Save Your Groot Counters for Offense

This deck was born from my pursuit to find the best (or at least, the most fun for me to play) Ronin deck. The natural candidates for Ronin decks are Spiderman, Nightcrawler, etc. But Groot stood out to me for a few reasons:

1. He naturally comes with 0 Ally cards, which is rare.
2. He has high base DEF at 3, making the compounding interest from DEF upgrades much quicker to set up.
3. His growth counters can be exceptionally powerful, but only if you get to spend them on card effects, rather than preventing damage.

What follows is, probably, my favorite Ronin deck. The reason being is that, when Growth Counters aren't used for defense, they become a separate mana pool which can be used to buff Groot for whatever task is needed in that particular moment.

Once his DEF is boosted, he becomes a real powerhouse in all other areas of the game, because his secondary resource no longer needs to be spent on preventing damage.

Each of his upgrade cards become quite absurd. 3 THW on the THW turn? Easy peasy. 4 ATK on the ATK turn? Yes, please. Need to double either of those? No problem for Lashing Vines. Even better with something like "The Best Offense" in play. 12 Damage in a turn just off of basic attacks + Lashing Vines? Followed up by another 6 damage from Counter-Punch? Hoo boy, we are Grooting the competition.

The deck is absurdly simple to play. Put Growth Counters on Groot -> Get DEF stat up -> Defend when you need to protect the growth counters -> Profit.

I love this deck. Yes. I am Groot.