Welcome to another article in the Quick Reference Guide series. In this series we're going to take a look at each affiliation in the game and give a brief overview of how they play on the table, where we cover three main topics, strengths, weaknesses and crisis selections. This series is aimed at newer players who might not be familiar with all of the affiliations in the game, and serve as a quick reference guide to glance over before a game. In this article, we're going to take a look at the Brotherhood of (Evil?) Mutants.
What are the Strengths of the Affiliation?
Brotherhood are in a really great spot at the moment, and one of the main reasons for this is they have two very good leaders that compliment each other extremely well. What I mean by this, is Magneto likes a narrow slow scoring attrition based plan, and Mystique likes a wider faster scoring objective based plan. So where crisis and match up might not suit one leader, it's almost guaranteed to suit the other one, so there's lots of flexibility within the affiliation without having to look at splashes to fill gaps.
Another big plus, is they have access to a big pool of affiliated characters, giving you plenty of choice and plenty of options when roster building. To add to this, they have some really strong characters at every threat level, Toad at 2 threat, Blob and Pyro at 3 threat, Apex Predator at 4 threat, Juggernaut at 5 threat and Magneto at 6 threat.
Another big strength is they have an excellent array of tactics cards, both affiliated and character specific cards. Asteroid M, Magnetic Refraction, Deception, Do You Know Who I Am, Deception and Pyrotechnics are great examples of this.
With two fantastic leaders, a wide selection of strong characters and tactics cards, Brotherhood are in a really strong position in the game at the moment.
What Are Their Weaknesses?
Due to the strength of the affiliation, I don't think there's a great deal to talk about here in terms of weaknesses. I think the main point is that although Brotherhood have some really nice flexibility with their leaders and alternating playstyles, there's just affiliations that play those game plans slightly better. Magneto Brotherhood are fantastic at attrition, but with Magneto being your primary beat stick, his low mobility often means he's easily countered with displacement and you often need to take support pieces alongside him to try and counter this and maximise his efficiency. With Malekith Cabal and Guardians in such a strong spot at the moment, they just feel like they play the attrition game much better. If we look at the flipside and look at Mystique and a more objective focused roster, she's competing with the likes of X Men, Web Warriors and Kingpin Criminal Syndicate who are all really strong at playing to the crisis.
What Crisis Do They Like?
As previously mentioned, this is going to depend on which leader you want to focus on. If you're building into attrition with Magneto, slow scoring extracts such as Alien Ship Crashes in Downtown and Montesi Formula Found and narrow secures such as Intrusions Open Across City as Seals Collapse and Demons Downtown are good options. Alternatively, if your leaning into a wider and more objective focused plan with Mystique as your leader, higher scoring extracts and wider secures are where she excels, with extracts such as Paranoia Pummels Populace and Spider Infected Invade Manhattan and Riots Sparks Over Extremis 3.0 and Infinity Formula Goes Missing are all worth considering.
I'd like to give a special mention here to Mutant Extremists Target US Senators for Mystique, as she has some unique things she can do on this crisis. At 19 threat, she can run Toad, Hulk and Juggernaut along with another 3 threat of choice. If your unfamiliar with this crisis, the extracts are set out like in the map below:
Characters can only hold 1 extract at a time, and can only complete 1 movement action if holding an extract. Essentially, Hulk and Juggernaut can double move to the centre and grab two of your opponents extracts, because of the power refund, Hulk then has 3 power to be able to Gamma leap away and Juggernaut has 3 power to Nothing Stops the Juggernaut away giving them both a relatively safe extract. If needed, Toad can then also move in and grab a 3rd extract from Range 2, then Slippery away in the event he takes damage from an attack. Mystique can often go 5-1 to 4-2 up on extracts if this combo is played perfectly. This is probably her strongest crisis, and is definitely worth considering.
I hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope it's given you enough understanding of the affiliation to give you some confidence in either playing with, or against them. As ever, thank you for taking the time to read this, it really is appreciated.
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