How to Build a Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk Commander Deck in MTG

Provided by Marvel Super Heroes Magic: The Gathering There are tons of new and exciting Commander options available that can lead to powerful new deck types. Chief among these options is the Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk card. This card can be utilized as a single blue mana commander using the Bruce Banner aspect, and at the right time you can transform it into the Incredible Hulk by paying 6 mana.

This deck guide will walk you through the strategies that work best with your Commander, as well as provide template decks you can use while highlighting key cards and combos worth keeping if you want to make changes or build an entirely new Commander deck yourself.

Commander Overview

In this guide, we'll be building a deck around Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. This card is one of the best Marvel Super Hero Commanders, with its versatility as a transformable card, three-color mana identity, and sheer power when it reaches its final form.

Bruce Banner is a 1/1 1 blue mana creature that allows you to pay XX to draw X cards. This is very useful in early game situations because not only does Commander's mana base start from just one, but card draw plays a secondary role in this deck, making sure you have the mana to cast the huge creatures in your deck.

Once you have the mana to transform Bruce Banner, flip the card over to reveal The Incredible Hulk, an 8/8 creature with Reach and Trample. He also has rage, which means that whenever he takes damage, a +1/+1 counter is put on him. If he was attacking when this damage was taken, he untaps and another combat phase begins.

Advantages of Building a Custom Commander Deck

The difference between building your own Commander deck and upgrading or tweaking a Commander precon is that you only consider the deck's outright leader, in this case Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. The problem with many preconceived notions is that they hedge their bets and offer a variety of cards and strategies, but ultimately, without a clear, direct goal, things can get very murky. This happened with the Doom Prevails deck. This deck features too many creatures working towards different goals, despite having good interactions with the two possible commander choices.

deck list

Below is the decklist I put together for Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk. We'll highlight some of the non-negotiable cards later in this guide. But this decklist gives you a strong idea of ​​what to build around this commander.

I also built a deck on Moxfield, so you can give it a test spin to see how it performs. I spent hours testing this deck against popular precons at various power/bracket levels and adjusted accordingly.

strategy

Using this particular decklist as a guide, the strategy of the Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk deck should be to build incredibly powerful creatures and protect them as best as you can using equipment or spells that grant Indestructible.

Before you can even think about building these creatures or transforming your commander, you first need to build a strong mana base. This is done by bringing a mana artifact onto the battlefield along with a mana poison creature without missing a land drop. The sooner you do this, the sooner you can become a threat to other players and build the pieces of this deck.

key cards and combos

Now let's take a look at the cards that are non-negotiable for this deck, or any deck built around Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk.

Caltrop (Relic)

Caltrops are the absolute best, especially paired with the Incredible Hulk. If The Incredible Hulk can place the board in an indestructible location, either for one turn or permanently, each time you attack with him, he takes 1 damage from Caltrops.

This triggers Fury, giving him a +1/+1 counter and untapping him before triggering another combat phase. For Indestructible, you can continue fighting until you have dealt 21 points of Commander damage to each player at the table. There is no limit to the number of combat phases you can have as a result of activating Rage.

Hexing Squelcher (Creature)

Although a bit pricey at over $20 in most cases, Hexing Squelcher is the perfect card to help build an aggressive board state with this deck. Not only can't it be countered, it only costs two mana and gives every creature Ward – Pay Two Life. Any spells you cast while on the board also cannot be countered.

It's a great utility card that can frustrate your opponent early on, and if left on the battlefield, it's a card that looks dangerous after just a few turns. Hexing Squelcher is a great replacement for giving your creatures invulnerability early on.

Hulk, the strongest man alive (creature)

It might seem strange to see another creature in this list, but for just four mana you can get a counter-double 3/3 creature that pairs very well with The Incredible Hulk.

Considering that +1/+1 counters are already a big part of this deck, having a creature card that can double the counters on each gamma creature each turn during maintenance is incredibly valuable. All Hulk and She-Hulk cards are gamma creatures, even Professor Hulk. So the value of this particular creature is unparalleled, especially for only 4 mana.

Mithril Coat (Relic)

The last thing that is non-negotiable is the Mithril Coat. This is a 3-mana artifact with a flash that attaches for free when a legendary creature enters, granting that creature invincibility. The mithril coat itself is also indestructible.

This deck also includes Darksteel Plate, but Mithril Coat is a much better artifact because it can come into play at instant speed, allowing you to use it strategically at the right time or when your key creatures are under threat.

value

According to the decklist above, this Commander deck is worth $376.05 on TCGPlayer if you purchase each card as a single. Some of these prices are a bit inflated since they are new cards in the Marvel Super Heroes set, and we expect these prices to stabilize from over $20 to under $10 over time.

There's no escaping that it's expensive. Especially if you don't have an existing deck or bulk to pull some of these cards from. While many of the newer cards are expected to see price cuts in the future, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the Commander staples market and collect them as consistently as possible for future decks.

Sorceries is the cheapest card in this deck. The most expensive card is Chandra's Ignition, which has a market value of about $6, while the cheapest card is Epic Fight, which costs less than 30 cents.

Instant spells are much more expensive, including Fierce Guardianship at $54.63, Heroic Intervention at $8.55, and Tamiyo's Safekeeping at $4.81.

The artifacts in this deck work quite reasonably. Mithril Coat was the most expensive at $27.41, followed by Caltrops at $12.72. The remaining artifacts are all under $5.

Enchantments also come very cheaply, with the most expensive one being the Bear Umbra at just $9.61. Level Up and Temur Ascendancy are both floating around $2.50, while all other cards are under $1.50.

Lastly, the land base has 12 cards that cost over $1, but 3 of them cost over $10, so this is an area of ​​the deck that you could potentially look at to shave off some of the value if you're looking for alternative lands that cost less.