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

Provided by Marvel Super Heroes Magic: The Gathering Powerful new deck archetypes to lead with a huge wave of new, exciting Commander options. Chief among those options is the Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk card, which you can leverage as a single blue mana commander using the Bruce Banner side, before changing it to The Incredible Hulk for six mana when the right one is done.

In this deck guide, I'll walk you through strategies that work well with Commander as well as provide a template deck you can use while highlighting key cards and combos worth keeping if you want to make any changes or build an entirely new Commander deck yourself.

Commander observation

In this guide, I will be building a deck around Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk. It's one of the best Marvel superhero commanders for its sheer versatility as a transformable card, three-color mana recognition, and ultimate power.

Bruce Banner is a one-blue-mana creature that's a 1/1, and if you pay XX, you can draw X cards. This is incredibly useful for early-game situations, as not only does your commander have a starting mana base of one, but card draw plays a secondary role in this deck to ensure you have the mana present to cast giant creatures in the deck.

Once you lock in the mana to transform Bruce Banner, you flip the card and reveal The Incredible Hulk, an 8/8 creature with Reach and Trample. He also has Rage, meaning when he takes damage, you put a +1/+1 counter on him. If he is attacking when this damage is dealt, he is disabled, and another combat phase takes place.

Features building a custom Commander deck

The difference between building your own Commander deck and upgrading or adjusting a Commander Precon is that you only consider one clear leader of the deck, which in this case is Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk. The issue with many precons is that they hedge their bets and offer a great selection of cards and strategies, but ultimately the waters can become very muddy without a clear, direct goal. This happened in the Doom Prevails deck, which has many creatures all working towards different goals, even if they have good interactions with the two potential commander options.

Deck list

Below is the deck list I assembled for Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk. I'll highlight some non-negotiable cards later in this guide, but this deck list should give you a strong idea of ​​what you should be looking to build around this commander.

I've also made a deck in Moxfield so you can take it for a test spin to see how it plays. I put this deck through a few hours of testing against popular precons of various power/bracket levels and adjusted accordingly.

Strategy

Using this specific deck list as a guide, the strategy for a Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk deck should be to build incredibly high-powered creatures and protect them as much as possible by using equipment or spells that grant indestructibility.

Before you can even think about building these creatures or transforming your commander, you first need to establish a strong mana base. This is done by making sure you don't miss your land drops, but by getting mana artifacts onto the battlefield with your mana dork creatures. The faster you can do this, the faster you will be a threat to other players and able to put the pieces of this deck together.

Key cards and combos

I will now run through the non-negotiable cards for this deck, or any deck built around Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk.

Caltrops (artwork)

Caltrops are an absolute number one no-brainer to pair specifically with The Incredible Hulk. If you can get your board into a position where Incredible Hulk is indestructible, be it for a turn or permanently, then every time you attack with him, he'll take one damage from the Caltrops.

This triggers Enrage, which will give him a +1/+1 counter and untap him before triggering the next combat phase. If indestructible, you can play the battle over and over again until every player on the table has dealt 21 points of Commander damage. There is no limit to the number of combat phases you can have as a result of activating Enrage.

Hexing Squelcher (Creature)

While a little expensive 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 it not be countered, but it only costs two mana, and it gives Ward – giving all your creatures two life. All spells you cast while on the board cannot be countered either.

It's a great utility card that can quickly frustrate opponents, and if left on the battlefield, you'll look dangerous in some turns. Hexing Squelcher is a great option for giving indestructible creatures early on.

Hulk, the strongest (creature) there is

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

Given that +1/+1 counters are already a big part of this deck, having a creature card that can double counters every turn on every gamma creature in your upkeep is incredible value. All Hulk and She-Hulk cards are gamma creatures, even Professor Hulk, so again, the value of this particular creature is incredible, especially for four mana.

mithril coat (artwork)

The final non-negotiable is Mithril Coat, a three-mana artifact with Flash that engages a legendary creature for free when it enters and grants that creature indestructibility. Mithril coat is also indestructible.

While this deck also has Darksteel Plate, Mithril Coat is the best Artifact because it can play instantly, so you can play it strategically at opportune times or when a key creature is in danger.

price

Based on the deck list above, this Commander deck costs $376.05 when each card is purchased individually at TCGPlayer. Some of these prices have gone up a bit because they are new cards from the Marvel Super Hero set, and over time I expect these to drop from $20+ to $10 or so.

There's no denying that it's expensive, especially if you're coming to pull these cards without an existing deck or bulk. While many new cards are at risk of future price drops, it's worth keeping an eye on the market for Commander staples and future decks when you can and consistently collecting them.

Sorceries are easily the cheapest cards in this deck, the most expensive card being Ignition of the Moon, which has a market value of around $6, while the cheapest is Epic Fight, which costs less than 30 cents.

Instant spells work out to be more expensive, with Fierce Guardianship leading the way at $54.63, followed by Heroic Intervention at $8.55 and Tamiyo's Safekeeping at $4.81.

The artifacts in this deck work reasonably well, with Mithril Coat being the most expensive at $27.41, followed by Caltrops at $12.72. All remaining artworks are under $5.

Enchantments also work on the cheap, with the most expensive being Bear Umbra at just $9.61. Level Up and Temur Ascendency are both floating around the $2.50 mark, while every other card is under $1.50.

Finally, the land base only shows 12 cards over $1, but three of them are over $10, so this is an area of ​​the deck that you can potentially look to trim some of the value if you find alternative lands that cost less.