Today’s preview highlights the legacy content of the Avengers set, and in the case of the Brotherhood, the new metagame that sprang forth after the banning of Overload. Legacy content is among the most important when it comes to a new set; many players want to see what additions they’re getting for their favorite factions and decks, and as we’ve seen in previous sets with cards like Hounds of Ahab and Silver Surfer, sometimes those legacy cards can have an immediate and strong impact on existing deck archetypes.

This Brotherhood was poorly guided and poorly organized, and even though they lasted through a four-issue story arc, they were fairly weak and got manhandled by the X-Men. It was only Black Tom Cassidy and his latest plant-man mutation that posed any serious threat to the students of Xavier and their Institute for Higher Learning. In the end, the second Xorn (the original Xorn’s brother) removed his mask, letting loose the black hole he had for a head and sucking up Mammomax (who was being held by Juggernaut, who was actually an X-Men double agent), Exodus, Avalanche, and Black Tom (who was possessed by Nocturne, who switched sides mid-battle). All six were trapped in the black hole. Although Juggernaut and Nocturne ended up in the Mojoverse and eventually crossed back to Earth, Mammomax and the other three are currently unaccounted for.

Mammomax has enhanced strength, a tough, impervious hide, and the power to expel digestive acids at his opponents. All in all, this made Mammomax a tough bugger, but not so tough that he could take on Juggernaut in a one-on-one match. In “X-Men #164,” he takes a pounding at Juggy’s hand.

Mammomax’s card reflects his high strength with its 7 ATK at a cost of only 3. His average DEF of 4 reflects that he can be beaten, but his ATK will guarantee that he takes just about everyone with him, even those who are a drop higher. And with TNB decks generally aiming for the odd initiative, he’s a definite target on turn 4, because he can easily swing up the curve to take down an opponent’s 4-drop.

His game effect (he exhausts when a character of cost 5 or greater enters play) reflects several different aspects of his character. One is that his teammates were just about useless as a fighting group. They were chaotic and had no real strategy or plan to follow. Another is that he is strong early in a fight, but as it wears on, he wears down. The more entrenched he was in the fight against the X-Men, the more he lost his cool, questioned the leadership of Exodus, and became unable to take on the Big Boys.

However, his exhaustion doesn’t make him a useless drop; you’ll have had two turns with a high-powered character, and with his high ATK that can defend up the curve, he’s still formidable even as a defensive character.

And that’s not all! If you throw in a copy or two of The New Brotherhood, you have a 9 ATK/4 DEF or even an 11 ATK/4 DEF character who can now tackle 5-drops without much effort. Even on turn 5, with a Genosha in your resource row, Mammomax can maintain a strong presence with a very high ATK. He also opens up a raw, swarming TNB strategy reminiscent of the possibilities we saw with Rhino in swarm Syndicate decks, but without the heavy endurance-loss drawback.

In an aggressive beatdown TNB deck, Mammomax can easily replace Mystique and/or Quicksilver as the 3-drop partner of choice with Rogue. In the right scenario with the aforementioned Genosha to eliminate late-turn resources, The New Brotherhood and Savage Land can help you to dish out massive levels of breakthrough damage with Mammomax, Sabretooth, Feral Rage, and however many 1- and 2-drops you play in the early turns. And if you have the odd initiative, you can go one step further and play Sauron and a 1-drop instead of Magneto to get around Mammomax’s debilitating exhaustion. In a deck strategy that looks to win on turn 5 with the initiative, you may find that Mammomax is your answer; he has enough power to push your team into dishing out gigantic endurance losses and beating your opponents down to below 0. He just might be the push TNB needs to roar back into Top 8 status on the major tournament scene.