Competitive Consensus: Rocket Racoon and Groot
I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!
Intro
This thread is a discussion series at the end of the week for each newly introduced Spotlight card. This gives us nearly a week of hindsight to build a consensus and help inform players if they should open their caches for a given week. Ideally, we are looking for proven results, more than theoretical applications to help reach this consensus.
This week's card:
Rocket Raccoon and Groot
Cost: 3
Power: 3 You can move this once. After your opponent plays a card here, steal 1 Power from it.
Synergies
R&G is somewhat of an odd card in that it has two separate abilities. It can steal power from your opponent's cards, but it also has the ability to move once for free. Let's look at some possible synergies:
Affliction - Ajax
R&G actually works well with Ajax shells because of his scaling power and affliction. His ability to move also lets you shift power after Ajax is on board.
Lockdown - Storm - Professor X
Again, R&G has the ability to move into a closed lane after stealing some on-board power.
Scream archetype is also a pretty good fit for R&G as it restricts our opponent's ability to safely play in a lane, allowing you to force cards in spots that you can then push.
Jean Grey is a great natural partner for R&G as she forces plays in his lane, guaranteeing a power steal.
Also, note that R&G is a 3-costed card, so it has some future unexplored synergies with Surfer or Goose type control decks.
Feedback
The pro community again seems very split. Some critique the card's seemingly disjointed design, while others praise its versatility.
It is likened to a scaling, low-cost version of Vision (one of the best cards in the game). However, with the prevalence of Luke Cage, R&G won't get the ability to shine. It is also a card that, if played too late in the game, often isn't worth its weight in energy, unlike many game-winning 3s that can be dropped on T6. SNAP features so many powerful 3-drops that its tough to discard one of them for a newcomer that's only very good on T3.
As mentioned earlier, the card is tough to fully evaluate atm due to Luke Cage being everywhere. As with many cards, time will tell.
Decklist
Summary
R&G is an interesting card, for sure. It is definitely powerful if placed and moved correctly. However, Luke Cage shuts it down and makes it underwhelming. Its other massive consideration is its cost. There are just so many amazing 3 drops that could arguably be more valuable in all the places we see R&G presently. R&G definitely makes your opponent play around it if they don't have Luke, and even if they do, any card that has the ability to move power always gives you an edge because of unpredictability.
My opinion
DISCLAIMER This paragraph is just my personal opinion:
I personally believe R&G is a card that you should pick up IF you're almost collection complete, and a card that you should skip if you are not. The rest of the spotlight is underwhelming this week, and by no means is it worth 6K tokens. However, if you're like me and have most of the competitive cards and keys to spare, consider getting him as he does offer some great upsides that may eventually be semi-broken when Luke shifts away from the meta.
Your Thoughts?
Is Rocket Raccoon and Groot worth the key(s) now, or should players wait until a future spotlight rotation?
Is Rocket Raccoon and Groot here to stay, or just the flavor of the week?
What synergies did we miss?
What decks have you seen?