Hulk / Justicia [PzvlRPO]

Hulk / Justicia - Build a Hulk

This deck has cleared every scenario on expert with 0 losses.

I don't usually upload decks I build on here - but I found building a Hulk solo deck such a challenge that I thought I would share my experience.

Pre-amble - why justice? Initially I wanted to play Hulk with aggression. I deliberately wanted to avoid leadership hulk because I don't believe there's any real synergy there. It works, but only because leadership is so strong that you can win without ever using the Hulk cards. Aggression is a natural fit because it complements Hulk's strengths. The inital plan was to go for a hyper aggressive rush deck with near 0 thwart. Unfortunately, I found against Klaw this fell short. I then tweaked this to add a few good aggression/neutral allies along with cards like "You'll Pay for That!" to give the deck some thwart. This still wasn't enough and so I kept tweaking until I realised that the only aggression cards I was keeping were thwart cards/allies. At this point, it was clear I might as well just be playing justice.

Utilising Hulk's Strengths Hulk has two main strengths, and building a Hulk deck that doesn't actively benefit from them is going to make it feel like you should just play a different hero.

1) Hulk's Attack power. This means Hulk doesn't need any extra attack cards at all (Concussive Blast is only really played for the confusion).

2) Hulk's health/recovery. Hulk has huge Hit points and a decent recovery. Not only that, but he also has built in ways to boost both (Banner's Laboratory and Immovable Object.

The high hit points means he can afford to be a bit slow at dealing with the board. Staying in hero form a bit longer than other heroes might means less threat will mount up on the main scheme and you will have time to set up.

However, I don't believe Hulk is actually a stay in hero form all game hero. He doesn't have enough ways to block damage. You are fighting a losing fight whenever you have to actually block with hulk and he simply doesn't have the resources to chump block with allies repeatedly. So eventually, even with 22 health you will need to flip down.

The 8 recovery that he can build up to really helps reward this. Adding in cards like Under Surveillance, Counterintelligence and Concussive Blow means you have far more opportunities to flip down to alter ego form. This also lets you make use of banner's ability and his laboratory.

Beat Cop One of the strongest justice cards is easily Beat Cop. Being able to thwart 1 every turn gives Hulk just enough control that even finding one makes a huge difference in your ability to slow down the game and set up.

It's also really nice to use Beat Cop to clear off a guard minion to let you attack the villain directly.

2+1=3 With so many key side schemes having 3 threat on them, it makes a lot of sense to pair beat cop with some 2thw cards. Agent Coulson and Clear the Area are both very cheap ways to do this. Daredevil can be expensive, but he does have the benefit of the physical resource. Mockingbird is just a generically strong ally that can be played in place of Beat Cop to thwart for 1 for a few turns whilst blocking 2 attacks.

Avengers Mansion & Co This deck can afford to take the time to build up. Hulk needs the extra resources/cards that that mansion and the carriers provide.

Conclusion Overall this Hulk deck feels really satisfying to play. Building up Hulk's tableau is very rewarding and by the end game you have lots of different options and tools to answer whatever is on the board.

Most importantly though, is that Hulk is still the one that wins the game. You have very little ways to deal damage outside of his signature cards.

With a full tableu built up you'll have plenty of resources/card draw AND a small deck which means you can comfortably chain together Hulk's naturally powerful signature events to pile on the damage and win.