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The matchup is very hard, because of all the AoE clears RenoLock has. The key to win it is speed. You need to pretty much go all in and start to flood the board as soon as possible. The sooner you do that, the lower the chance for him to have AoE is. Savage Roar is also a key card, if you face a lot of RenoLocks, you might want to tech 2nd Savage Roar instead of Feral Rage. SR is amazing, because it allows you to burst him down. You just play minions every turn and at some point, when he doesn’t clear your 3-4 minions, you play SR (with possibly some more burn like Swipe or Living Roots) and kill him.

Why? Old Token Druid decks used to run only 2x Power of the Wild for the buffs. This one has 2x Mark of the Lotus AND 1x Power of the Wild for 3 buff cards in total.

I haven’t seen any new Token Druid list that runs 2x Power of the Wild on top of 2x Mark of the Lotus – it’s just too many buffs. It’s either 3 in total like in this deck or only 2x Mark of the Lotus.

Because Kobold is a pretty bad card in general and people were playing it in non-budget list mostly to activate it more consistently. Since budget list doesn’t have Spirit Claws, the main reason to play Kobold is gone.

It’s still okay as a combo with AoE, but only for that. So I don’t think that the card is worth a slot.

I think that adding Kobold once you get Spirit Claws might be a good idea, but I’d say that it’s worth to save for Thalnos – the card is so flexible and goes into so much decks, including Midrange Shaman.

Well, the automatic counter on the site includes dust from the cards you get from free and the cards from adventures.

3260 – 1600 (C’Thun) – 80 (2x Beckoner of Evil) = 1580. So dust values in headings are the correct ones 🙂

It certainly can, but only as a tech if you face a really slow meta. Auctioneer is dead against Aggro and unlike in Jade Druid, it’s not actually necessary in this deck.

Because you really don’t want to get 2x Coin and 2x Prep in your starting hand.

Playing 2 is too greedy, because you’re going to run out of steam really quickly without Auctioneer.

First expansion of this year – Whispers of the Old Gods – was released late in the April. I think it’s safe to assume that we still have 4 more months of Reno being in Standard.

And then, I suspect that they might release more Reno-like cards somewhere next year. After all, it would be pretty stupid to release Kazakus and all the new Legends just before Reno rotates out…

Yes, that’s exactly what I wrote in the article. Games with Aggro decks are faster, so they’re better to grind ladder with even if they win slightly less than Control decks.

There is a Beta version of Data Reaper Live that takes the stats from the last 24h. You can find it here: http://www.vicioussyndicate.com/data-reaper-live-beta/

However, take it with a grain of salt. Those are unfiltered stats from the last 24h. For example, right now the sample size is 8,286 games. Which would be great for a single deck and is probably enough for the most popular decks, but less popular decks have really too low sample size.

For example, Zoo’s representation is at 1.43%, so only 118 games in total. Let’s even say that 20 of those games were against Aggro Shaman, that’s still only 20 games sample size of the matchup.

If you want the sure data, I would wait for a full Data Reaper Report (which should be out in a few days, probably).

@Tranztv

Ragnaros is definitely a great craft,, no matter if you will play it in RenoLock or not. It’s definitely in top 3 strongest classic Legendaries. It’s currently a bit out of meta, because of the Pirate Warrior/Aggro Shaman (8 mana Legendaries are a bit too slow + the effect is way better in slow matchups), but it will definitely finds its way back eventually.

When it comes to Reynad’s list, I personally like the Savjz’s one more. But his approach is also very viable. Instead of the late game combo win condition, he focuses on removal – Blastcrystal Potion, Big Game Hunter and Ragnaros is also a removal to a certain extent. It means that his list is more focused on dealing with the board, late game threats and outvaluing opponent with Jaraxxus. The list, however, has one big flaw – it works way worse against other RenoLock lists that do run combo (it’s really easy to get RenoLock down to 20 to kill him, it’s much harder to play a long, value game).

Ragnaros isn’t necessary in this list, but I’m pretty sure that more people will play it after the meta settles down. Right now most of the RenoLock lists (even Reynad’s to a certain extent) are aimed at fighting with fast decks. If you really want to get him as soon as possible, Chromaggus will probably be a good card to disenchant, I wouldn’t do the same thing with Nefarian, though, as he is played in some Dragon lists.

I wouldn’t say that Pirate Warrior is not a good deck. It is good, it’s one of the best Aggro decks. But it suffers from the same problems other Aggro decks do – they’re pretty easy to counter if you expect to face them all the time. That’s why I don’t think that any Aggro deck, unless it’s completely broken (like the old Undertaker Hunter), will ever be #1 deck in the meta for a longer period of time.

But yes, generally Shaman still holds the most powerful cards. But I think it will shift again soon. Blizzard was pumping strong Shaman cards pretty much since TGT and they’ve finally stopped. Right now it seems like they’re doing the same thing with Priest – if they will continue, I expect to see Priest dominating the meta next year with broken cards. Then probably another class… It’s pretty silly, but it looks like it’s their way to balance things.

When I was playtesting Aggro Buff Paladin, it worked really well against the Druids. I was usually taking the game a bit slower, even dropping a turn 3 (or 2 with Coin) Small-Time Recruits, then playing like 2 handbuffs. After that I’ve dropped full board of buffed minions, a lot of them were even awkward against Swipe – like 3/3 Divine Shields or 2/4 Dragon Eggs. They’ve usually managed to clear the first board somehow, but then I could refill quite easily.

Not to mention that they have to operate on low hands, because if they start cycling, you draw full hand with Divine Favor and do the same thing again.

Also, Zoo Warlock. I think that Zoo should work really well, by the time they snowball the Jade Golems, you’ve snowballed the board way more.

Jade Druid is definitely not uncounterable. When the meta settles, if people will still play it (and they probably will), people will find a way to stop it.

I don’t think that one needs a separate article. To counter Jade Druid, you need to put a lot of pressure on him. You can go for the full rush decks like Pirate Warrior/Aggro Shaman, but mid game pressure is also okay. Druid can sometimes handle Aggro decks, but I’d say that faster Midrange decks should be best. Midrange Shaman, maybe Dragon Warrior would probably work really well against Jade Druid.

You just need to play minion after minion every turn and don’t let Druid develop, make him answer your stuff all the time. And since his answers are inefficient against Midrange minions, you should outtempo him eventually and then punch the face and let him spawn small Jade Golems when you have board advantage.

Thank you!

According to vS Data Reaper Report, Tempo Mage was slightly unfavorable against Pirate Warrior pre-Gadgetzan. Tempo Mage deck didn’t really change, at least I don’t think it did, while Pirate Warrior got stronger – so the matchup should be even more in Warrior’s favor.

The problem with Tempo Mage vs Pirate Warrior is that the big removals are very, very inefficient. Your Fireballs and Firelands Portals are pretty bad, because you’re often forced to play them on minions that have 2-3 health. Then, if the deck gets quite slow start, it has no chance to comeback before getting rushed down.

In theory Frostbolt can stop the weapon damage, but you can’t afford to Frostbolt over killing a minion in the early game. The only great minion against Pirate Warrior is Water Elemental, and even it is slightly slow (considering that most of the games are finished around turn 6-7, 4-drops ARE pretty slow against Pirates :p).

The deck isn’t terrible against Pirate Warrior, but I honestly don’t think it’s a counter. The matchup should still be in Warrior’s favor.

I don’t really like calling any deck “cancer” and I always defend Aggro decks, even though I dislike this kind of playstyle myself. It’s just not fair, the fact that you don’t like the deck or the play style doesn’t mean that people who do are worse.

The deck isn’t problematic at all, because it’s easy to counter. It’s not Midrange Shaman, which had good matchups across the board. I don’t like Pirate Warrior too. That’s why I wrote this article and that’s why I was playing decks/techs that are strong against it and I was farming the matchup quite easily. Not to mention that in Legend it’s not even that popular.

You have two choices – first one is to complain about cancer decks and second one is to do something with it. The more people tech against it, the less people will play it in the end, because it’s not worth it.

RenoLock got much more popular after the Savjz was playing his list in high Legend. And yes, Pirate Warrior has been less and less popular as people started teching against it. But according to stats, Pirate Warrior is still by far the most popular deck – Warrior’s representation on the ladder is at around 23%. Shaman is second with 16%, Warlock and Druid third with ~15%.

I don’t know at which rank you’re playing, because the distribution varies by rank, but on most of the ranks, Warrior is still most popular. I think that your 10 games sample size just isn’t big enough.

I would gladly write a guide on how to counter RenoLock, but that’s very hard. The deck’s popularity is so high because of how flexible and adaptable it is, which means that playing against it and countering it is rather a hard task. But I’d still say that playing Jade Druid should be a good idea, it’s pretty bad matchup for Reno decks. But on the other hand, it sucks really hard against Pirate Warrior. That’s the circle of life.

As it happens, I write for HSTD too 🙂

You see, “mastering” is a big word. I have over 2k games with RenoLock under my belt since the deck was released (probably closing in on 2.5k now), with many different lists, and I can hardly tell that I’ve mastered the deck. Not only each version is unique, like for example this one – adding Dirty Rat is only a single card change, but it changed the deck’s play style a lot. It changed which cards you save in given situation, it changed your game plan against some slower decks (you want to wait with Brann + Rat to pull out the crucial cards). So while I’m a very experienced RenoLock player, I’m not sure if I can tell that I’ve mastered this specific list.

But by “mastering” I mean playing flawlessly, or nearly flawlessly, which maybe only a few pros does. If you mean playing on a decent level, I’d say that it depends on your experience with similar decks (well, Zoo or Secret Hunter aren’t really similar decks) and the overall pace at which you’re learning. You might start playing it on a good level after 100 games, but it also might take you 200 or 300 games. The most important skill when playing this deck is not playing YOUR deck, it’s playing the matchups, so that’s why you need quite a lot of practice. You need to understand your win condition in each of the matchups, which cards you need to save and which you can throw away, how early you can play Jaraxxus (and if you can play it at all), how freely you can use your removals, if you have to save Dirty Rat for a certain cards, whether you need to go for more tempo or value with Kazakus etc. Those things come with experience, and that’s why you just need to play the deck a lot to learn it.