Sniping Minions from the Tree

The idea for this deck comes from utilizing Squared Off to bring minions out for Rocket to deal excess damage to resulting in card draw.

Is this the most efficient way to play Rocket in Leadership?

Probably not but it's a really fun way to get some consistent use out of his hero ability, murdered you, and the deck performs really well.

To get our strategy online we want Rocket out with his Cybernetic Skeleton as well as his weapon upgrades and Side Holster so that he can have access to 3 restricted ones at a time. We also want The Triskelion because we are going to be playing allies pretty much every turn and since some of them are meant to hang around (more on that later) this allows us to have 4 allies at a time. To get the allies into play we have both squared off and "Welcome Aboard". We only have 2 copies of each as I tinkered with more but we would end up with hands of multiple copies of those and no allies to play. We have Black Panther to recur them if need be and the deck will cycle quickly with all the card draw. Superpower Training helps us find our skeleton quicker or our Thruster Boots if we already have the skeleton out. Ingenuity can only be played in AE but allows its worth flipping to get it out and it gives us an extra mental resource each turn.

The real strategy we're looking for here is to:

Get our weapon upgrades out and keep them viable with Battery Pack as well as summon minions to deal excess damage to them while also flipping regularly to tinker any upgrades that have run out of counters to generate more card draw. Then utilize Salvage to bring our tech upgrades back to the deck.

Utilize Hawkeye (the sniper) in combination with squared off or Face the Past. Hawkeye enters play with 4 arrow counters and each time a minion enters play he can utilize one to deal 2 damage to that minion. Most minions are going to have at least 3 health which means that his arrows will not defeat them but leave them weakened. This allows you to use Rocket's weapons to deal excess damage to them and generate card draw. Particle Cannon is particularly great with this as it will not only deal 4 damage but also any excess will overkill onto the villain.

The other ally we're looking to keep out is Groot (the tree) as he has 6 health and when he defends will heal 2 health if he survives that attack. Rocket is not great at defending and Groot can usually tank a couple of hits for him. Between that and the flipping we will do with Rocket, this can keep us from taking damage for several turns. This also allows us to play Flora and Fauna while he's in play which can add some much needed counters to one of his weapon upgrades.

Adam Warlock is another really interesting ally with Rocket. Since we are going to be drawing a ton of cards, we end up with dead cards every now and then. AW can smooth this out by discarding your last card and if you map it out you can choose which icon is left allowing you to dictate what you discard based on your needs. Salvage is particularly great with this as the mental resource will deal 3 damage and then wild you can choose to either remove 3 threat or heal 3 from Rocket.

A turn can look like this with Hawkeye and particle cannon in play:

Play squared off to bring out a minion (lets say 5 health) and get one of our many allies into play. That minion takes 2 damage from Hawkeye's ability. Use a basic activation from Rocket or an ally to knock that minion down to 1 health and then hit it with particle cannon to deal 3 overkill to the villain and draw a card from Rocket's ability.

Most of the allies in the deck are 3 cost so that they can be played by squared off without the need to spend other resources, here are the 3 cost or less allies and what they bring:

White Tiger is fantastic with squared off especially in expert as she can draw you 2 or 3 cards depending on the villain's stage number.

Professor X is the old reliable for coming in to clear some threat and give a confuse then chump block for you. Really nice when you want to flip down and tinker an upgrade.

Mockingbird provides a stun which can really help with surviving especially if we don't have Groot out yet.

Maria Hill can be played by both welcome aboard or squared off without spending any other resources and you'll get to draw card. She also provides a solid 2 thwart.

Gambit is great to come in and pull a card from the encounter deck. This is really nice to pull out nasty treacheries or upgrades, bonus points if he gets 2 or 3 icons to provide thwart/damage.

Cyclops is awesome when we have multiple weapon upgrades out to potentially finish off the villain or if there is a particularly beefy minion we need to get rid of.

Moon Girl can only be played in AE but provides 2/2 and can draw up to 3 cards depending on how many mental resources you spent for her.

Groot, Hawkeye and Adam Warlock have already been discussed and all can be played with squared off. Note that Hawkeye's ability will not work on the minion you pull if you play him with squared off.

We also have 2 4 cost allies:

Black Panther who can grab a blue event from discard which gives us extra access to welcome aboard or squared off.

Beast has 2/2 and can grab a resource card which allows us another use of salvage.

Our allies are not necessarily chump blockers but due to Rocket's somewhat fragile state it is ok to chump. Since we will typically have 4 allies out at a time, we can still usually get multiple activations from our allies before they need to chump.

Other cards considered:

Med Lab was useful but i ended up running into not wanting to flip down as i didn't have upgrades to tinker at the time leading to awkward turns.

Call for Backup gets a specific ally into play which is great but i felt between that, welcome aboard and squared off there were too many ally dependent cards.

Rapid Response is really solid to bring back Groot or Hawkeye and could easily be a 41st card or swapped in for an ally.

Overall i really enjoy this deck because it gives us the ability to lean into both sides of Rocket's identity card in an aspect that it has been harder to do so without the ability to summon minions. I would love to hear any feedback or experiences with the deck.

Shoutout to Journeyman2 who gave alot of feedback on the deck during testing!