The Godfather

## Overview

"I understand. You found paradise in Smashopolis. You had a good combo, you got a great score. The Bear Cavalry protected you and there were rule clarifications. So you didn't need a friend like me. Now you come and say ‘Don Smassanzia, give me justice’. But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship power. You don't even think to call me ‘Godfather’. You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do Smashing, for VP”

(Negotiation dialogue ensues)

"Someday -and that day may never come- I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this combo a gift on my daughter's wedding day”

The Godfather faction is a tough egg to crack, it puts pressure on opponents by holding cards hostage, offering shadier deals to other players and flooding the board with their thugs.

### Details

* **Name:** The Godfather
* **Author:** CaptainCosmic
* **Complexity:** 3/5
* **Version:** 1.1
* **Last Updated:** Novemver 10th, 2023

### Mechanics

* Storing
* Extra Decks
* Placing into play

### Special details

The Extra Deck used in this faction is called the Associates Deck. It follows the normal rules of the extra decks, including having its own discard pile; there are some exceptions, though:

* The owner of the Godfather faction is considered the owner of the Associates Deck.
* The Associates deck, despite having an owner, isn't considered a player’s deck. Cards cannot interact with the Associates Deck unless they specify it, or they mention “Any deck” (e.g. Moon Zero Three).
* When a card from the Associates Deck would leave play in any way, it is placed in the Associates Deck discard pile instead of wherever they would be placed (A card from the Associates deck can never be on a player's hand/deck/discard pile or in the Box).

## Cards

Imgur album here

Credits to Onassi for designing the card back for the Associates Deck!

### Breakdown

The Godfather faction has 8 minions and 12 actions, instead of the usual 10 and 10. They have a total minion power of 23, or an average of 2.875 per minion; however, the Associates Deck is composed of 10 minions of power 1. Among their actions, they have:

* 2 Play-on-minion actions: A Service To Your Don, Shadier Deal.
* 5 Play-on-base actions: Back From Exile, Consider The Stakes, Gather The Family, It's Only Business, The Peace Made Here.
* 5 Standard actions (0 that affect one or more minions): An Offer You Can't Refuse, 2x New Members And Old Friends, 2x Pulling The Strings.
* 0 Actions that directly increase a minion's power.

### Minions (8):

* **1x The Don (5):** Talent: Play a minion of power 3 or less from your discard pile to cancel this minion's ability until the end of the turn.
* **1x The Consigliere (4):** Talent: If there are no Underbosses in play, play an Underboss from your hand or discard pile on another base. Special: After this base scores, you may search your deck and/or discard pile for The Don and place it on the top of your deck.
* **2x Underboss (3):** Talent: Move one of your minions of power 2 or less OR look at the top card of a deck and return it, if it was a Caporègime you may play it instead.
* **4x Caporègime (2):** Talent: Play the top card of the Associates deck here.

### Actions (12):

* **2x New Members And Old Friends:** Play a card from the Associates deck's discard pile and the top card of the Associates deck on the same base.
* **2x Pulling The Strings:** Look at the top three cards of any deck, place them in the top and/or bottom of it in any order. If you chose another player's deck, they may have you use a talent an additional time this turn to reveal those cards and return them in the same order.
* **1x A Service To Your Don:** Play on a minion. Ongoing: Once per turn, after you play a minion here you may either shuffle a minion of power 2 or less from your discard pile into your deck OR draw a card.
* **1x An Offer You Can't Refuse:** Choose a base and another player to place a minion off the top of their deck there.
* **1x Back From Exile:** Play on a base. Ongoing: Once per turn, after you play a minion here, you may move another of your minions to or from here.
* **1x Consider The Stakes:** Play on a base. Talent: If you have a minion here, place a card from your hand on the bottom of your deck to draw a card.
* **1x Gather The Family:** Play on a base. Store a card from your hand and/or store the top card of the Associates deck under this card. Ongoing: Once per turn, after you play a minion here, you may play a minion of power 3 or less stored under this card.
* **1x It's Only Business:** Play on a base. Reveal and store the top card of another player's deck under this card. Ongoing: On their turn, the owner of a stored card under this card may have you play the top card of the Associates deck to reveal all cards stored under this card and draw one of their revealed owned cards.
* **1x Shadier Deal:** Play on another player's minion. Ongoing: At the start of your turn, the owner of this minion may have you draw a card to cancel this card's ability until the end of the turn. At the start of your turn, take control of this minion until the end of the turn.
* **1x The Peace Made Here:** Play on a base. Special: After this base scores, if you were not the winner, choose one: Move a minion to or from here OR you are also considered the winner for that base's ability.

### Associates deck (10):

* **2x Broker (1):** All players may draw a card. For each other player that draws a card this way, you may draw an additional card.
* **2x Constable (1):** You may move a minion of power 3 or less to here.
* **2x Fence (1):** Store the top card of another player's deck under one of their minions here. Ongoing: On their turn, the owner of a stored card you do not own may have you draw two cards for them to draw one of their owned cards stored under their minions.
* **2x Informant (1):** Look at the top two cards of any two decks, return them in the same order.
* **2x Muscle (1):** Give your minions here of printed power 1 or less +1 power until the end of the turn.

### Bases:

* **(18) Just A Wedding Party (4 2 1):** When this base enters play, reveal and store the top card of each player's deck under this card. On your turn, you may give control of one of your minions here to another player until the end of their turn to reveal and draw one of your owned cards stored under this base.
* **(18) Smassanzia (3 2 1):** The winner may return one of their minions here to their hand and place it on the base that replaces this one.

## Clarifications

* **A Service To Your Don:** This card is worded this way so it can trigger multiple times per turn if the minion it's played on moves to another base.
* **An Offer You Can't Refuse:** The minion doesn't trigger any reactions to it being played (see Placing Into Play).
* **It's Only Business, Just A Wedding Party:** The stored cards are revealed beforehand so the players get a chance to see what the cards are, as (per the EMD rulebook) they cannot see the cards stored under their uncontrolled cards.

## Strategy

### General

This is a deck about planning, then swarming. Knowing the structure of the Associates deck is essential for them, as it is their most reliable form of scoring a base. Constables and Muscles are strong terminal plays, while the other three associates provide good tools for the Godfather player: Informant provides foresight; Fence provides disruption; and Broker provides card draw.

A subtheme of this faction revolves around holding other players’ cards hostage by storing them, often deeming them unplayable for the opponents, but also providing them of hand extension. Opponents must pay some kind of toll (which can be card draw, a free extra use of a talent, an Associates deck card play, etc.) to be able to get them back.

This faction takes advantage on minion plays. A Service To Your Don, Back From Exile and Gather The Family have useful abilities that trigger from playing a minion on their base, this can be very easily achievable because of the constant access to a free 1-power minion.

Getting fast to either The Don or The Consigliere really amps up the swarm aspect of the faction: they both can play a 3, their 3’s can play their 2’s, which in turn can play their 1’s. And this is easily repeatable for them.

### Partner suggestions

#### Published

* **Magical Girls:** The sheer amount of low powered minions this faction can play helps use the Girls' abilities more effectively. The Don being able to play any of the Girls' 3’s is extra versatile. The deck sifting can get rid of those very situational Magical Girls cards.
* **Ghosts:** All the draw Godfather provides helps you recharge after a “ghost mode” turn, as well as serving as bullets for The Dead Rise and Spirit plays. You can discard minions more freely due to the access to minions from the Associates deck. The Don bringing Hauntings back and Door To The Beyond being swarm-friendly are the Icing on the cake.
* **Extramorphs:** Constant deck foresight and manipulation from Godfather helps minimize Extra’s off-the-top plays, you can easily use Head Grabber on an Associate. All the On-play reactions from the Godfather cards can be easily triggered by the sheer amount of minion plays these two factions combined can do.

#### Custom

* **Phoenixes:** Associates can be safely destroyed after they've done their job to enable Phoenixes’ many abilities, Dark Phoenix can replay them immediately to trigger their On-Play abilities again. Godfather draw helps get quicker to Phoenixes’ key cards.

## Author notes

* The art for this faction was made with Dream AI.
* The font used for the card names is Fragment Core, in bold.
* Various characters from The Godfather movies are represented in the card art:
	+ Vito Corleone in The Don, A Service To Your Don, Pulling The Strings and The Peace Made Here.
	+ Tom Hagen in The Consigliere, Pulling The Strings, Shadier Deal and The Peace Made Here.
	+ Michael Corleone in Fence and Consider The Stakes.
	+ Fredo Corleone in Constable.
	+ Connie Corleone in Informant.
	+ A young Peter Clemenza in Caporègime.
	+ Frank Pentangeli in Broker.
* Feedback and ideas for this faction were given by ludichrisness, and the custom card back for the Associates Deck was made by Onassi. Thank you guys!

This is my take on an organized crime faction. it was initially inspired by The Chairman villain deck from Sentinels of the Multiverse, but it slowly took shape thematically into an Italian famiglia like the one depicted in the Godfather movies. The Associates Deck ended up being the biggest part of their identity to me and I hope it sticks out well.

Although I don't feel that the faction has anything to do with the movie’s plot, it was a theme that I really liked, as the first Godfather movie is my favorite movie of all time and it was fun to come up with some card names and their respective art. I hope you like it!