We're 99.5% sure it's Hulk. Be sure to tune in. Any body got specific questions for game designer Michael Boggs?

Oooooo! I missed the news post about this after spending all morning waiting for it. Can't say I'm super interested in Hulk, but it will be interesting to see what they do to differentiate him from She-Hulk. I was thinking today that it would be neat if one of his cards allows him to "pick up" a minion he's engaged with and throw it at another enemy, damaging them both.

1 hour ago, HirumaShigure said:

We're 99.5% sure it's Hulk. Be sure to tune in. Any body got specific questions for game designer Michael Boggs?

We’re 100% sure it’s Hulk. They had it up on the upcoming page for a day before talking it back off.

2 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:

We're 99.5% sure it's Hulk. Be sure to tune in. Any body got specific questions for game designer Michael Boggs?

Are they planning on doing each of the 4 aspects once per cycle, and in the same order each time, or is it fluid?

edit: and, if we notice a typo on a preview of a card...how would we let them know? (Is it too late by then?)

31 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Are they planning on doing each of the 4 aspects once per cycle, and in the same order each time, or is it fluid?

I think they've mentioned this isn't exactly the case, though they are trying to spread the aspects out.

The first issue with what you're suggesting is that they've got six Hero Packs coming out between the Core Set and the first Story Box. That doesn't allow for an even allocation of aspects within a "cycle" (which they've also said isn't a term they're really using, as I think their intent is to be much more fluid.)

The second is that we got Leadership/Protection/Aggression/Justice and then we're back to Protection for Dr Strange and into Aggression, presumably, for Hulk. So we've already left all sense of a specific order, there.

Add on that we really don't know how many Heroes will be in the Story Box (I think the rumor is 3?) and we doubly don't know how evenly the aspects will be spread in said box (though I'd assume it would be spread fairly evenly.)

Does anyone else hope they swap Hulk/Banner’s Rec and Thw icons?

Maybe there will be a Hulk subdeck, for when you attack, so you never quite know what he’ll do, a bit like the ally version.

2 hours ago, KimJoshIl said:

Does anyone else hope they swap Hulk/Banner’s Rec and Thw icons?

Sorry, but I'm personally not enthused about exhausting to heal and then just getting attacked again during the villain phase. I'm hoping his regeneration is in the form of either an upgrade or events.

17 minutes ago, HirumaShigure said:

Sorry, but I'm personally not enthused about exhausting to heal and then just getting attacked again during the villain phase. I'm hoping his regeneration is in the form of either an upgrade or events.

Yeah, I can see the redundancy in that... but the flavor! It’ll be interesting to see how they handle a character like the Hulk and still make him viable with all four aspects.

1 hour ago, HirumaShigure said:

Sorry, but I'm personally not enthused about exhausting to heal and then just getting attacked again during the villain phase. I'm hoping his regeneration is in the form of either an upgrade or events.

If they give Hulk a static ability to ready any time he gets damage it would be workable. If were going by that flavor though he would need an ability that ignores like 10+ damage and auto flips him back to Banner. Powerful hits tend to have Hulk shift back to Banner who is unharmed, well aside from clothes damage anyway 😜 .

The player should not be able to control the transformation between Banner and Hulk
His form should be dictated by the board state, meaning if he has no minions engaged he should be Banner and as soon as minions engage him he should turn to the Hulk

And he should have a Rick Jones ally, which can be upgraded to A-Bomb!

3 hours ago, cheapmate said:

The player should not be able to control the transformation between Banner and Hulk
His form should be dictated by the board state, meaning if he has no minions engaged he should be Banner and as soon as minions engage him he should turn to the Hulk

And he should have a Rick Jones ally, which can be upgraded to A-Bomb!

Seems like he’d easily get run down and destroyed, especially in heavy minion deck compositions.

Also, Madame Hydra would be an auto-loss (she can’t be damaged until the legions of hydra side scheme is gone) so there can’t be a compulsory based off minions like that.

Hulk disregards minion text

Hulk is strongest there is!

8 hours ago, cheapmate said:

The player should not be able to control the transformation between Banner and Hulk
His form should be dictated by the board state, meaning if he has no minions engaged he should be Banner and as soon as minions engage him he should turn to the Hulk

And he should have a Rick Jones ally, which can be upgraded to A-Bomb!

So if there's no minions, Hulk can't punch the villain? That sounds terrible. I could see some forced responses that force him to flip, though I wouldn't want it to be that limited in scope.

8 hours ago, cheapmate said:

The player should not be able to control the transformation between Banner and Hulk

While it would be flavorful for it to be a little out of control, to say that Banner never has any control whatsoever is just untrue. If anything, he should be able to Hulk out very easily, with it being a little harder to return to Banner form.

My guess would be that you put some Rage counters on Hulk, with Hero cards that add or remove rage counters, and other Hero cards that benefit from having more Rage while maybe you can't flip to Alter Ego while you've got a certain level of Rage.

But we'll likely find out the basics of his mechanics tomorrow, either way.

I was wondering if flipping, or trying to flip, would be similar to his ally card - you discard the top card of your deck and if it is a physical resource you stay/change to Hulk form, if it is a mental resource you stay/change to Bruce Banner form and if its energy or wild then you successfully flip either way. This would give a little bit of unpredictability, which could also be influenced while assembling your deck.

Alternatively, I was wondering if he could flip whenever he wants but have multiple hero forms (Savage Hulk, Grey Hulk, Professor Hulk?) and which one you turn into is determined by either the resource of the top card in your discard pile (giving you a bit more control) or revealed/discarded from the top of your deck (making resources types during deck construction more important).

Maybe the Hulk has a forced response that if he has not attacked this turn, he flips back to Banner at the end of the round.

@Assussanni A card only has two sides, so no. And they better not waste signature cards on different cosmetic looks of Hulk because they all have the base personality of SMASH!!!.

I agree that it's unlikely. I'm just wondering if they'll tie him back to his ally card simply by the theme of "unpredictability" or whether it will be more literal and have to do with resource types. Powerful cards with negative "if you paid for this ability with X type of resource" effects, representing collateral damage and the danger of fighting alongside the Hulk?

2 hours ago, Assussanni said:

I was wondering if flipping, or trying to flip, would be similar to his ally card - you discard the top card of your deck and if it is a physical resource you stay/change to Hulk form, if it is a mental resource you stay/change to Bruce Banner form and if its energy or wild then you successfully flip either way. This would give a little bit of unpredictability, which could also be influenced while assembling your deck.

I don't love this but I like it a bit. Thinking about it though, it might actually just be that there's a resource cost to flipping him one way and/or the other. Like spend a fist to get angry and flip to Hulk and/or spend a mental to calm down and think rationally and flip to Banner. They'd still need to have other abilities to make it worth doing it that way, though.

2 hours ago, Assussanni said:

Alternatively, I was wondering if he could flip whenever he wants but have multiple hero forms (Savage Hulk, Grey Hulk, Professor Hulk?) and which one you turn into is determined by either the resource of the top card in your discard pile (giving you a bit more control) or revealed/discarded from the top of your deck (making resources types during deck construction more important).

I don't like this. If they're going to do something like the different forms, each should be its own hero pack. At the very least, Professor Hulk should be, I think.

3 hours ago, Hyperjayman said:

@Assussanni A card only has two sides, so no. And they better not waste signature cards on different cosmetic looks of Hulk because they all have the base personality of SMASH!!!.

We had an ID in Netrunner that was three cards. One side was identical and the opposite side for each was different. I could see if they wanted they could have Banner the same on all of them and then three different versions of Hulk with different abilities on the opposite side.

Though I think I'd rather see the flipping between hero and alter ego mechanic being slightly out of the player's control with Hulk since that would be the most thematic. How they do that without really screwing the player I'm not entirely sure. Hulk should be a random but powerful deck.

4 hours ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

So if there's no minions, Hulk can't punch the villain? That sounds terrible. I could see some forced responses that force him to flip, though I wouldn't want it to be that limited in scope.

Not limited, but creative
He could have Betty Ross, who could sooth him into becoming Banner when he needs to be
There could be an "I'm always angry" event that lets you change to Hulk
A "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" upgrade, which triggers his transformation into Hulk when certain criteria are met

I really want Hulk to play like you need to use your cards to control him
Different than any other hero so far

1 minute ago, cheapmate said:

Not limited, but creative
He could have Betty Ross, who could sooth him into becoming Banner when he needs to be
There could be an "I'm always angry" event that lets you change to Hulk
A "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" upgrade, which triggers his transformation into Hulk when certain criteria are met

I really want Hulk to play like you need to use your cards to control him
Different than any other hero so far

Why wouldn't the villain make Hulk as angry as minions would?

I do like that cards would be involved in changing him, or at least a resource cost (eg: physical to go hulk, mental to go banner).

I do also like the ideas others have had here of using "rage counters" or something similar.