In this Card Highlight series, I highlight cards that I am currently enjoying. These are by no means the most powerful cards. They aren't even necessarily my all-time favorite cards. They are simply cards that I am really enjoying right now. At the end of the article you'll find a deck list that I've enjoyed using them in and a slideshow that displays all the cards.
Shake and Bay...ke
Groot
Groot may be my all-time favorite ally. I really love his ability to defend and heal, taking massive hits and staying on the board. He can be a great ally to build survivability for Guardian heroes or anyone able to cheat him in with something like Call for Backup or Make the Call. I love taking a big hit from the villain (5 damage or less!), then healing back up by blocking a 1 ATK minion over and over. He really is one of a kind when it comes to allies. He's a unique defensive Voltron ally, so feel free to let your friends in other aspects dump upgrades on him. Each health makes it easier for him to take bigger attacks, so Honorary upgrades, Reinforced Suit, or Training upgrades are great for making him even more durable.
Shake It Off
Shake It Off is great for any Guardian, but it absolutely sings with the Groot ally. He can take a hit up to 5 damage, heal 2 of that, then you can put a Tough on him. This means the next time he blocks a full attack, he'll be left with only one damage on him, ready to take more hits. Shake It Off is super flexible, and works best when triggering it off a small minion attack.
Hangar Bay
Shake It Off and Groot have always been good, but they are a bit slow. Hangar Bay blows this wide open by letting Groot defend multiple attacks in a round, taking quick advantage of his healing or Shake It Off.
Charlie-27
As much as I love him, Groot isn't always around. Charlie-27 is a nice backup. He comes with a Tough and retaliate. This means your first block is free, and he'll deal a bit of extra damage along the way. He's not my top choice, but he works well alongside Groot.
Pinned Down
This isn't mandatory to the above combos, but it can be helpful for harvesting minion attacks. Even if you reduce the minion's ATK to 0, it is considered to attack, meaning Groot can defend and heal or Charlie-27 can defend and retaliate. If you reduce the minion to 1 ATK (and make sure it doesn't have nasty activation abilities), you can also use it to trigger Shake It Off.
Honorable Mention: Med Team
What's this? A surprise entry? You've only done two of these Fabulous Fives, and both went over the limit? Yes. I am cheating again. Really this is just an honorable mention. It's super flexible, it can speed up Groot's healing, and it can keep Charlie-27 around. If you're running into some minions with rough activation abilities, I'd swap Pinned Down for this.
Try It Out
My favorite place for this is with Rocket Raccoon. The other Guardians can run it plenty fine as well, but Rocket and Groot are such a thematic matchup. On top of that, it sets up Flora and Fauna, a fantastic Team-Up card. Here is a deck that I enjoyed with NeXt Evolution scenarios. While it can be run solo, I prefer it with another teammate or two, because it makes hitting the Shake and Bay...ke combo easier.
You could easily swap some things around. Moon Girl is always great with Rocket, especially when he can flip down often. You could drop Pinned Down and just rely on naturally occurring attacks. There are enough 2+ cost Protection cards to justify running The Power of Protection, but I find Rocket to be pretty resource rich as is. If you give it a run, I hope you have fun with it!
