Invisibili-tree

This is a deck that I thought of back when Invisibility Gear was first previewed and have been playing off and on since.

The idea is to utilize Invisibility Gear to help Groot save counters for using his upgrades as well as his events.

Groots forced response can make it difficult to keep his counters which can make his events feel lackluster. The idea here is that Groot will force the enemy to scheme as opposed to attack and then also mitigate or completely prevent those schemes freeing us up to utilize the counters.

Shoutout to @Corbintm for assistance in crafting this deck!

Setup:

The most important card for Groot is Fertile Ground which allows him to add a counter and draw a card in AE.

Sense of Justice helps pay for thwart events and hits the resource kicker on For Justice! as well as Multitasking.

Deft Focus reduces the cost of the next Superpower played by 1. All of Groots events are superpowers so there is a lot of value here.

Helicarrier reduces the cost of the next card played by 1.

As far as upgrades go since we're focusing on thwarting I usually opt for Entangling Vines to boost his thwart first.

Vine Spikes helps out with damage which is really nice later game for final pushes.

Build, Spend, Flip:

As stated we are going to be focusing on preserving Groots counters to use as currency as opposed to letting his forced response eat them up.

The main strategy for this is having Invisibility Gear out to force the villain to scheme as opposed to attacking.

Combine this with numerous ways to confuse and the scheme will be nullified.

We have Dazzler who brings confuse.

"Think Fast!" which he can use a growth counter as opposed to taking actual damage for a confuse.

Sonic Rifle can provide 2 confuses per play.

Cypher can get us some extra card draw when attack a confused enemy which is a common occurrence.

Chamber provides some consistent damage for us with the focus on keeping the villain confused.

We also have Counterintelligence which negates 3 threat when scheme is placed. This is used when there isn't a confuse in place to mitigate threat from Invisibility Gear. It also works in AE on flips down.

Against ESN for example I could keep Cyberpath or Biomorph confused but when he went giant form Counterintelligence helped preserve the strategy.

Preserving the counters allows "I am Groot" to hit for really big numbers on threat removal and "I. AM. GROOT!" to land big damage.

A turn can look like this play "I am Groot" and remove up to 10 threat based on his counters. Then Groot can basic activate using one of his upgrades and attack for 4 or thwart for 3.

With Deft Focus and Sense of Justice out it is possible to play both his thwart event and his attack event same turn. I've been able to do this and it feels really nice to clear a scheme and deal large amounts of damage in the same turn.

In a game against Red Skull I was able to clear Legions of Hydra with his thwart event and take out Madame Hydra with his attack event.

Use "We Are Groot" to hand out toughs especially in MP and preserve the rest of your counters for another turn as well.

For turns we want to flip down we can let the villain knock some counters off and use the confuse for a safe flip instead.

Remember when you flip to AE utilize his ability to put 2 counters on and Fertile Ground to add a 3rd. Then next turn do the same thing and you'll be starting with a 7 card hand as well as 6 counters.

Other Considerations:

Professor X can bring more confuse but went with Dazzler since she can be paid for with The Power of Justice.

Overwatch is really solid and for higher player counts I'd add it in.

Concussive Blow is great for confuse but I wanted more thwart events and try to keep the cost down.

Infiltration was in for awhile and it works well. Groot has Root Stomp that works with minions but ultimately Multitasking was the more reliable source of threat removal.

Against steady/wart I'd drop some of the confuses and run more Counterintelligence to assist with mitigating threat.

Overall I've really enjoyed this deck and it has performed extremely well in both Solo and 2handed.

I'd love to hear any feedback or experiences with it!