(Almost) MonoF Expedition Top25 Master

Hello everyone.

I haven't played much in a while, but I just decided to climb my way to master again, and what's better than good old (Almost) Mono Fire to do that.

As I write this I just hit Master and I am ranked 24, I only used this deck from Gold to Master so it's not like I just won the last few games with it. I will provide my thoughts on the build, the meta, and other options.

First of all, I am not claiming that this is the optimal build, but I think it's quite capable of reaching Master consistently.

From what I saw the meta is mostly made up of Sling of the Chi decks, TJS, other MonoF, and to a lesser extent with some Xenan or some 4F control variations.
I think that almost all of this MUs are positive for MonoF if not straight-up good making it a very strong choice for the current meta (many players are starting to adapt though bringing more early game removals and in general good cards against aggro).

Speaking about the deck, the general strategy is of course to get quite fast out of the gates with our aggressive 1 drops and finish the game with the 3 and 4 drops heavy hitters. Don't fool yourself though, this deck is not that monodimensional, a lot of cards can provide value and you can play a more midrange game in a lot of occasions.

Let's break down the cards choices:
Kazuo, Melee Virtuoso, Pyroknight are the bread and butter of the deck, these are the best 1 drop available and they really deliver. They can punch early and provide value in case of Kazuo or a huge unit in case of Pyro later on. I would never play less than the full set of these guys.
Eager Deputy I think deputy is the third best choice as far as 1 drop goes, it can grow quite large (made it to 4 power often) and can get you out of flood or screw with the plunder ability. It requires a bit of decision making and sequencing, but all in all is quite a solid card.
Furyblade This card was amazing the last time I played and it still is. Sometimes it's an "hasty" 1 drop that can attack as soon as you play it, it grows Kazuo and it can kill small blockers or help finishing bigger threats when paired with some spells or even unit damage. Bear in mind that since the nerf of Blazing Salvo you can accidentally kill your own weapon (it happened to me more times than I would like to admit).
Chemical Rounds I decided to include this card because it's quite good in the mirror, taking down creatures, making Jekk, Mercenary Hunter unable to attack or simply shrinking some units like Rolant, Iron Titant before attacking. Char might be better since it's a fast spell, but we have Blazing Salvo and Sear to act as combat tricks already.

In the 2 drop department, we are quite lacking. I don't think that there are great options available. Personally, I don't really like Clodagh Ascending since it's hard to hit the influence requirement and the first ability is not that good anyway.
Impatient Pyromage is a great card in this deck where we almost always activate onslaught, depending on the cards that I have I sandbag it for turn 3 or 4 instead of turn 2 where it can only get 1 drops (not even power if you have already played it).
Flameheart Patroller is the second best 2 drop in my opinion, its base stats are good at slowing other aggro decks and with the power base with double power, it can hit for 5 on turn 3. It's not a 4 of since sometimes you don't have much power or you just want to exchange extra power for market cards and it remains an underwhelming 1/3.
Sear Not much to say here, it removes a lot of stuff and can be used also to burn out our opponents.
The lack of 2 drops of the deck is somewhat balanced by the abundance of 1 drops, the best start is to play a 1 drop on turn 1 and 2 more on turn 2 anyway.

At 3 is where the real onslaught begins. Milos, Rebel Bomber has already proven to be an insane card and it does a lot for its cost. If you haven't witnessed it's power, probably you have being living under a rock for some months.
Thunder of Wings Despite being nerfed this card is still good, it hits hard and it's hard to block which is quite a good combination. Be aware of TJS Display since it can destroy your entire board if you don't play around it properly.
Note that Impatient Pyromage is often played turn 3 so ideally you can flex it in the curve depending on the game state

Finally, we arrive to the heavy hitters
Jekk, Mercenary Hunter really is a 4 drop and not a 3. This deck plays 10 4 drops, which might seem a lot for an aggro deck, but with Eager Deputy and Impatient Pyromage you usually hit your power. We play plenty of sigils to make full use of Jekk ability and when it kills 2 units is often game over, I think that this is also a card that does not really need any explanation on its power. In the mirror I like to sandbag it until they play Siege Train which is a problematic card otherwise.

Siege Train People are adapting, but it still bugs me how many times this card just win on its own. If you don't remove this ASAP you are basically dead. It hits like a truck (or a train I guess) and provides more and more value every turn. The choice of the card is very dependant on the situation, I have chosen all of the options in different games, but often the weapon is the stronger, powering Grenadin from Granite Waystone into real menaces.

Galai, Shavka's Listener I might be a bit biased since this is one of my favorite cards, but I still think it's great. It has charge so it can come to deal some surprise damage, it provides value right away and has the option to give more of it (even though it's very unlikely since it dies to everything, and let's be honest if you have done 12 damage with this card you have probably already won).

Powerbase is quite straight forward, I am trying Broken Contract to gain some more values, I wouldn't play more since both Galai and Jekk requires steep influence cost and you also don't want to go too low on Sigils.
Granite Waystone Free value to discard for Jekk, have some more units or trade for the Market
Seat of Fury and Skycrag Cylix both double buff Flameheart Patroller and the latter also provides some flood insurance.

As far as the market goes I am not really sure that this is the best configuration, I mainly grab Rockslide, Icebolt or Slag. Kaleb's Favor is just another insurance against power screw and Champion of Fury it's a good unit that can deal the last bit of damage.

The main disadvantage of playing 2 factions is that we miss on Prism Golem which is quite an undercosted unit for its stats, but I feel like the market advantage is real.

I will probably try some more configuration and add a little matchup guide if people are interested in it.
I hope that you can climb easily to Master with this deck.

Matchups

TJS: I think that this matchup is pretty easy, they are quite slow and even if they have some early removals generally they can't keep the pace with your early threats. Then you just out-tempo with mid game cards. A scary card is Rolant, try to keep some removals for him, even if you have to 2 for 1 yourself. Keep some Charge units to rebuild after Shen Ra Speaks and you are good to go.

4F: This used to be an easy matchup, but now they are starting to adapt with Lightning Storm which is a total blowout. I still consider it a decent matchup, sometimes they stumble on undepleted power and you can really punish them. Once they turn the corner of course there is no coming back, so try to play aggressive, but still sandbag some Charge units for when you are sure you can connect for some damage and try to finish them off with burn spell.