Well for what is almost certainly the most anticipated card since the initial reveal of series 5, I have to give building him a deck a go. Now I solidified the idea for this deck back towards the end of March but it’s still the thing I want to try first. As a whole, my thought process had slightly more merit when High Evolutionary had seven power and therefore was a card you actually wanted to play, but here’s what I was thinking. If the card I'm building around is a 4 drop the first thing I'm trying is using Zabu. Zabu wants more 4's and the traditionally best 4 is Darkhawk. The rest of the deck becomes a balancing act of high Evo cards, Hawke cards and anything else we might want to, that said let’s go over what I picked.
Rockslide, Korg & Black Widow - now if you’re running Hawk we need to run some of his package, the question becomes how much. Now as a bit of a spoiler you probably realised that I’m not running Scorpion or any other non-High Evo afflict cards in the deck so let's talk about why now. Since the anticipation for High Evo is so high it’s reasonable to expect that a lot of people, at least initially will try to jam Luke Cage into anything they’re running as an attempt to stop the afflict cards from affecting them. If your deck is built around that strategy you have two options. Lean harder and try to make sure that Cage won’t be an option by playing cards like Enchantress or Rogue that disable the effect or hedge and have a backup way to win the game, my version of the deck hedges. We more heavily leverage Hawke and his disruptive elements, in the hopes that we will either win that way or our opponent won’t be able to draw Cage.
Beast - there are so many incredible on reveals in this deck that I couldn’t stop myself from putting Beast in it. Now playtesting may find that he’s too greedy and that this is the spot for a tech card like Enchantress, but it’ll probably be awhile until you can convince me of that.
Shocker - I think Shocker has a real shot at being the best card that High Evolutionary creates. Shocker is Psylocke with +2 power and you get to choose the turn that he produces extra energy. I don’t know about everyone else but I would have an incredibly hard time not putting in any deck that High Evolutionary is a part of.
Wasp, The Thing & Abomination - like I was talking about earlier with hedging, I think that this is a reasonable afflict package. I don’t think you actually need to go all in on afflict, playing just Wasp on 2 targets will make Abomination a 3 cost, 9 power card and that’s before you consider locations the afflict negative power as well. I think there’s a real chance that the Meta will overreact to afflict and I hope that this ends up being the Goldilocks amount.
Hulk - my thought process behind this include is super simple, how many turns do you need to have unspent energy before Hulk is usually your best play on turn six? After thinking about it for awhile, I think the answer might be one. We play a single one drop and 3 cards that reduce cost. So for 2/3 games we will be passing on turn 1 and with our lack of 3's depending on Zabu we will likely be playing a 2 drop on 3 or a cost reduced 4 on turn 4. So given that run-out which sounds pretty likely to me Hulk would be a 6 energy 16 power card. Looking at how many decks have tried to jam destroyer over the lifespan of this game and work around that he destroys your own board, how could Hulk not be incredibly worth it? The biggest thing that I think a lot of people may miss when evaluating Hulk against other cards that utilise unspent energy, is that he benefits from passing on turn 1 and doesn't even need to be in hand. So while yes comparing him to the old Shuri deck with Sunspot in play which could lead to a She-Hulk based finale looks to be one-sided, Hulk's strength lies in slamming an 18 power card on the final turn because you floated a mana on turn 1, 3 & 5 in a game that had otherwise not quite gone your way.
So that’s my deck, it looks like there will be so many people working on what the best High Evolutionary deck is that we’re gonna see a lot of good experimentation in the space that our seven new cards deserve. A couple things about playing it before I leave you. It’s good practice to stack your on reveals so that you can get Beast value later. Like I mentioned earlier, the main reason we're playing afflict cards is so we can cheat out Abomination. So if you’re running into a lot of Luke Cage, make sure you’re not saving him as a last turn surprise, play him out before your opponent stops you. Don’t underestimate disruption, the Darkhawk package isn't only good because of the stats it's namesake provides, even if you’re in a bad matchup it isn’t hard to beat a handful of rocks. Lastly Hulk doesn't need your help to smash. Don’t feel like you have to play off curve every turn to make him bigger, he already saw some play as a vanilla 12 power card the evolutionary text is to help a bad draw not be a game plan. That’s everything I have to say, if you think the deck needs some changes or just had some fun as is let me know in the comments, otherwise good luck snapping.