The Magneto Manifesto Part 1: Roster Rundown

     The time has come, to impart on our knowledge of Mutantkind and share with the world what gifts we have to offer!

    A Little About Me

    I have been playing Marvel Crisis Protocol since October 2020, and a deciding factor to get into this game was the X-Men/Brotherhood launch in November of 2020. Since November I've logged about 50 games strictly with Brotherhood and they are still widely considered my main faction. I will tell you that my opinion of Brotherhood has changed semi-recently and my approach to them is completely different, but today I will show you the light, that Mutantkind is here to stay, so here I present!!

The Magneto Manifesto!

    The Master of Magnetism himself toiled long and hard to find the right kind of Mutants to support his ideal society for Mutantkind. In this several part series, we are going to delve into the world that is The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in Marvel Crisis Protocol.  Brotherhood and X-Men were the first 2 factions in MCP to release with a dual-leader option!  For the Brotherhood we have Magneto, and Mystique. When Magneto was spoiled his Leadership ability seemed to be the clear easy choice, but as time came along Mystique has shown to be a great Leader.

    This series will also try to play straight with what a character can do with Magneto as leader, and what they can do with Mystique. Since both styles are different you'll find often that some characters excel in only one where some can give you offerings regardless of who is leading your team.  But let's start with all of the affiliated characters!

Magneto

    With Magneto on the table there will never be a shortage of terrain to throw, the first character in MCP to generate his own terrain for power generation, or to throw at unsuspecting characters, Magneto has an extremely high damage potential with his seemingly infinite throw in the form of Fatal Attraction

Only having to pay taxes on additional throws. His Leadership gives your team extra power when terrain is destroyed (regardless if friend or foe destroys it) making Magneto-led Brotherhood a powerhouse for attrition and eliminating high priority targets. The utilization of Asteroid M to move Magneto to his 2nd target is a key strategy in Magneto controlling the board. Magneto has faced some small nerfs in the last year, namely with the core rules update that you cannot throw a size 2 into another size 2 and blow them both up, granting your team 4 power on turn 1. All You Got's banning has also removed Magneto's ability to obliterate a target such as Hulk with 4 Reverse Polarity attacks (with throw backups).  He is still a high damage character, but his ability to delete any character is now severely dampened.  Force Projection and clever Pylon placement can ensure Magneto doesn't move from his spot and can be a mostly defensive force on the table also.  We'll get more about Magneto later, so lets go into who is packed in the box with him!

Toad

    Toad is a 2 pointer who, while he doesn't offer anything to help with Magneto's Leadership and playstyle, gives you a great objective control piece to ensure that part of your game is covered.  He is also a star in Mystique-led teams (more on this later). I'm going to highlight this specific part of his kit so you can see what kinds of amazing things Toad can do:

The biggest thing I'm going to highlight is the fact he can interact with objectives Range 2 instead of Range 1, now it's important that he is not contesting here but can pick up extracts as well as interact with secures at Range 2. This can cause some sneaky plays keeping Toad in relative safety while still working on objectives. His 5 health as a 2 threat is abnormally high on his healthy side while he also gets an ability to run away after getting hit. Toad has become an increasingly popular 2 Threat in unaffiliated teams also that have a objective based focus. Now lets go to the characters in the split boxes with other X-Men.

Mystique

    Mystique was packed in with Beast, not sure what the reason. Maybe AMG wanted the "Blue Mutant Box" or something, but here we are!

    Mystique is a major control piece and the other Leader of the Brotherhood. We will have a full article talking about her Leadership and playstyle but originally it was dismissed due to Magneto's more brutish style. I did want to highlight this ability in her kit.

This ability is one of the most unique in the game and shuts down a multitude of abilities as well as render certain characters, who rely on reactives, very pedestrian. The ability to attack Venom without fear of So Many Snacks, or another target without Lethal Protector, along with characters like Ronin who rely completely on opponents hitting them, to game breaking plays like Deal with the Devil that they just can't activate. Most of her kit is actually very similar to Punisher's where she can blow up buildings and deliver Rapid Fire shots. In Magneto's Leadership she doesn't bring a lot to the table but we are going to spend a little bit of time early on bringing the other tool Mystique brings: Deception.

Even though it can only be used once, it can be a very big play whenever it happens. She has the ability to make people move their Speed towards her in an Advance. The fact it's an Advance is important as they will move off buildings and over buildings in order to get to her, they can also move past her (as long as the movement is initially toward her). It's free to play as well. This card helps Mystique see play in unaffiliated teams as a Control 3 Threat, and with this power it's easy to see why. Mystique moving L also helps her get into the correct position to maximize the effect this card can do, but also get up close and personal with her targets. Espionage is the only attack in the game that stuns targets BEFORE damage, limiting the power gain they will receive. Her kit is mostly power-light, making her a great Team Tactics Card player as well as working objectives behind the scenes. When I get to her Leadership article we will talk a lot more about what she can do, but for now lets hit the last original member of Brotherhood: Sabertooth.

Sabertooth

    Sabertooth is an odd duck, while I think he's better than Wolverine because he actually can affect the board when it's not his turn, he has trouble fitting in. He doesn't do anything on Magneto's Leadership but murder targets for his boss, but with his L movement he can exploit back points that opponents have left lightly guarded. His kit serves Mystique a little better since he brings another L mover to the table aggressive to snap back to points after attack pushes, and overall has a demeanor of "don't attack me" as Sabertooth has a good chance to rob you of half your activation. Sabertooth is clunky though, being a 4 Threat and capable of spiking, but I do usually take XCeptional Healing because of an out of affiliation character I do bring with my Mystique setups (more on this later). 

These characters rounded out the first wave of Brotherhood releases, and it was a lot of fun. Magneto got to do a lot of damage and his supporting cast helped as well. I put Mystique leadership on the table a couple of times but it just didn't feel right. Eventually we were blessed with one more box just for the Brotherhood, and saying it changed the landscape of the team is putting it mildly.

The Twins are HERE!

There's actually a lot to unpack with these 2, so lets start with the one with the least finesse

Scarlet Witch

    In my original lists with Magneto, this slot belonged to MODOK, now I believe that MODOK is still better than Wanda, but the fact she is affiliated helps you in certain lists. 

    Wanda only knows one word: Murder

    She's not a displacement character that Amora or MODOK was, she controls the board by picking whatever target she has, and throwing everything at that character, up to and including a Size 4 building to get the job done. The ability to add skulls to successes means pretty much any paint is good for her. She does suffer from a couple issues, she is a little on the squishy side. She also tends to have too much power to do anything, so spending 6 on Cruel Twist is never a huge waste, but she is a very scary piece that compliments well to Magneto and gives you a slight discount on a beater from Magneto if you wanted to go Mystique focused. The fact her attacks are Mystic also usually helps her maximize damage, although with the Wizards coming out there may be lesser reason to take her to great effect.

    Only one character left, but he's actually a really important one:

Quicksilver

    Pietro looks fairly pedestrian at first glance, yup he moves fast, yes for 2 power he can sprint to another point provided he's not holding objectives. He has trickster which suits him FAR better than Loki due to his movement, he actually can get out of range of a LOT of devastating attacks which normally are at Range 2. The biggest thing is all of this is coupled with the fact both of his attacks happen at Range 3. His spender is 6 dice for 2 power and gives him a free M Advance, that's a great deal of movement for control pieces. His card, Can I Borrow That, is also great for single extract scenarios or things like Legacy Virus where having multiple is a great plan. Quicksilver and Toad are Best Friends in the objective game, I've won more than one game with Legacy Virus having Quicksilver scoop up extracts and park next to Toad so he can slurp them off him to win the game. He's a great auto-include 3 threat in my Mystique games and can give you some Objective back play with Magneto. The only knock I have for him is while his powers are relatively cheap, he doesn't generate a whole lot of power and you want to be using them all the time.

These are the releases we've had for now, yes I know Juggernaut exists but at this time I'm focusing on US releases. Once he is released in the US I will do an article addendum on him as well.

Brotherhood really brings an interesting set of characters to the table, my current list still runs all 6 and I find regular use for almost all of them, but what about the other 4 slots? Tune in next time as we explore General Strategy and Out of Affiliation Characters.

-HavoKDarK