One Tough Trash Panda

About to face a villain with lots of minions? Here's a toy of deck to try! Rocket normally wants to avoid exhausting to defend. He is not very durable and his basic actions are better used elsewhere. This deck turns that on its head by having Rocket consistently defend while he has a Tough status and he reaps large rewards in doing so.

"Come Get Me, Bub!" is the deck's cornerstone, supplying us with a minion, a tough status, and a nice heal. Hard Knocks offers supplemental Toughs and some player phase minion control. While Hard Knocks can trigger "Murdered You!" in the hero phase, the real fun comes in setting up minion kills in the villain phase. Then, "Murdered You!" combines with Unflappable and Change of Fortune to turn minion kills from 1-card draw snacks into 4-card draw meals. Powerful Punch, Under Control, Riposte, and Nova all provide the deck with damage options for the villain phase. Jocasta and Defensive Training give us consistent access to the most desirable defense events.

Riposte is a little bit of a secret weapon here. On paper, it is worse than both Powerful Punch and Unflappable, doing less damage than both cards and either being more expensive or having to occur after an attack. However, Tough statuses are only discarded if the player receives damage. Riposte grants an additional 2 defense (importantly, this is not a damage reduction. Subdue would still trigger a Tough discard, for example). 3 defense isn't that high but it is high enough to match many minions attack and it can be enough for lucky villain low roll. This preserves the Tough status card for a future use. Riposte with a Tough also still triggers the counter-attack damage, even if the 3 effective defense isn't enough to reduce an attack to 0 damage on its own.

Other notes:

• C.I.T.T. basically takes the place of Indomitable. Even with a Tough, Rocket still has to defend to trigger his defensive damage cards. C.I.T.T gives him a way to still sneak in basic attacks or thwarts, as needed.
• In early play-testing, this deck was a tad slow in defeating the villain. Fighting Fit provides some decent villain damage options when combined with Rocket's weapons and allies. "Come Get Me, Bub!" provides a 3 HP heal, on top of the Tough, so we should be good on retaining max health.
• I considered including Shake it Off but it really triggers at the wrong time. We want Toughs going into the villain phase, not after. It is also anti-synergistic with Fighting Fit, though the deck does have plenty of healing.

Admittedly, this deck really needs minions to function. However, against the right villain (or the wrong villain with the right modular sets), it can consistently get silly card draw and solid damage output. This is still a Rocket deck, so you have access to all of his weapons, his decent native thwarting options, and some strong allies.

Enjoy!