunfury/ argus versus more aggressive decks. Can be replaced with BGH.
IV: Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to read my guide and I hope it helps you on the ladder. If you have any questions I will do my best to answer them in the comments (add questions to this Reddit Post).
You can follow me here:
If you’re interested in watching part of my grind to rank 1 you can watch some of my games here: https://www.twitch.tv/chessdude123/v/75498241?t=06h06m27s
Any replacements for cairne bloodhoof?
I’d try Corrupted Healbot or Twilight Summoner.
Gr8 deck….just replaced villager with alexstr cause she is a core card imo plus the fact that you have too many minions for the po+shadowflame combo (tauren,pedler,earthen etc )
any replacements for demonwrath?
I was thinking of dread infernal or baron geddon
Baron Geddon might work.
I usually use mid control tech instead of deamonwrath, it usually works very well
“…the current meta is very Warrior heavy, with Dragon Warrior being the current flavor of the month deck. If played properly N’Zoth Renolock will farm Warriors.”
Wow. Really good guide to the Warrior matchup right here. Jokes aside, please write how to play the actual matchup, instead just writing “if played properly”. Everyone can say that, but it’s no guidance.
any advice for cairne replacement? thx
Corrupted Healbot might work.
I’ve had a lot of luck with Elise in this deck for a late game final stand of the Golden Monkey. Plus she’s a 4 drop that helps deal with early game trash.
Replacememt for jarraxus?
Neferian maybe? Or north sea kraken? Idk
Rafaam works well imo
Maybe alexstrasza
I found this deck to be pretty lackluster. I switched to the c’thun variant and have been having a lot of luck with it. It has a faceless manipulator and BGH. You can copy the opponents huge minion, then kill it immediately afterwards. It’s a really strong deck.
You know it’s probably not lackluster since he finished rank 1 legend with it. But it depends on the meta (fx depending on rank) you are facing of course. That said it’s also a difficult deck to play properly with so many different outs/plays because of 30 unique cards.
He stated on his Twitter that it was farming warriors, the most common archetype being C’Thun at high legend. It’s alright in the meta right now but with Lifetap, Jaraxxus and N’Zoth control warriors would have a hard time answering continued threats. Overall I would say standard Renolock with the Jenkins Faceless combo has better match ups than this list on ladder.
What’s surprising to me is BGH is opted out for Kodo when it’s actually pretty good in this meta most commonly finding targets such as Flamewreathed Facless, Drakanoid Crusher (activated), C’Thun, Yogg-Saron, Ragnaros, and Grommash Hellscream, but especially against control which is what he was targeting.
Any replacements for cairne? i was thinking of adding another deathrattle
Corrupted Healbot or maybe Abomination.
i would consider Chillmaw u didnt realy need the 3dmg effekt but spawning a Taunt when u´r board is emty (whats mostly gonna happend if u want drop N´Zoth) is great in my opinion
I’m on a 5 game win streak atm, so maybe luck, maybe card draw?
Loosing every game with this deck at lvl 15 lol
I’m losing every game with this deck at rank 20. >.< Crazy how that works.
The meta in higher ranks is more control based whereas the meta in lower ranks is more agro based, this is just a general rule of thumb.
That’s kinda true. There was a lot of control-based decks last season at high ranks, but there were also a shitload of Zoolocks on NA for some reason. I suppose this deck /kinda/ counters Zoo, but you need perfect draws
This deck has a very bad match vs zoo and does not counter zoo in any way, shape, or form.
I find it works marvelously vs Zoo. Especially with Mountain Giant instead of the Soggoth the Slitherer (and also Harvest Golem instead of Brann). You have all the tools to counter Zoo in the deck and you only need to mulligan correctly.