If ever there was a week of card previews with more raw power on show than this one, it must have been so off the charts that it knocked me into an amnesiac coma. You’ve seen comeback turns for tournament staples like Bat-Signal and Total Anarchy—whose Extended Art versions are becoming increasingly hard to find—along with all-new Extended Art versions of some of the most powerful and well-loved cards in the game, such as Teen Titans stalwart Terra, Tara Markov and combo deckbuilder’s dream Cosmic Radiation. Today’s card is another piece of Vs. System history: a card whose raw power was, for a long time, almost masked by the fact that it was everywhere.

The card in question has some serious pedigree. Open up a new browser window and hit up the “Events” tab at the top of the page. Scroll all the way down to $10K Origins 2004 (about two and a half years ago) and check out the Top 8 decklists. Today’s card is there. Check out the Top 8 decklists from the X-Men #1 tournament that same weekend—it’s there too. Skip forward six months to Pro Circuit Los Angeles, and you’ll find today’s card powering the PC debut of one Vidianto Wijaya, when he made it all the way to the semifinals before being taken down by eventual winner Ryan Jones and his Teen Titans. Just to drive the point home, skip forward another six months to the Top 8 of Pro Circuit New York; not only is this Marvel Origins all-star still competitive, but it also put a full twenty-three copies into the Top 8 before taking home the trophy in the hands of Adam Bernstein. In fact, Pro Circuit Los Angeles 2005 is the only Pro Circuit at which this gem was legal but failed to Top 8 (though it was in Milton Figueroa’s twenty-first place deck at PC: LA 2005, and still comfortably inside the money despite the continuous shifts in the tectonic plates that make up Golden Age).

So, what is this foundation stone of top-level play since the birth of the game? A suitably iconic card representing Magneto’s island homeland for the mutants of the world: Genosha.

One unfortunate feature of top-level competitive play is that the flavor of the game can get lost. The flavor that provides such a fantastic hook to get players into the game can sometimes become lost in decks that, by necessity, are driven by mechanics and hard, unemotional deckbuilding choices. As such, a card like Genosha is a refreshing exception. What better inspiration for your ragtag superhumans could there be than the destruction of their homeland? The fact that Magneto himself reacts particularly strongly is a great touch. Most of the decks that have made use of Genosha have been pure Brotherhood decks of varying types—whether New, Medium, or occasionally even Big—and it’s only fitting that Magneto should spend most of his time avenging Genosha’s destruction in the company of his devoted followers.

Take a look at the following lists. They are quite different approaches to building with the Brotherhood, despite the cards in common. Medium Brotherhood takes a slightly more controlling approach (by Brotherhood standards, at least), curving up and making use of the Lost City / Avalon Space Station combo before getting an end-game rush of power-ups and pumps via Genosha. The second list is far more aggressive, and its ideal draw involves popping a Genosha on turns 4 and 5 (if there is a turn 5) to keep The New Brotherhood working. It uses Genosha after generating resource points during the build phase to increase the chance of optimal recruits, and during the combat phase to enable The New Brotherhood and dig for more pump cards.

Carl Perlas – 2nd Place, $10K Origins 2004

Medium Brotherhood

Characters

4 Pyro, St. John Allerdyce

3 Toad, Mortimer Toynbee

4 Mystique, Raven Darkholme

3 Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff

4 Sabretooth, Feral Rage

2 Blob, Fred Dukes

4 Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr

3 Quicksilver, Speed Demon

2 Mystique, Shape-Changing Assassin

Plot Twists

3 The New Brotherhood

4 Savage Beatdown

3 Not So Fast

3 Flying Kick

3 Ka-Boom!

3 Acrobatic Dodge

Locations

4 Avalon Space Station

4 Lost City

4 Genosha

Vidianto Wijaya – 4th Place, Pro Circuit Los Angeles 2004

The New Brotherhood

Characters

3 Lorelei, Savage Land Mutate

2 Destiny, Irene Adler

2 Phantazia, Eileen Harsaw

2 Mastermind, Jason Wyngarde

1 Thornn, Feral Hunter

4 Pyro, St. John Allerdyce

2 Toad, Mortimer Toynbee

1 Avalanche, Dominic Petros

1 Unus, Angelo Unuscione

4 Rogue, Anna Raven

4 Sabretooth, Feral Rage

2 Blob, Fred Dukes

2 Sauron, Dr. Karl Lykos

4 Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr

Plot Twists

4 The New Brotherhood

4 Savage Beatdown

4 A Death in the Family

3 Foiled

3 Ka-Boom!

Locations

4 Genosha

4 Savage Land

Probably the biggest shift in Genosha’s usage was seen at $10K New Jersey in January 2005. Curve Sentinels—the purple robots beginning to establish themselves as a serious Golden Age contender—was already making use of Magneto, Master of Magnetism over the much smaller Tri-Sentinel, Super Sentinel. As such, it was only a matter of time before Genosha joined him. More than most decks that had used Genosha in the past (including the Brotherhood decks), Curve Sentinels was able to make near-optimal use of the powerful location. While Brotherhood decks could draw extra copies of locations or The New Brotherhood on the last turn of the game, or character cards that couldn’t be used to power-up, Curve Sentinels had no such issues. With Bastion, Leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance and Magneto, Master of Magnetism on the table, Curve Sentinels would often be in a position where only extra copies of Genosha were dead draws: any character card could either be used to activate Bastion’s power or power-up Magneto, and any plot twist could be played from hand.

Charlie Vu – Top 8, $10K New Jersey 2005

Curve Sentinels

Characters

4 Boliver Trask, Creator of the Sentinel Program

5 Sentinel Mark III, Army

7 Sentinel Mark II, Army

5 Sentinel Mark V, Army

4 Nimrod, Mutant Hunter

4 Bastion, Leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance

2 Master Mold, Sentinel Supreme

3 Magneto, Master of Magnetism

Plot Twists

3 Overload

4 Savage Beatdown

4 Cover Fire

3 Finishing Move

4 Reconstruction Program

3 Tag Team

1 A Death in the Family

Locations

4 Genosha

Later builds, such as Bernstein’s PC-winning list, still contained as few as nine (eight if you don’t count the first Genosha itself) cards that could not be used from hand on that final turn. The disruptive Micro-Sentinels took the place of defensive, non-ongoing plot twists like Cover Fire and Tag Team. For a long time, the turn 7 that Golden Age players learned to dread looked like this: Recruit Magneto, flip and KO Genosha, and flip and KO Genosha. Curve Sentinels was consistent and flexible enough already without drawing an extra eight cards on the final turn of the game.

As for flavor, it might have seemed peculiar dropping Magneto and Genosha into decks of many other teams, but there’s something oddly compelling about Magneto controlling the robotic armies of the Sentinels and dominating the destroyers of Genosha before using them as a weapon against anyone who stands in his path.

Adam Bernstein – 1st Place, Pro Circuit New York 2005

Curve Sentinels

Characters

4 Boliver Trask, Creator of the Sentinel Program

3 Hounds of Ahab, Army

7 Sentinel Mark II, Army

8 Sentinel Mark V, Army

4 Nimrod, Mutant Hunter

4 Bastion, Leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance

4 Magneto, Master of Magnetism

2 Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur

Plot Twists

4 Savage Beatdown

4 Reconstruction Program

4 Micro-Sentinels

3 Overload

4 Nasty Surprise

Locations

3 Genosha

2 Mojoverse

With another Golden Age Pro Circuit just around the corner, it’s unclear whether Genosha will be able to retake its place at the top of the standings once more. It was absent from the Top 8 of $10K Minneapolis, but present to the tune of two copies in Alex Antonios’s $10K Brisbane–winning Arkham Inmates / Brotherhood deck. The real question may be, “Is Golden Age slow enough for Genosha?” That is, can the Brotherhood still stand up to the fastest decks that Golden Age can throw at it? Will the fresh infusion of cards from Infinite Crisis and Heralds of Galactus be enough? As someone who’s been fond of many Brotherhood decks—from The New Brotherhood, to Michael Jacob’s Force, to my own pet Brotherhood of Assassins deck—I look forward to finding out.