Growing Pains

Intro

Look at you, holding on to your growth counters like your life depends on it. Oh, I need to be in Alter-Ego all of the time so I can have max counters. Oh, I need to have perfect defense so I don't lose any counters.

No more.

When I see a growth counter, I see a tool. A sacrifice to be made. Something so plentiful, so easy to acquire that it would be a shame to treat them like anything other than expendable.

I'm going to do something you aren't going to like here.

Groot's never growing up. He's brought Ant-Man, Giant-Man and Goliath to do the growing for him.

---

Growth Mindset

Groot's kit can seem counterintuitive as it seems to encourage contradictory playstyles.

• Every single upgrade requires you to use growth counters. As a benefit you have a 1 time increase to your basic power stats/ a ready
• The majority of his events are more valuable when you have a higher number of growth counters and become essentially unplayable if you don't have any/have a low amount
• You lose growth counters when taking any amount of damage through a forced interrupt
• You can gain a lot of growth counters quickly by going to alter-ego but there's no access in kit to confuse and a 1 THW stat.
• Earning growth counters while in hero form is limited to Fruition and defeating an enemy with Root Stomp

It seems like you have to decide if you want to hinge on using the upgrades or the events. We aren't taking that for an answer. As you'll see, you have to spend money to make money, and that's exactly what we'll do here.

---

Deck Strategy

This deck turns Groot into a cross between War Machine and Spider-Ham. Gone are the days of trying to stay in hero form, keeping your counters with perfect defense or staying in Alter-Ego and becoming a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. This time, you'll be spending your counters as resources and triggering your upgrades regularly with frequent planned trips to Alter-Ego to do it all over again.

This deck is uniquely built for Groot, who's got access to Guardians tech, a seemingly infinite health pool and a couple of recent cards that seem tailor made to help him out.

---

Deck Setup

You have to mulligan hard in this deck. All of the staple cards here are 1 cost, so it's not hard to pay the cost while dealing with whatever is on the board. Don't get distracted and leave these cards behind.

• Fertile Ground is absolutely essential in making this deck work. 1 growth counter + 1 card draw = 2 of both in every flip down.
• Deft Focus can trigger on every single card in the signature kit other than Fertile Ground
• Clarity of Purpose lets you turn those counters into resources and with such high health, it's a free resource all of the time. It's a 1 cost resource generator
• Med Lab can help you recur just about every ally in this deck with no real drawbacks
• Entangling Vines is the best upgrade to get out early on to help get your THW up to 3, perfect for most schemes in solo and the player side schemes
• Build Support/Call for Backup are always good

---

Go Big or Go Home

Groot's not reaching his full potential here. That's okay. Thankfully, he can invite others to "Welcome Aboard" which opens up some high cost allies.

He needs some help to deal some damage. We've brought in some size-changing mentors to show him how it's done.

• Ant-Man is only going to grow as much as you want him to but he's got great stats regardless
• Giant-Man starts out large and then shrinks over time. 4 ATK is nice and even at normal size, 2 ATK is pretty solid!
• Goliath can grow once and get +4 ATK power for a turn!
• Machine Man isn't a traditional size changer but will eat whatever you throw at him and gain in power

We've ditched most of the Guardians, but that doesn't mean we're going solo.

• Rocket Raccoon was always going to be here because of Flora and Fauna. Good stats, cheap and extra damage towards minions is always helpful. The overkill is perfect for Tough
• Major Victory exists here just to die. More on this later.

Sometimes you need a bit of help cycling through the deck. These two help out.

• White Tiger lets you draw up to 3 cards at times
• Hope Summers is great here with the ability letting you grab anything you want from the Superpower heavy signature kit. Grab the 0 cost Fruition for easy growth counters or any signature upgrade you need.

Oh yeah, we have to have some status in this kit and these are about the only options in leadership. I think we know what these two do by now.

• Professor X confuses
• Mockingbird stuns

The best part about all of these allies? With the exception of Mockingbird, Major Victory and Machine Man (who doesn't really count), all of these allies have at least a 2 THW stat as well.

---

Back to the Lab

Make the Call recursion is so boring. Rapid Response is fine but overused and highly specific to certain allies. But Med Lab? Now that's a fantastic card. 1 cost and takes some patience but can be really strong.

In this deck, there's so many possibilities based on the ally selection. Because of the restriction of consequential damage defeating the ally, you're forced to vary your approach which keeps games dynamic.

• Major Victory is the primary target. While using him as a chump blocker works, we want him dying to consequential damage so he can give you another ready in the player phase. This really lets you take advantage of the signature upgrades.
  • Villains with retaliate in later stages become a benefit as you can defeat him faster
• White Tiger can let you draw 2 or 3 cards extra a few turns apart. Extremely helpful in building out the board
• Hope Summers will allow you to cherry pick exactly which signature event you'd like (remember, all Superpowers) and then do it again and again
• Machine Man can stay on the board and become a permanent resource dump if you need it
• Goliath has to be discarded at the end of the phase where you trigger his action. Defeat him instead and he'll be healed in no time
• Mockingbird lets you cycle the only stun in the deck if you're in a scenario that requires it

---

Peter Pan Syndrome

So you've come this far, against everything you've believed, and you're ready to find out how to use your growth counters. I'm proud of you. It's pretty easy.

Before you start spending them, see if there's anything in your hand that you can do to increase them.

• Play Fruition to get 2 more
• Root Stomp if you really want to, though the single growth counter is very situational

Once you're at the peak of your potential, on the verge of being a real adult, trigger all the best cards

• "I. AM. GROOT!" is the best value out of these for strong burst damage against the villain
• "I am Groot" is a card I never really use though in side-scheme heavy scenarios you could

---

After this we've got all these growth counters that don't do anything for us. The cards here require growth counters but you'll see that you only really need 4 to get the most value out of these.

• Use your basic attack with Vine Spikes (1 growth counter) for 4 ATK
• Use Lashing Vines (2 growth counters) to ready up
• Use your basic thwart with Entangling Vines (1 growth counter) to get threat low enough on the main scheme to justify an AE flip

What if you only have 2 growth counters from Fruition? I'm glad you asked.

Lashing Vines is great when you have a lot of counters but not a great value when you're strapped for cash. We've got some other tools that can ready you.

• C.I.T.T
  • Don't be afraid to use Clarity of Purpose here as a resource if you need it. As you'll see, we can get growth counters back pretty quickly!
• Major Victory's when defeated ability
• Flora and Fauna when Rocket Raccoon is on the board

No growth counters?

• You can always Go All Out for a solid 6 damage
• Play one of the stronger allies with "Welcome Aboard"'s discount

---

Sounds like you might be confused. How am I keeping my growth counters to be able to use them during the player phase? A few ways.

• Basic defending with (or without, at times) Vine Shield can be worth it! Use 1 growth counter to save you from depleting all of them
  • This is where all of those readies become extremely helpful
• "We Are Groot" to use 1 counter and get a tough status card
• Ally chumping can be helpful here, especially if your Med Lab is full.
  • If you've already basic defended, let Major Victory take the hit during a second villain activation/minion so you can get the ready for the player phase!

---

With your growth counters depleted or close to depleted, we need to recharge.

• Use your allies to thwart the main scheme. You can normally get the scheme low enough to justify flipping every other turn even without a confuse
• Go ahead and defeat any allies you'd like to Med Lab back, with Major Victory and White Tiger being the best targets
• Play "Welcome Aboard" in hero form if you have it.

Then when you flip to alter-ego, go ahead and stockpile those growth counters to do it all over again.

• Use Growth Spurt for 2 free counters
• Fertile Ground will give you 1 counter and a card draw.
  • There's a good chance you'll draw an ally. If you played "Welcome Aboard" while you were in hero form, you might have the resources to play it! This is especially true late game with a built out board.
  • No ally to play? Have you checked your Med Lab?
• You'll be able to trigger both of these again in the next turn, giving you 6 growth counters to work with in Hero form!

---

Other Card Considerations

I really had a choice here between leaning into Guardian tech or working towards something more unique. There's a different version of this deck that's more Guardian based, but it's worse and not nearly as fun. Ally selection can really be changed to your liking, though I'd say Hope Summers, Major Victory, Mockingbird , Professor X and Rocket Raccoon are necessary to the strategy.

• Gamora is a strong ally but early to mid game was causing me to cycle through important cards I needed on the board
• Cosmo, Drax, Martinex and Yondu also got lost in the pivot away from Guardians. They didn't offer the versatility Groot needs from an ally to counter some of his weaknesses
• Ironheart and Maria Hill offer some nice card draw but had pretty poor stats. White Tiger was better and allies like Machine Man offered resource dumps as well. You could easily find a spot for either of them, though I think the blend of allies selected are much more dynamic
• Kaluu's stats are poor, though drawing into Fruition can be satisfying. Ultimately didn't miss anything when they were gone!
• Rapid Response is higher cost than Med Lab and is single use. Extremely inefficient if you're looping an ally like Major Victory and actively hurting you if you use it on Giant-Man
• Superpower Training is a great player side scheme generally and there are 4 identity specific upgrades you can get out, though they are so easily trigger-able with Deft Focus that it's more hassle to clear the scheme than to just play the card
• War Machine had the stats I wanted and was tough, though I just didn't find that I was struggling for blockers. Ended up slowing the momentum of the deck down too much

---

Results

This has been a lot of fun to put together!

I don't enjoy playing Leadership very often because it's way too easy to lean into the same generic and strong recursion decks. With this, I've found a fun and dynamic build that works to strengthen a weak character.

It's one of the only Groot decks where I've found I'm able to consistently build the board and find uses for all of the signature upgrades, which was exactly what I was going for!