So this Season 17 tier list looks like this.
And here is top 20
Lets talk about Groot first.
He is at 16 which is very generous. Hes extremely popular and spot 16 should be playable, its not like any of the top 30 or so cant be played and like 11-20 should work really good in specific teams.
Its actually mainly that its very tight after the first top characters, you have Emma as super overpowered. And then Magneto and War at a very high level. With Taskmaster in between. Then ti starting to get really even in worth of a character.
However, Groot is very high because he is sooooo dam good versus a lot of characters. Like, Thing or some other shitty character like Sif etc. He is really good vs these low ranked characters. Characters who are very limited, have low damage and no utility cant at all handle Groot.
The issue with Groot, is that who plays those characters?
Last season (I believe) I talked about how Magneto > Emma. Even do she got way higher points then him as she is also just like Groot uber good vs the worst characters. Then of course Emma is much better against a lot of characters then Groot. But Magneto hes good versus a lot of the best characters. Hes especially got Vs Emma. Thats worth like 50+, while Groot instead is horrible vs Emma.
Being weak to the best character is not great of course. But hes also weak vs Magneto, hes weak vs Iron Patriot as he will only block the first aoe wave(same for all tanks) Bad versus Kitty as she is stealth and he cant damage her at all in the start. Bad Versus both Quicksilver and Psylocke both their very common team and them each individually.
Basically Groot if the tier took into consideration of % of a character played Groot would be much lower right away as no one plays the worst bottom characters. Then he would gain another - as he is bad against all the best characters.
Groot is the uber counter to shit characters. Hes horrible in adamantium league and vibranium etc. I guess he could work in the bottom leagues.
The other news to the top is Star-Lord.
He has extremely lucky plus powers. What I mean with that is that he is always good, but can be amazing if rolls the dice correctly. With a almost instantly kill ability right away.
And to boost to the teams damage constantly with extremely high chance of granting extra turns (pretty much will happen to 1 character per turn) and a lot of debuffs.
+ He got utility like aoe fatal blow.
Then the list is just pretty staled. Overall Playdom have never been good at releasing major changes, thats one reason. The other reason is that the new characters excluding Star-Lord ( and arguably Groot) are all bad some really bad.
Morbius and Drax quickly went into the absolute bottom of the game while Blade is some obscure place in the middle, the other somewhere in between mid w.e Blade and really bad bottom.
