Savage Transformation

A Hulkling Leadership deck focused on Ally swarm, but Hulkling does the Blocking and healing while allies defeat the villain. Not exactly surprising for Leadership, but the multiple paths to stability/control with this deck result in consistent expert wins.

Remind You of Anyone?

• just like Cap, Hulkling in Armored Shape has 3 defense and retaliate 1
• they're both Avengers, and both have good Economy
• both have ways to ready (though Caps is more consistent and doesn't disrupt flow)
• Cap has a slightly superior Attack Event, but Hulkling's Thwart Event is better
• Hulkling's Signature Ally is better than Cap's
• both can run away with a board of Avengers allies

Consistency and Control

• If you need to start the game thwarting, I'd recommend beginning in Winged Shape, but once you have a couple allies, transition to Armored Shape and stay there the rest of the game.
• You don't need all his Economy (he's already rich). Alien Physiology is clutch (allowing you to play any of his events for "free"), but if it's at the bottom of the deck, Deft Focus and Quincarrier can help. With all the healing he will be doing, Clarity of Purpose is a win.
• Avengers Tower and The Triskelion increase your ally limit up to 5.
• Mighty Avengers is where the game takes a turn in your favor, boosting the attack and thwart of the all Avengers ally swarm
• Iron Lad is a keystone ally here (as TheDailyStruggle noted in his iteration of this archetype). He can "use" the other Allies stats (not just printed stats, so Mighty Avengers is double profit) without them taking consequential damage (or losing their Tough cards)
• Hulkling wants to play at least one event per turn, and there are some great, low-cost ally events to play: Make the Call, Ready for Action , and United We Stand. Because of Armored Shape, you can consider each of these to have the added text "Then heal two damage from your identity".
• United We Stand and White Tiger scale with the Villian stage. In Standard mode, they become less attractive (still playable), but I would swap them out if facing A/B Villains (like MODOK, Batroc, or Baron Zemo)
• because piercing attacks from the Villain are relatively infrequent (and usually controllable), tough cards (on allies or Hulkling) are a great way to have insurance against extra Villain activations.
• because Hulkling is doing the defending here (and extra Villain activations don't happen every turn), you won't often have to chump block with allies. This means your allies will be controlling the board and sticking around (thanks to healing from United We Stand)
• Shapeshifter Strike is my favorite Hulkling event. Play another leadership event first, then come in with Strike. During it's activation, it readies your shapeshift upgrade, but as soon as you've dealt the 5 damage and the event is concluded, you enter the Hero Response: window on your shapeshift upgrade again, so you can immediately exhaust it again (in this deck, two additional healing... but in aggression two-for-seven damage from Hulk Shape is serious pressure). You don't have to play a third event, Shapeshifter Strike triggers the Shapeshift upgrade it just readied.
• I don't often play it first deck pass, but once you have some allies out, clearing Specialized Training and grabbing Defense Specialist will add one more point of defense and draw you an extra card when you defend.
• 41 cards, but Face the Past is a winner here, immediately thinning the deck. Super Skrull isn't too hard to deal with, even if he gets a free hit in during the next Villain phase.

Didn't Make the Cut

• there are so many good cards that would be fun in this deck and synergize well. Unfortunately, the more you ADD, the consistency goes down. Here are a few that I cut.
• Earth's Mightiest Heroes is a great event for Hulkling (zero-cost, readies him, triggers the Shape), but it works best in a deck where Hulkling is doing the board control and the allies are there as batteries (Band Together, Strength In Numbers). But with Mighty Avengers, it's the Allies that I'd want to ready, and Hulkling is exhausted from defending for them.
• if someone else at the table is using Quincarrier, you can swap in Helicarrier pretty easily. I didn't include both because Hulkling doesn't really need that much economy.
• I ran this deck several games with 3 x Inspiring Presence, which did well with Iron Lad activating more than once... but I found that United We Stand provided enough healing, and I was running out of ready allies to fuel Iron Lad's machine. 'Twas fun, though!
• Get Ready
• Mission Leader (I'd add this back in multiplayer, and maybe ask someone else to pack Specialized Training?)
• Superpower Training was nice to tutor Alien Physiology. Build Support was nice to tutor Mighty Avengers. But in the early game, thwarting isn't easy. And in the mid-late game, you already have these on the board or you are already winning without them.

And that's the deck. Hope you have fun playing around with it! Let me know if you have thoughts, ideas, or questions. I plan to continue to name future decks after cards from one of my other favorite tabletop games, Spirit Island.