What If...? Hybrid Heroes: Iron Raccoon

Hot on the heels of my Captain America/Thor hybrid hero I'm bringing you a second one.  If you missed yesterday's blog and are wondering what in tarnation is going on then you can catch up here.  

Before we start I want to repeat my principles that I've been working to in making hybrid heroes and which I've found have really helped make the decks successful.

1. I aim for a 7-8 split on the 15 cards in their hero deck, that is to take 7 cards from one hero and 8 from the other hero.  The whole point of this is to create fun new heroes who are going to feel new and interesting so a good mix of cards from both is a good way to ensure your new hybrid doesn't just feel like an old hero in a new pair of pants. 
   
   
2. I have a 'base' hero who is the one whose alter-ego and hero card I'm basing myself in.  I usually keep their alter-ego ability untouched but try to switch their hero ability with the other hero in the hybrid.  I do this because changing 7 or 8 cards in your deck is often not going to make a massive difference to how things feel or play, but hero abilities are always on and can really shake up the experience
   
   
3. Sometimes a card refers to their original hero/alter-ego by name (eg. Mjolnir reads "Thor gets +1ATK and gains the Aerial trait").  Any names are assumed to refer to the hero whose deck they are now in.  The same goes for Obligations/Nemesis cards.  Basically: do what the cards are supposed to do, even if that's not exactly what they now say they do.

Right, who's up next...?

IRON RACCOON

In this hybrid hero scenario the notoriously sticky-fingered Rocket Raccoon has somehow managed to get his paws on one of Tony Stark's Iron Man suits.  This isn't a hybrid born from a specific moment in Marvel or the MCU, more like one that was inspired by a single piece of art I googled, and that the mechanics of Rocket and Iron Man seemed like they could work nicely together as they both pivot around the Tech keyword.

As far as I could google it's never actually happened, although I did find this which suggested Rocket and Tony at least met and talked about the suit once.

When it comes to getting the two heroes working together in Marvel Champions I found that getting the balance right for how their two decks fed into a single block 15 cards was trickier than I thought.  My first pass saw me use virtually the full Iron Man suit but replacing the Rocket Boots with Rocket's Thruster Boots (so I replaced the Rocket Boots with Rocket's Boots.  Jeez, I hope this isn't going to get too confusing...).  I thought I'd nailed it first time but when I gave that deck a couple of games it really felt just like an Iron Man deck because all the cards from Iron Man's deck sat in play and did things every turn, while Rocket's cards all came and went as they were Events and Resources, or big guns I didn't need to bother playing.

Underpinning it all was that Thruster Boots just seemed to supercharge the Iron Man card pool more than I expected.  Being automatically Aerial was great for the Helmet, Powered Gauntets and Supersonic Punches I'd put in, and even the +1THW was great with the Arc Reactor.  I set out to switch back from Rocket's Boots to the original Rocket Boots (oh god, it's happening again) but then decided that gave me two other problems: the upgrades in play already felt Iron Man-heavy and I was just doubling down on that by putting his Rocket Boots back in, and Rocket wasn't an Avenger so without Quincarrier could I reliably activate the Rocket Boots to go Aerial anyway?

I changed direction and put Thruster Boots back in but then took out some of the things that were benefitting from the Aerial trait to try and balance it that way.  I cut the Helmet to make Rocket's 'I've Got A Plan' event more important, I dropped some of the Supersonic Punches for Repulsor Blasts, and finally I upped the Rocket-ness of the final armour by adding Cybernetic Skeleton to replace the Hit Points I wasn't getting from Rocket Boots.  Since making those changes the balance of Iron Man and Rocket Raccoon Tech cards in play has been much closer to 50/50 so you don't look at the table and see a sea of red & yellow that looks just like any other Iron Man deck, and while Thruster Boots is still *very* good for the deck it's definitely been pulled down a bit by losing the Helmet.

My finished 15 card deck is like this...

• 2x Powered Gauntlets
• 1x Arc Reactor
• 1x Mark V Armor
• 2x Repulsor Blast
• 1x Supersonic Punch
• 
  
• 2x I've Got A Plan
• 2x Salvage
• 1x Thruster Boots
• 1x Cybernetic Skeleton
• 1x Rocket Launcher
• 1x Particle Cannon
  (15)

Obligation: Crisis on Halfworld /// Nemesis: Rocket Raccoon

One card that I'm sad I had to leave on the sideline is Schadenfreude just because it's so much fun, but I think with Powered Gauntlets around it was a little too easy to pump it to the moon anyway.

The hero side of the equation was very straight forward, though, and I simply transplanted Iron Man's hand size ability over onto Rocket's statline, which was basically the same as Iron Man's to begin with.  You definitely notice losing Tony Stark's Futurist ability to dig through the deck looking for your key Tech cards but that's compensated for a little bit having an extra Tech card in your hero deck than before anyway.  TBH it's only writing this blog that I've thought it could have worked just as well the other way around, with Rocket's alter-ego gaining Futurist but keeping the Murdered You! way of drawing extra cards instead of the Iron Man hand size.  All the abilities on these two guys are about hand size and drawing more cards so they're pretty interchangeable... I may have to try that out too!

While I spent a fair bit of time on the mix of hero cards for Iron Rocket, the other 25 cards didn't change for me very much.  I started out by lifting my Hulkbuster Iron Man deck pretty much wholesale and applying that template here.  The main thing that I tweaked was removing the Hand Cannons (because I already had two Restricted weapons in Rocket's cards) but adding some great new Guardians-only cards like Booster Boots and Groot, which are a perfect fit for the deck, and keeping an eye on wanting Energy resources for my Repulsor Blasts.  The much cheaper card pool and addition of Salvage also removed my need to use The Power of Aggression so a few more changes were made, but it's still basically a very recognisable Hulkbuster variant.

Aggression

• 2x Looking For Trouble
• 2x "Bring It!"
• 2x Moment of Triumph
• 1x Lie in Wait
• 1x Angela
• 3x Relentless Assault
• 1x Martial Prowess
• 1x Bug
• 1x Spider-Girl
• 2x Into The Fray

Basic

• 1x Energy
• 1x Strength
• 1x Genius
• 2x Booster Boots
• 1x Endurance
• 1x Ironheart
• 1x Plasma Pistol
• 1x Groot
  (25 cards)

It's a fun deck that loves to be aggressive and pro-active, but really the heart of the deck is assembling all of the parts of your armor suit as quickly as possible then using that to control the table.  My advice for playing this deck is basically the same as it was for the Hulkbuster: 

1. Mulligan anything that's not a Tech card 
2. Stay in Alter-Ego on turn 1 so that you can build your hand size quickly
3. Stabilise the table and build your suit
4. Shoot stuff that moves until it stops moving

Without the Futurist ability I added an 11th Tech card in Plasma Pistol, just to pump my odds of seeing four Tech cards by turn 2 (and it's an Energy resource for Repulsor Blast).  The deck has worked so well and has felt just about wanton and reckless enough to be Rocket, so I'm very happy with it as it stands.  It's a neat blend of the old (Iron Man) and the new (Rocket) both in the upgrades you get in play and the powerful events you are playing.  I really enjoy the feeling of dominating the table that I get from my Hulkbuster deck so it's not a big leap for me to enjoy playing another deck heavily inspired by it, but dare I say that I'm actually enjoying this one a little bit more?

I've still got a couple more Hybrid Heroes to share in the near future, so look to the skies!