They put very different pressures on your skillset and roster. So I would actually go with option 3: for your combination of skills and roster, mono is the most effective strategy.
Incidentally, my win rate is in the mid 80s with 3-2 against high diamond competition, with zero maxed 5*. I think that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
I’ve been to top 5 globally a few times and don’t use more than a single flask. All of my mono teams are a mix of 4 and 5 stars and only 6 of the five stars are fully ascended.
At the moment I kill all red tanks w three tiles. But both Alice and Frida are 4/40, so I’m moving them up to future proof that vs a +15 or more Ares
If I ever get to a point where I can’t kill red tanks w my fully leveled team, I’d consider redoing Grimm to the offence - but god let there be a better barbarian in my roster by the time that happens.
As I said, no one-size-fits-all solution 
Congrats on hitting top 5 on one flask!
GM and Kage will both be back–GM sooner than Kage. I suspect that you’ll never need to rewicker Grimm.
I need the tile damage for challenge events so all attack stat here.
I know there’s a lot of hate on mono, so I thought it would be worth clarifying my comments to avoid any misperceptions:
I think mono puts a lot of pressure on hero survivability and tile play skills, because you have to successfully work bad boards and stitch tiles together to get kills. And that can take a while. But it alleviates a lot of the tactical burden of managing special timing, since heroes come hot in big groups. And once you do get tiles, it tends to be pretty decisive.
I think people consistently underrate how good a tile player someone needs to be with mono to maintain a high win rate, and I have a lot of respect for people who manage it.
3-2 or 3-1-1 puts a lot more pressure on roster flexibility, team selection, and attack stat, since the damage equation is working less hard in your favor with tiles. Having extra colors of useful tiles eases the tile play burden. Tactically, you have to be able to manage special timing differently, because even same speed heroes are less likely to come hot together.
So depending on one’s roster and skillset, either mono or 3-x will be a more effective fit. And it’s worth some experimentation to figure out what works best.
I think you’ve described it perfectly and why I think mono makes sooooo much sense - ultimately, it’s easier.
That’s if you stick with it long enough to get passable to good at board manipulation.
So initially people find 3:2 or 2:2:1 or even rainbow simpler to play - and most get stuck there because they try mono without knowing tactical anti-cascade board play, and things don’t go well. So they revert back.
I was forced into it as it was the only way I could compete in global at level 30ish. I’d lucked into Panther and Khiona, and had Sartana and Rigard from early on, and no other strong colour, so I built a purple team around them. This was last June/July.
That let me hit #6 globally at lvl 32 - and 3 of my team weren’t fourth striped yet. Yeah, my defence got mauled but I could bounce between platinum and diamond while offline and then by only fighting +48pt enemies or higher, I could push high into diamond.
The rest of the mono teams have evolved since. No team is yet fully ascended, but I routinely get to the top 100 (almost dailly)
It took me til Xmas to convince my alliance mates (and now only some of them) that mono isn’t “crazy risky”. And although I don’t push for it any more, I creep into the top 10 occasionally.
Mono - once you “get” board manipulation - is the most efficient way to play. Imo
Back on topic, aside from healers who get all defense and health, I’m taking a “balanced” approach on my attackers. Will it be the best? Nope. But if it’s one way or the other I won’t be off by much.
The ONLY time I would take the attack tree over the defensive tree is for my titan team.
I’m going to add a caveat here and suggest that in this Blood Tournament - Mono May well be a bad idea. Every one of my mono teams is built around a cornerstone healer and the strategy is threefold - remove the tank early; ghost tiles; beat the enemy team to healing. Without that third phase, I think mono is at a disadvantage. I’ll probably pay a price in this tournament
Why? Does the loot worth it?
Colloquial saying; meaning “not do as well”
I just made a post about Grimm and emblems I should have read this first lol
I was thinking about going the defense route with him but now that I’m reading this I’m considering the other route…
Same reason why I was considering defense for Jackal because he’s a super glass cannon, but his mana is very fast while Grimm is only average mana, so it takes longer to fire Grimm off with the right team he may die before he can fire.
And then I’m wondering if I should skip him altogether since I have Kage and do plan to emblem him up, or maybe they can both use emblems…
This is a definitive good way of looking at things when building hero talent trees.
The only hero I ignored their strengths and really fixed their shortcomings (so far) was Chao (wnet with attack path):
Although he’s probably not a good option to emblem if you’ve got better Rangers (at the time I didn’t and now I don’t want to pull them off)
good to know @Ragnarock, thanks for the feedback. Here’s mine at +18 as well as his stats compared to my Athena (no emblems), in case anybody was curious. Solid but still falls short, especially in the looks department! 
I think Chao doesn’t have any glaring strengths or weaknesses in his stats
His only weakness is having no overall strength!
Therefore, using the emblems to emphasize either attack or defence gives him a defined roll and thus cures his weakness.
Grimm’s debuff is six turns though!
That’s one impressive goat-headed demon smurf!
