It's been awhile since I've done some Marvel Champions hero fights up against the Rhino. So I'm waaaay behind. For those that haven't read/watched these reports before, I take heroes from the Marvel Champions LCG and test them out against the first scenario: Rhino. I do this with just the one hero, using the pre-constructed deck that you buy off the shelf. I (typically) do not mulligan the first hand, as I'm still figuring out the deck.

Typically….

I say "typically" do not mulligan the first hand, as prior to this hero, I never mulligan-ed. However, today I'm looking at Rocket Raccoon. When I laid out the cards and saw Rocket's alter ego text, combined with seeing Rocket played by someone else, I knew that tech cards are going to be important. However, *this* is the hand that I drew:

A bunch of resource cards, a card I need Groot out in play for, and 2 cards that require me to play them against minions. So, basically a hand where I could not use anything. As much as I wanted to preserve my "no mulligan" rule, I think that in a solo play, giving rhino a free round to rack up threat or punch me was not going to do me any good. So I tossed the 3 non-resource cards and redrew:

You Spin Me Right Round Baby

Yay! I got a tech card! The beginning of a combo are starting to form for me. After some playing the hand cannon, discarding it to get more cards, getting the hand cannon back on top of the deck by pulling out a minion, I basically realized I was back to where I started. Sometimes, combos sound better in your head than they actually are.

Speaking of going round and round, that explained the next couple of turns. Not having much out, I decided to let Rhino hit me…for 4 damage! That smarts when you only have 9 health. Between trying to recover from that, attempting to keep the threat down after getting confused and taking off some tough, I finally had a couple of tools. I was really hoping that I had a card that would increase my hit points, and I finally had it in Cybernetic Skeleton. Plus, getting Groot out meant that I could use him as a defender to take a couple of hits.

Here Comes the Boom

Towards the end, things got a little tight. I had popped Rhino into his second form, giving him 15 hit points again and bringing out Breakin' & Takin'. That wasn't the only side scheme I had though, as Crowd Control was out, keeping me from taking away threat on the main scheme. Plus, I had Sandman engaged with me with a Tough Token on him. How was I going to get out of this!?!

Oh wait.

I don't need to! Ignoring the scheme and the minion, I realize I have enough on the board to go straight for the throat and take out Rhino. First, I activate Rocket's Pistol to hit Rhino for 2 points of damage, then I play Flora and Fauna to ready the pistol, using it and the Hand Cannon to get some extra hits in and some increases to my next attack…

(Note: It's not until I got to this part of writing this article that I realized that Hand Cannon doesn't work like that. It's an interrupt that adds when you go in for an attack, not increasing your next attack. Doh! Well, I had the Particle Cannon in hand, so technically I could have reordered these cards and still *should* have taken out Rhino)

Using Hand Cannon (again, oops) a second time to get it off the field, then dropping down a Particle Cannon which lets me do more heavy hitting before I come in with Rocket and Groot to take out Rhino's last remaining hit points. Boom! Rocket wins!

Verdict

I don't think I'd ever play Rocket solo again. Until you get his kit out, he's very hard to get things moving. However, playing him in a group with other heroes looks like it would be *incredibly* fun. Especially if it was a scenario like Ultron that had a lot of minions, then Rocket would really excel. Clearly, they have nailed the theme with this deck as Rocket has tons of guns and tech to play with. The biggest limitation is the restricted keyword limiting how many of Rocket's weapons you are playing, but if you are constantly using them then they should cycle through easily.

Where does he rank on my list of heroes? I'm putting him at #6, below Black Widow and above Scarlet Witch. He's not a hero I always want to be playing, but he's in that next tier of heroes I wouldn't mind playing in a group, especially if someone else is wanting to play those "top tier" heroes that I keep coming back to.

What about you? Have you tried out Rocket and Groot? Speaking of Groot, I'll have to see the other side of the coin and try out his hero next.

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