The Groot Tank

This Groot deck is heavily inspired by dr00 's The Giving Tree - a solid multiplayer foundation, providing multiple blocks and massive damage resistance while the other players just get on with attacking and thwarting. The original deck was really strong as is, but we play almost exclusively with three players, so a few cards were swapped out, plus I wanted to trial a few other things while looking for the right flow.

A few notes:

1. This deck runs 2x Crew Quarters and 2x Endurance specifically to play on the other players in a three player game. If you are playing 2 or 4 player, you might want to adjust the mix of these. Endurance is more beneficial in most cases IMO.

2. The deck runs 42 cards. While I know many people refuse to run more than 40 cards, with so many upgrades being played, the deck thins quickly and IMO, it doesn't hurt the deck at all. There is an argument for running at 43 or taking one Crew Quarters out in order to run an extra copy of Unflappable as finding that card early does help set up. If you can persuade the other players to slot 1x Crew Quarters each, you can drop them from this deck, but I like to be kind and load up for them.

3. I tried this with a copy of Forcefield Generator, and while it is a strong card in this deck, the 3 cost hurts your set up quite a lot, so it got cut. If your play style is a little slower paced and you can afford a few slow set up turns, it's a solid card to consider.

4. Symbiote Suit is a monster in this deck, but the additional encounter card does hurt. If you want to use it, hold it back until late stage of the game when villain damage ramps up and you're all going for a kill. Play it too early and you'll pay the price... I always pay the price, so it's been left out.

The main changes over the way this plays compared to The Giving Tree is to push for more defence event triggers. To do this, we include Flow Like Water and 3x Preemptive Strike. This gives us a total of 9 cards to trigger Flow Like Water, and Preemptive is generally a great card (that can be played each turn using Nerves of Steel). As well as basically being able to tank most hits and hardly get hurt, including multiple blocks in a turn through Lashing Vines and Desperate Defense, the drip of triggers from your army of upgrades is able to inflict a surprising amount of damage, especially when paired with Groot's already strong built-in attacks from and Root Stomp.

Overall, this deck allows you to soak up masses of damage for other players, allowing them to spend longer in hero form and dish out more punishment for longer. Given the deck is made up almost entirely of 1 and 2 cost cards, the pace of set up and the number of upgrades you can install is really impressive. You need to be a team player to love this deck, but it really works for me.

Thanks again to dr00 for the inspiration.