Extreme Budget Deck - Monofire - Oni

Part of the updated Extreme Budget Deck series. Criteria are no legendaries, rares or promos.

Play Tips

- In general, you want to mulligan for a curve of units you can play out beginning on turn 1. A combat trick or weapon is a nice addition.
- Ankle Cutter + Granite Coin or Quickdraw Unit + Combat Trick / Weapon are intended to help you power through units like Vara, Vengeance-Seeker or Sandstorm Titan.
- As with any go-wide aggro deck, don't play units unless they lower your # turns to lethal damage--this allows you to recover from sweepers without reducing your current odds of a win.

Build Tips

- Tailor your removal package toward the current meta or prevalent opponent units which usually cause a loss. I'd suggest:
Varied meta: Flame Blast can remove your opponent
Lifesteal: Ankle Cutter
Aegis: Edict of Shavka
Big Time (aggro's arch-nemesis): Ankle Cutter
Sites: Flame Blast or Streets Aflame; Casualties of the Cause is also good for this but less versatile versus sweepers or removal piles; Signal Flare only kills smaller sites but is fine versus something like Skycrag yeti.
Avoid removal which requires sacrificing a unit; you really need all of your units.
- If you don't own some of these oni, I'd suggest (2) Warbrush Oni, or (3) Oni Quartermaster, Frontier Bard, Gaudy Showman. (4) Hellfire Oni or (5) Flamekeeper could be substituted for your top-end weapons like Heretic's Cannon.
- I've included what I believe are the best all-purpose weapons, but you can also try relatively inexpensive weapons with good stats and keywords that reward attacking, like Warhelm or Morningstar.

Upgrade This Deck

0. If you want to continue playing this deck seriously, a set of first Jishu, the Burning Brush and then Kyojun, Grand Shugo should be your highest priority.

1. Merchants: Ixtun Merchant should probably be your first upgrade if you intend to branch out to other aggro decks, and your second or third if you intend to stick with oni. I'd probably go with Jishu -> Merchant -> Kyojun, simply because you can get the entire set of merchants for the cost of one Kyojun.

2. Market Legendaries (single copy):
- You'll want a single copy of Kyojun in your market to increase your consistency of access. This should be the only market legendary you ever really need.
- Shogun of the Wastes: A great card to grab as a finisher comparable to Rally which provides a body that can be buffed by Kyojun if your lethal swing fails.
- Jawbone Greatsword is decent removal, can go face, and it's easy to activate tribute when you've been A+spacing the entire game (opponent unlikely to play around denying tribute.)
- Flamestoker: Not great when the meta is full of big bodies, but a good way to push damage during a board stall versus lower health units.
- Aspect of Destruction: Alternative finisher when you have a wide board of fire units.
- Soulfire Drake: Pushes damage to face with Charge, and is likely to buff your remaining units for immediate board impact or evasion to help you close out a tight game.

3. Weapons:
- Shogun's Scepter produces an oni which is generally useless on T3, and then terrifying when Kyojun comes down on T4 and it can begin to swing.
- Longbarrel can help you push damage through to your opponent while providing another source of removal and a way to destroy face aegis for a Flame Blast or Flash Fire finisher.
- Kaleb's Persuader is the best legendary weapon for fire aggro decks as it breaks face aegis for the finishers it has pumped via the fire sigils it draws, and it removes power from your deck with each swing to increase the odds you keep drawing gas in the late game. You almost never want this card in the market because you'll want your T3 merchant to grab your T4 Kyojun every time.

4. Units:
- One of my favorite ways to play monofire oni is as monofire onidragons. You gain some larger units and better evasion while losing your ultra low-to-the-ground advantage, so shifting to this slightly tankier build is a meta call. For this, you'll definitely want:
- Oni Dragonsmith
and consider
- Crimson Firemaw: In addition to having great stats, being evasive, and also being a motherfucking dragon, Crimson Firemaw makes your drawn units cheaper to help you flood the board.
- Eclipse Dragon: Is much the same (great stats, evasive, dragon therefore great) and has the added bonuses of Charge and Quickdraw for immediate board impact and continual swinging to help close out a game.
- Sindok, Rage Incarnate is fantastic for fire aggro (ignore the haters) because you'll often get to drop an enormous dragon on T3/T4.
- Cozin Darkheart doesn't particularly belong in an aggro deck but, if you use her, treat her as a blocker which spontaneously produces a bonus dragon rather than as something you deliberately activate.

- Ghodan, Undefeated should probably be avoided for the art alone, but has also been fairly disappointing as a deck inclusion. The trouble is that by the time she can be played, you typically want something that will help you end the game in the next turn or two rather than something that helps you build a board. She may belong in a more midrange Rakano oni deck.

5. Spells:
- A single copy of Bore in your market can liberate multiple units from Permafrost or remove an Avigraft. If you typically only need a single attachment removed to win, I tend to prefer Ruin instead.
- A single copy of Cloud of Ash in your market often allows you to A+space for lethal.
- A single copy of Obliterate in your market acts as emergency removal for large blockers, and can often deal direct lethal to your opponent. If you find the meta demands that you use Flash Fire more to remove blockers than to remove your opponent, replacing Flash Fire with Obliterate main deck is also a good option.
- My preferred strategy is often to run Flame Blast main (here it would replace Flash Fire) and a copy of Obliterate in the market. When I'm relying on big fire spells for at least some direct damage, Obliterate often removes a blocker and deals 1-2 Overwhelm damage to break face aegis, permitting me to Flame Blast for lethal after a swing the following turn. I tend to prefer Flash Fire in monofire decks only when there is little or no face aegis in the meta because it acts as a larger finisher for a lower cost. When there's any significant amount of face aegis in the meta or my direct spell damage is incidental / helpful rather than a finisher, I prefer running Flame Blast main because it adds utility as removal on earlier turns.

6. Relics:

7. Power:
- Emblem of Shavka can help you avoid flooding while giving you more bodies for aggro.
- Granite Monument can theoretically do the same, but it's typically not worth the risk of pulling depleted power for your first few turns. Be careful of including too many depleted power in your deck; aggro doesn't fare well unless it can play early units on curve.
- Once you have a market, it can sometimes be worth removing Shugo Standard from your main deck and placing a copy in your market. This helps you avoid power screw while providing an overwhelm combat trick to help selectively push damage late game, and reduces your odds of drawing depleted power for your first few turns if you decide to stick with a very fast aggro strategy (rather than dragons).