*R* Rated Raccoon is Tinkering

“Ain’t Nothin’ Like Me, Cept’ Me.” - Rocker Raccoon: Guardians of the Galaxy

Rocket is easily one of the most loved Marvel characters in movies and in games. I love how in Marvel Champion TCG they kept his theme with all the salvageable tech upgrades, recycling one thing to get another and making something out of nothing. I only wish there was a way to play all of his four Restricted upgrades at the same time, but I guess we will do with 3 instead.

This deck is built in a way to utilises Rocket's best abilities, cycling through the deck and getting the cards most needed in the current situation.

Let's go through the deck and see how it works:

4 allies to cycle through

• Gamora, Jack Flag, Martinex and Quasar. Those 4 will be going in and out of play like Rocket's tech upgrades by soaking damage and allowing the draw of an extra card thanks to Knowhere. The two Team-Building Exercise will help to play them without breaking a sweat about how to pay for them...

The other 2 allies

• Wraith and Groot have a little bit of a different roles here.
• Wraith is like a support card with 3 counters on it. He is just chillin' on the board and taking care of any nasty boost effects.

• Groot has two purposes:
• 1st - use him to defend against a minion and thanks to his ability, he will end up healing to full health more often than not (a real wooden shield).
• 2nd - Groot is needed to play Flora and Fauna, an easy and cheap way to reload Rocket's tech upgrades and do this little bit of extra damage this turn.

The rest of the events

• Rocket comes with a bit of heal, a bit of damage and a bit of thwart. All basics are covered in the hero pack.
• Although Rocker is one of the few decks which does not come with an Alter-Ego support card, he likes chilling in his Alter-Ego form not as much for the recovery (regardless of his low Hit Points of 9) but mainly because of his awesome ability Tinkering.
• Going to Alter-Ego has a lot of worth in it. Rocket can recover and draw two cards, therefore;
• "Think Fast!" will make the Villain wonder what's happening while Rocket is tinkering around.
• Tinkering is also the very reason why Booster Boots is included in this deck. This way Rocket always has a cheap tech upgrade to get rid of, without hindering the turn.

The support cards are there to, well, to support

• If it happens to have a brick hand with only loads of resources, CITT will allow Rocket to do something more than simply discard them at the end of the turn. Activating Gamora twice for example will provide a much better chance of drawing an event card. Or using Salvage to ready one of the other allies will guarantee the draw of a tech upgrade next turn.
• Team-Building Exercise will help playing allies.
• Avengers Mansion and Helicarrier are here 'cos Rocket might enjoy hanging in there, plus they will help him to play with more cards and cheaper execution.
• And there is probably a nice Interrogation Room in at least one of them for added fun.

About the upgrades; on top of Rocket's 8 upgrades, we have 5 extras:

• Side Holster is a must so Rocket can have 3 restricted Rocket Raccoon weapons (2 weapons only is just not fun enough...)
• Booster Boots has its purpose (see events)
• Skilled Investigator will pay for itself even if by some miracle there is only one side scheme through the game
• Ingenuity will help to pay for all the upgrades Rocket want to play when he flips to Alter-Ego to recover and use Tinkering
• Heroic Intuition will boost the thwart power (and Rocket is the main thwarting power in the deck together with the allies).

Side note

The only time this deck might struggle in a solo game is when there are more than 2 side schemes on the board at the same time. In multiplayer, the deck is just Tinkering the Villain away!