Event Coordinator

I've found a way to play Hulkling that I really enjoy, and that works well. While my initial ideas for him involved finding a favorite form and building around it, I found myself either wishing I was switching more to pick up all the kickers he can get for doing so, or just going ahead and switching forms anyway. So I decided to lean fully into shapeshifting and building a deck centered on changing forms and playing multiple events a turn to benefit from everything his shapes have to offer.

Hulkling really wants to play 2 events a turn to benefit from his shape hero responses (if he changes form during the turn) and from Shapeshifter Strike. How does he pull off playing this many events and shape changes with a 5 card hand size? By using 0-cost events and by using his double resource cards and Alien Physiology to pay for the others. There are ways to do this in every aspect, but I settled on a nice, straightforward, damage-dealing Aggression build.

You are going to want to make basic attacks with this deck to make use of Mean Swing, Skilled Strike, Hand Cannon, Combat Training, Aggressive Conditioning and your ATK bonuses in your shapes. That means taking advantage of the free readies that come with changing shape. You can pick up some bonus readies (and play an event) with Spoiling for a Fight as well.

When you change shape, you have a nice, fresh, shape-based hero response waiting, so ideally use one event before shape changing, and one after.

There are four weapons in the deck to make use of Mean Swing, including two Hand Cannon cards to provide overkill to use Directed Force. You can have up to three weapons in play at a time if you get your Side Holster into play. I've gotten some massive hits off in Hulk Shape with three weapons in play. You might even want to add some Firepower cards to the deck if you want to lean into the weapons more.

While this is very much a damage deck, I've managed threat pretty well in solo play by careful use of Impersonation, Wiccan, Imitation Shape, Chase Them Down, and the Hero response on Winged Shape.

The other thing about changing shape a lot is that it is FUN. I enjoyed playing Hulkling a lot more once I just cut loose and bounced from shape to shape. You can end up with some complicated turns, and this is certainly not a beginner's deck. But this is most likely how I will approach future builds with him.