Super Heroes Marvel

Venomized Groot

A grinning brick figure that turns from tree to symbiote right in front of you.

Brick Rated Score

3.6/5

Set 76249 · 2023

Pieces630

Minifigsn/a

Year2023

Set number76249

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

This is one of those sets that made me laugh out loud when I finished it, because Groot mid-transformation into Venom is genuinely gross in the best way, all white eyes and dripping tongue.

The two builds in one box is the real charm here, though I have to be honest that it leans heavily on the 2022 Groot design and hides the full Venom instructions inside the app. If you already have the standard Groot you may feel the deja vu. If you missed it and you love a big posable figure on the shelf, this one earns its keep.

Best for: Marvel fans who want a big, posable buildable figure with a fun party trick

The full review

What it is

Venomized Groot is a buildable figure, not a playset, and that framing matters before anything else. You are constructing a roughly foot-tall Groot who is halfway through being consumed by the Venom symbiote, and the finished thing has this wonderful lopsided horror to it, one side still recognizably the sweet tree from Guardians of the Galaxy and the other side sprouting tentacles, white spider eyes and a tongue that lolls out over rows of teeth. The first time I got the face assembled I actually recoiled a little, which for a Marvel display piece is exactly the reaction you want. The whole model is posable too, with movement at the arms, legs, hips and head, so it does not just stand rigid on a shelf. You can lean it forward mid-lunge and it holds the pose.

The catch

Now the honest caveats, and there are a few. The biggest one that builders raised everywhere is the instructions. The paper booklet in the box only covers the half-and-half look. If you want to push all the way to a fully venomized black-and-white Groot using the parts in bag five, you have to open the LEGO Builder app and follow the digital-only steps, which a lot of people found genuinely annoying since a few extra printed pages would have solved it. The second caveat is that this build is very close to the standard 2022 Groot (76217). LEGO reused the core skeleton and dropped the old display plate and the buildable cassette deck, so if you already owned that set, a chunk of this will feel like territory you have walked before. And at 49.99 dollars with zero minifigures, it is not a bad price for the part count, but it is not a steal either.

Who it's for

So who is this for. If you are a Marvel fan who loves a chunky character figure to display and you never picked up the original Groot, this is an easy yes, because the transformation gimmick is a real one and the finished figure has personality for days. It is also a lovely build for a slightly older kid, the age rating sits at ten and up, and the two-mode feature keeps it interesting past the first assembly. I would steer you away from it if you already own the 2022 Groot and you are chasing something structurally new, or if buildable figures leave you cold and you were secretly hoping for minifigures and a scene. There are none here. This is one big characterful figure, take it or leave it, and I happen to take it.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this feels less like following a blueprint and more like sculpting, which is the fun of the buildable-figure format. You spend a lot of time on ball joints and Technic connections that give the limbs their range, then layer curved and angled brown pieces to rough out Groot's bark-like body before the symbiote takes over. It is a smooth build with no real head-scratchers, and an experienced younger builder can manage it comfortably, but there is enough shaping work in the shoulders and the face that adults will still enjoy the process rather than feeling babied by it.

The parts that carry the whole set are the Venom elements in the later bags, the glossy black pieces, the big printed white eyes and the specialized tongue and teeth that give the face its snarl. Those are the pieces you buy this for, and they contrast beautifully against the earthy browns of the Groot half. There is nothing here that will send a serious parts collector running for a bulk order, it is not that kind of set, but the printed eye tiles and the sheer volume of usable black curved slopes and brown organic shapes make it a quietly handy donor box if you build your own creatures and figures.

Fun facts

01The set is a 2-in-1: the paper instructions build the half-transformed Groot, while the fully venomized all-black-and-white version is only documented in the LEGO Builder app using the parts from bag five.
02It is essentially a horror twist on the 2022 set 76217 Groot, reusing much of that figure's construction but dropping the original display stand and the buildable cassette player.
03Venomized Groot launched in 2023 at 49.99 dollars with 630 pieces and no minifigures, then retired at the end of 2024, and sealed copies have hovered right around their original price since.