Magic's Marvel Super Heroes set reveal exposes wild combos for Hulk cards

The strongest Avenger is fittingly absolutely overpowered in Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming Marvel Super Heroes set — but is the Incredible Hulk’s limitless potential too much for the trading card game?

On a Dec. 9 episode of the behind-the-scenes WeeklyMTG livestream, host Blake Rasmussen showed off a few dozen cards from the Marvel Super Heroes set of Magic slated for release in June 2026. We got first looks at Captain America and a new "Power-up" mechanic with Quicksilver, along with a mono black Doctor Doom and his big “Plan” (a new Enchantment subtype with long-term payoffs). But the real game-breaking reveals that are bound to shake up the game’s competitive scene both come from Hulk, specifically the transforming Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk creature and the World War Hulk saga.

Bruce Banner is a weak and cheap 1/1 that costs one blue mana. For XX mana, he can tap to have the player draw X cards, which is a really solid draw engine in itself. For two colorless, two red, and two green mana, however, he transforms into The Incredible Hulk, an 8/8 monstrosity with reach, trample, and enrage. Whenever he’s dealt damage, he gets a +1/+1 counter, and if he’s attacking, he untaps and triggers an additional combat phase.

The obvious and totally overpowered interaction here is with Caltrops, a three-cost artifact with “whenever a creature attacks, Caltrops deals 1 damage to it.” With it and Hulk on the board, a single attack establishes an infinite attack loop where Hulk grows stronger with each combat phase. Over on TCG Player, the market price on Caltrops has drastically risen from around $3.60 to almost $20 in recent days. Another option here would be Pyrohemia, an enchantment with an active ability that costs one red mana to deal one damage to each creature and player.

The other Hulk card revealed during the livestream is World War Hulk, a Saga Enchantment all about cheating a red or green creature onto the board and beefing it (or another creature) up dramatically. The first chapter of the Saga’s sequence lets you cast a red or green creature spell without paying its mana cost, the second doles out three +1/+1 counters on a single target creature, and the third gives a creature double power and toughness along with trample. Together, the second and third chapters basically transform any creature into a Hulk in their own right, but that first chapter has incredible potential to get massive creatures onto the board for free.

Normally, the 10/10 Progenitus is a Hydra Avatar with protection from everything that shuffles into the player’s library rather than go into the graveyard, and it costs two of each mana color for a total of 10 mana. Particularly when combined with fast mana-ramp combos like Badgermole Cub from the Avatar: The Last Airbender set, you could feasibly get Progenitus on the board by turn three. Llanowar Elves in round one, Badgermole Cub in round two, and as long as you played a mana both previous turns, you can generate the five mana needed to cast World War Hulk and then cheat Progenitus into play. This method works for any expensive creature, as long as it’s red or green, so World War Hulk essentially makes tons of big beefy boys more viable than ever before with the right deck setups.

World War Hulk also obviously has huge potential in Saga-heavy decks, especially those that leverage Final Fantasy summoners like Garnet, Yuna, and Rydia. Garnet, Princess of Alexandria has an ability that lets her remove a lore counter from any number of Sagas when she attacks to gain a +1/+1 counter for each — and she has Lifelink for increasing life gains. If she’s already on the board and can attack when World War Hulk lands, then its first chapter will repeat as long as you keep attacking each round and she isn’t destroying, cheating more and more red or green creatures onto the board. A good way to protect Garnet is with the Tale of Tinuviel saga from the Lord of the Rings set, since its first chapter gives a target creature indestructible as long as you still control it. She can remove a lore counter from it each round, preserving that indestructible while picking up a counter each time.

Yuna and Rydia give you two options to pull World War Hulk out of your graveyard. Yuna, Hope of Spira returns one enchantment from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter at the end of your turn. Rydia, Summoner of Mist offers yet another method to bring it back, letting you tap her and pay the face value mana cost to play any Saga from your graveyard.

It’s easy to see how both of these Hulk cards will quickly become some of the biggest chase cards in the Marvel Super Heroes set in both Commander and standard play by this time next year. Naya (red-green-white) and Gruul (red-green) decks can really weaponize both Hulk cards with some of the aforementioned combos, as long as you figure out a way to pay the one blue mana for Bruce. And that’s to say nothing about Temur (red-green-blue), the pitch-perfect color combo for a Bruce Banner // The Incredible Hulk Commander Deck.

World War Hulk by itself will quite easily become a staple in just about any deck that dips green, a color that so often focuses on mana ramp, big creatures, and tokens anyway. But it will end games — and friendships — in decks that focus on Sagas, Enchantments, or both.