Greetings ladies and gentlemen! Today is the much anticipated Brotherhood of Mutants release and as such I wanted to dive in and see if i couldn’t scheme up a good starting point for everyone’s favorite master of metal and sinister shape shifter!
Taking a look at the big man himself, first thing that jumps out is the six threat. He is expensive, but he is worth it. In the few games I’ve been able to get in with him so far in testing he has been a huge factor. The ability to make multiple throws a turn and hand out power off of them is huge. The only thing changing from one side to the other is his health total as well and he just gets beefier.
As for Mystique she is much different play style but supports Magneto magnificently bringing great objective play in her leadership as well as an ability that plays off of his leadership. The ability to shut down reactive superpowers during her activation is incredible strong as well as reactive team tactic cards. Because the Brotherhood is only four models currently and her tactic is incredible strong I would personally say she is an auto include at this point whether or not you plan to play her as a leader.
The other two members of the Brotherhood, are Toad and Sabertooth. One is an objective master as some of you may have read over on Xavier-Protocols in his article about ToadilyAwesome. While he does have some great extract play I personally am not convinced building a list to score herbs turn one is the way to go. Seems to be to focused on trying to score herbs and the placement could get wonky with terrain messing you up to easily. Now Sabertooth on the other hand, I really like, although his spender is a little sad and could use some help fixing the dice with some rerolls but we will get to that once we start building the list!
As we get into building the list, I’m trying to build something that I personally would bring to a competitive environment, this is based off of my playstyle and may not work for everyone. I tend to be more of a control based player that can go aggressive but doesn’t like to. I will try to build a list that is objective focused but with the ability to be killy.
Characters:
- Magneto
- Mystique
- Sabertooth
- Toad
- Thor
- Loki
- Valkyrie
- Hawkeye
- Okoye
- Rocket
I went with two cores, the one I’m very comfortable with that is Asgard that Includes Thor, Loki, and Valkyrie that can easily be played at any of the threat levels. The other core is very new and shiny that I’ve played with for a couple of games now and am still testing. Magneto, Mystique, Toad/Sabertooth. The last one in the brotherhood core depends on what Crisis I’m playing. I really like brotherhood but they are an affiliation that really likes playing at higher points value which is why our filler characters are on the lower points totals, Hawkeye, Okoye, and Rocket. All three of these characters hit above their weight class, have exceptional movement ability, or are just a nuisance. As for what characters to take in what situations I’m probably leaning towards Okoye the majority of the time and sprinkling of Rocket if I have four points to make up. Hawkeye is great if I need three points.
So far my concern is this list is very top heavy and hasn’t performed well in the lower threat games. Magneto can carry a game early but if my opponent gets some good rolls and I don’ get the daze early from all the throws it can go sideways quickly. So far the Gamma wave low threat style the game is currently trending at is not in the Brotherhoods favor.
Team Tactics Cards:
- Asteroid M
- Deception
- Field Dressing
- Magnetic Refraction
- Medpack
- Odin’s Blessing
- Sibling Rivalry
This is probably the hardest decision so far making any roster. There are so many cards i want to take but only eight slots. As i get more games in I know this list is going to change.
I love this card though. The ability to just pick a character that has over extended and bring them closer to you by their speed. Great for picking out pesky web-warriors that have gone and picked up a wide extract early. Setting them up for your team to get an early daze to grab a hammer you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. Besides this stand out we have our very standard field dressing and medpack as we do generate enough power to run them and play them off of basically anyone in Brotherhood. Asteroid M is nice to be able to reposition rather effectively. Another one that could possible go under the radar for use because of its cost is Magnetic Refraction, it costs Magneto 2 power but he gets cover and he grants cover to all friendly’s within range 3 also since we are playing Brotherhood it comes back to our hand in the cleanup phase. Which is very nice. As for Asgard cards two of my favorite in the game Odin’s blessing and Sibling Rivalry to round out our eight.
If we are playing Brotherhood our five cards are probably going to be:
- Asteroid M
- Deception
- Field Dressing
- Medpack
- Magnetic Refraction
If we are playing Asgard we are taking:
- Odin’s Blessing
- Sibling Rivalry
- Field Dressing
- Medpack
- Deception (as we are more than likely taking Mystique as well)
Crisis Cards
- Deadly Meteors Mutate Civilians (17)
- Riots Spark Over Extremis 3.0 (17)
- Mutant Madman Turns City Center Into Lethal Amusement Park (18)
- Struggle for the Cube Continues (17)
- Fear Grips World as “Worthy’ Terrorize Cities (18)
- Panic Grips City as Evacuation Efforts Continue (19)
Not much here, I’m really like the new B secure that is Mutant Madman. Very similar to Deadly Meteors except it uses physical defense is in the B shape same as infinity formula and its 18 threat instead of 17. I like it a lot. Like i was talking about before Brotherhood likes higher threat games so we are trying to get a higher threat preferable 17 or higher. We can make the lower totals although we don’t particularly prefer them. Ideally we are trying to get Riots or Mutant Madmen for Brotherhood or Hammers and Citizens for extracts. We are fast enough that we can focus on one side of the board and try to control just that.
Way to Early Conclusion!
Honestly this is to early to really say whether or not they are going to be competitively viable or not but it is fun to take a guess. Everyone is clamoring over the Symbol on the card. Year 1 we had the Spider-Man head, Year 2 We have X-Men symbol. What this means? We don’t know but speculation is it is a way a phasing sets in and out and dictating what is viable for tournaments. If this is the case things change drastically, but in my opinion in unlimited play which is what we currently play pretty much across the board, The Gamma Wave low threat Meta still reigns supreme and keeps the Brotherhood shining. They will have some success as everyone tries them out, but ultimately they will struggle against Wakanda and Defenders the low threat power houses that really control the game currently.
Updated from my original post. I’ve gotten a couple more games in and while I haven’t changed my mind completely I’m getting a much better feel for Magneto and friends. He does want to play a much faster game as the longer the game goes the weaker his leadership is as you are inevitable going to be throwing what terrain is around him at your opponent. Ideally you are ending the game on turn three or four, of the two Magneto is probably the more competitively viable option. I have updated my list a little bit. I have dropped Rocket at this point and squeezed Shuri into the list for some dice manipulation and brings some more consistency to the dice for certain characters, mainly Sabertooth who really wants his triggers.
Next time, I’ll be taking a look at X-Men and if they are Competitively viable or if they fall into the same trap that the Brotherhood have!