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Divine Sign: the Giovanni Newsletter |
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CONTENUTO
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0. What the f***?
I. Edition's quote
II. The Brand New Stereotypical Italian Dictionary
III. Cousins of the Month
IV. Asset of the Month
V. Tried Tactics
VI. Bitch's Last Words
0. CHE CAZZO?
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Ok, ok, I've been late somewhat for this edition. Mind you, vacation should've made it easier - and I've written part of this newsletter 20 days ago, in fact. But it was hard to overlook all new possibilities Legacies of Blood presents regardless of clan and discipline, and after toying a little with the Akunanse, the Guruhi, the Ahrimanes, the Ravnos, the Samedi (with not even a single Necromancy card) and the Osebo, now it's finally time to get back to our most esteemed, favoured Giovanni clan.
A little novelty in this newsletter appears below, in the Tried Tactics part, which will gain a new direction more akin to its own name: from now on, it will offer a deck idea as it is formed, and comment on the actual performance of last edition's deck presented. It starts now on the blood denial deck based on Gualtiero Giovanni that showed up in December, which has proven itself more than once and it was fun as hell to play with. Hope you all enjoy.
One more time, this newsletter builds up on the material a bunch of people has written about the clan before. Don't forget to check the site where all editions are archived, and with plenty of basic and advanced hints on all Necromancy-yielding clans: http://necrobones.free.fr
I. CITAZIONE DELL'EDIZIONE
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"Dimmi con chi vai chi ti diro chi sei", or "Tell me who you go with and I'll tell you who you are" (A man is known by the company he keeps). - Italian Proverb (Note: the same proverb, in its Italian form directly translated to Portuguese, is also very popular in Brazil, too.)
II. IL NUOVO DIZIONARIO D'ITALIANO STEREOTIPATO
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Can't you stand all these vampires from other clans and lineages allying with the damned Giovanni anymore, specially when they pull a trick of their own with Necromancy and some other discipline or special text? Call them...
... Perfido (adj): treacherous, perfidious, nefarious;
... Traditore (adj): treacherous. (nm) traitor.
III. CUGINOS DEL MESE
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Sennadurek
Nagaraja, group 4
Cap. 6
AUS NEC dom
Sabbat. Black Hand: Whenever a Methuselah loses the edge when it is not your turn, Sennadurek untaps, and you may look at that Methuselah`s hand. Scarce.
This strange girl appeared almost out of nowhere offering her services in Venice, and at first, nobody trusted her. But Uncle Auggie seems to have noticed her somehow, and granted her a lot of room in our *loggia*, much to older cousins' dismay. If you ask me, I don't know why they should feel that way: she's proven valuable as hell. No ally the *famiglia* has at the moment is that willing to stand in the first line of defense and Deflect any shit our enemies throw on us; in fact, she hardly needs to abandon her position while he does so. If the new target can't react to the redirected attack, her powers of divinity allow her to get ready again in short notice and discern what our enemies' plans are, which is gold. Who doesn't like to act forewarned? Sennadurek even seems able to track whose of our many enemies has the Edge currently, and report on us once the one with the upper hand falls.
Some circles say that she's actually a Black Hand infiltrator, but I don't care about that, really. What these weirdos of the Sabbat would need from us? If they're trying to spy, they'll found nothing that doesn't serve them already. I've known some of these elite warriors and they have a bunch of tools and techniques at their disposal that we can tap into. Per example, they have the rank of Remover, which serves us nice; doubling up the effects of the Jar the Soul ritual, combined with a little Call to the Hungry Dead and the old Seduction tactic, means a lot of minions out of the way most of the time. There's also the Dominion, which one Black Hand guy I knew told that's a very prestigious and secretive position; many vampires have some difficulty in blocking a Dominion's whims, and Sennadurek also has a Crocodile's Tongue at her disposal, so maybe it's worth it for the clan to lobby a little bit with the Sabbat for a promotion on Sennadurek. The very same guy also talked about a Ritual the Black Hand designed to twart some signs of Gehenna, but I don't believe in that bullshit.
Pherydima
Kyasid, group 4
Cap. 8
DOM MYT NEC obt pot
Sabbat Bishop. During your discard phase, you may burn a pool to untap Pherydima. Cold iron vulnerability.
Talking about those always-ready-to-play girls... Ahem. Sorry for the pun. It seems our clan has dealt too much with the Sabbat recently. Pherydima is even a bishop, but what strikes us as surprising is her knowledge of the necromantic arts. I've petitioned her more than once about a fabled ability that has turned into some sort of urban legend amongst our kind: ripping the shroud with the Ex Nihilo power and then getting sustenance out there via Descent into Darkness. If you have some practice with the Chill of Oblivion ritual also, you would be pretty much untouchable. It seems a tricky and difficult proposition, but an old ally of us, Bartholomew, has sworn to cousin Ambrogino once that it is possible, so I have to try. Pherydima says that the Descent into Darkness power is a bit problematic since most Kyasid practitioners come back exhausted and tapped from the Abyss, but if our uncle Auggie is willing to spend a little bit of the clan pooled resources, she'll be back in full shape. I'll petition the higher ranking clans for that arrangement soon.
IV. BENEFIZIO DEL MESE
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Pandora's Whisper
Type: Action
Requires: Necromancy/Mytherceria
+1 stealth action. Do not replace until your next untap phase.
[nec] Move a library card from your ash heap to your hand. Discard afterward.
[myt] Every other Methuselah may draw two cards from his or her library. You may draw five cards from your library. Discard afterward.
[MYT] As above, but you may place any of the cards on the top of your library instead of in your ash heap.
Rarity - LoB:C
What? Mytherceria? Yes, folks; it seems our clan has found some weird vampires around, and was shocked to discover that some even not only have some knowledge of Necromancy, but in fact *master* the arts - even better than some modern *cuginos*. What a shame. So to avoid rumors spreading around on how the necromantic powers are not that exclusive anymore, uncle Auggie suggested allying with these fae-like types. Not that we've never dealt with them before; ask Bartholomew how he got his own prowess with the arts.
The crux of the matter is that Kyasid like Pherydima has showed us a power they developed, based on the call for the old pagan deity Pandora, that lets them tap into a mystical source of knowledge none of us can. It is even powerful enough to spread a little extra mystical knowledge around also - and to let us, "poor Necromancers", access information long dead and gone if we concentrate a bit more.
Mind you, we are used to such dealings with the Ashes, but this power has some uses still. The ages-old Whispers from the Dead requires a little blood spent, not to mention Superior ability to be performed without raising our enemies' attention; most of us are knowledgeable in the ways of Summoning Souls secretly, but it also requires advanced prowess, and we can't immediately use the information retrieved; the anarchs seem to have developed a stealthy way to Gear Up their efforts even with a rudimentary ability with the necromantic arts, but not all of us are willing to join their movement, and it also requires some blood. This Pandora's Whisper seems to emulate the anarchs' discovery with no blood expenditure, though it requires some commitment on our resources at hand. It's a fair trade in some situations, I believe. And I'm told that the Mytherceria-based version of this power also allows for a quicker access to other rituals, so why not try it?
V. TATTICHE PROVATE
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Remember the (sort of) blood denial deck featured last edition? Well, this time I thought it would be better to share some actual experience with the deck before moving on to the next one. Between the concept shown a month ago and the real-world deckbuilding part (not to mention the order of extra Gualtieros on TheLasombra!), some tweaking has been made; here's the version I've been playing for some weeks.
Deck Name: Blood Denial by Gualtiero
Created By: Fabio Sooner
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 27, Avg: 5,16)
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1 Cristobal Ghiberti nec 2 Giovanni 1 Lia Milliner dom nec 3 Giovanni 2 Thomasso Ghiberti pot NEC 4 Giovanni 1 Prejudice aus dom nec 4 Nagaraja 2 Sennadurek dom AUS NEC 6 Nagaraja 2 Raphaela Giovanni pot pre DOM NEC 6 Giovanni 3 Gualtiero Ghiberti cel pot tha DOM NEC 7 Giovanni Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (18 cards) 4 Blood Doll 5 Society of Leopold 2 Acquired Ventrue Assets 1 Dis Pater 1 Morgue Hunting Ground 1 Powerbase: Cape Verde 1 Tower of London 1 Strained Vitae Supply 1 Threestar Cab Company 1 Perfectionist Action (19 cards) 4 Daemonic Possession 12 Jar the Soul 1 Haunt 1 Summon Soul 1 Sudario Refraction Action Modifier (14 cards) 7 Call of the Hungry Dead 1 Seduction 5 Threats 1 Foreshadowing Destruction Reaction (10 cards) 7 Deflection 3 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Combat (9 cards) 9 Spiritual Intervention Ally (3 cards) 1 Procurer 1 Leonardo, Mortician 1 Felix `Fix` Hessian (Wraith) Equipment (9 cards) 8 Baleful Doll 1 Sargon Fragment, The Event (1 card) 1 Restricted Vitae Combo (7 cards) 7 Spectral Divination
First, a few general notes about the changes.
- Sennadurek and Prejudice: I've been thinking about including a third copy of the former and leaving the latter out, even if it changes crypt distribution somewhat. Her special is so useful, specially when you have to act a lot, that I can't imagine the deck functioning without her (I've been lucky to have her in the initial crypt, or fish her early on, in all games). No wonder she's one of the "cousins" of the month ;-)
- Dis Pater and Tower of London: the former is almost a given in any Giovanni deck, sure; but it's even more useful in a deck that has a good flow of cards and not as much bleed boost as it could, like this one. The latter is shunned by some, but unless it shows up on your hand too close to the endgame, it can be worthwhile in a deck with 20+ actions that require Necromancy. This one has 26... In fact, I believe it's worth it to include a second copy.
- More Jar the Soul, less Baleful Doll: at the very last minute I felt that the tapping requirement for the Baleful Doll to work would harm me too much, and traded some for Jar the Soul instead. In practice, being able to burn a Doll and pass a Jar the Soul in the same turn means 5 blood burned with two actions (three if you count the equipping action last turn), which is gold when you can pull it off. More than once I had to discard one or two Jar the Souls to unclog the hand, so maybe it's better to keep the number at 10 copies of each.
- More Spiritual Intervention, no Mercy for Seth: Metagame decision. Too many combat decks around in casual games, and they'll certainly retaliate if I keep burning blood from their minions. Mercy for Seth is too costly to manage (the deck still has blood management issues, even with a lot of different sources of blood around) and 95% of the time I need to end combat, even when there's no risk of torpor, just to save blood.
- Restricted Vitae instead of Anthelios: the deck has not that much punch to empty big vampires in time to avoid crunchy Minion Taps, and you don't want these to come back to its controller's hands either. Restricted Vitae sometimes can harm you as much as the other players, though.
That said, the deck has been quite effective at casual environments, going for the GW 50% of the tables; even better than I first imagined. It shows some potential for tournament play after a few tweakings. Its main weakness is blood management; I chose Threats instead of Conditionings (which are usually a better option) exactly because of that. Good candidates for drop-out are the Procurer (unless it comes early, I usually have no spare actions or blood to recruit him); the Threestar Cab Company (a lot of the time you just can't afford to put it on the table); and Strained Vitae Supply (it's only useful when it comes early, and harms you more than Restricted Vitae). They can be swapped for one extra copy of Acquired Ventrue Assets, a Perfectionist and one more Felix 'Fix' Hessian (you will need him as early as possible to explode Hunting Grounds and Racks around), or maybe a Conniver specially for Sennadurek since she untaps a lot to bounce.
Other main weakness shows up when the deck faces others that make a lot of blood, be it by Voter Captivations or cards that enhance hunting. The deck simply does not have that much punch to empty and burn more than one or two vampires per opponent in average; it's only as effective as a regular Cryptic Machine (Cryptic Mission based decks, for those not in the know) because Jar the Soul also taps minions - so it can turn into a sort of tap n' bleed deck in a pinch. But that's what makes me place some bets on the archetype for tournament play; indeed, we see a lot of Voter Caps in such an environment, but usually players go for speed and do not spend a lot of actions getting hunt-enhancers, so a whole set of problems are out of the picture most of the time. If you try such a variation of this deck in a tournament, please let me know at fabio[underline]sooner[at]gmail[dot]com.
One more curious thing I would never had anticipated before building the deck. Maybe my fellow players had disassembled or otherwise forgotten their wall decks, but more often than not, I used the Spectral Divinations for intercept instead of stealth - blocking attempts to put the Society of Leopold in one of my minions, mostly, but a few key actions also such as Matthias trying to equip with a Bowl of Convergence. After the first two games or so, I was inclined to swap some Spectrals for Seduction to reduce block attempts, but the card has been so useful for its versaitlity since then that I doubt the swapping would prove effective, even if the card makes me waste even more blood.
But now let's move on to the next one. It tries to take advantage of Pandora's Whisper in a Giovanni + Pherydima mixed crypt.
Deck Name: Pherydima's You Don't Touch Me Gambit
Created By: Fabio Sooner
Description: Get Pherydima out as soon as possible. The goal is to put Ex Nihilo and Chill of Oblivion on her while you set up the Giovanni bleed defense and pool recovery shop. Once she's ready, go to town and take whatever actions are left at +1 permanent stealth with no fear of combat whatsoever. If you need to burn the Chill, get it back with the Pandora's Whisper or the Sargon Fragment. When she gets close to emptiness, Descent into Darkness allows her to recover without burning the Ex Nihilo. She can even untap once she's back via her special if you have a pool to spare. There's also a little offensive combat package in form of aggravated weapons (retrievable via Vast Wealth) and some Ghoul Retainers, but don't rely on it unless you're sure the opponent has no response. Also note that Mercy for Seth is not a damaging strike at inferior, so if you feel you can inflict it, all the better.
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 12, Max: 34, Avg: 5,83)
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1 Cristobal Ghiberti nec 2 Giovanni 1 Lia Milliner dom nec 3 Giovanni 1 Almodo Giovanni dom pot 3 Giovanni 1 Prejudice aus dom nec 4 Nagaraja 1 Thomasso Ghiberti pot NEC 4 Giovanni 1 Raphaela Giovanni pot pre DOM NEC 6 Giovanni 1 Gualtiero Ghiberti cel pot tha DOM NEC 7 Giovanni 1 Don Michael Antonio Giovanni DOM NEC POT 7 Giovanni 3 Pherydima obt pot DOM MYT NEC 8 Kiasyd 1 Carmine Giovanni ani pre DOM NEC POT PRO 10 Giovanni Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (14 cards) 1 Dis Pater 1 Creepshow Casino 1 Acquired Ventrue Assets 5 Blood Doll 1 Morgue Hunting Ground 1 Misdirection 1 Powerbase: Cape Verde 2 Vast Wealth 1 Secure Haven Action (25 cards) 5 Ex Nihilo 5 Descent into Darkness 4 Chill of Oblivion 5 Pandora`s Whisper 1 Goblinism 5 Govern the Unaligned Action Modifier (16 cards) 6 Call of the Hungry Dead 5 Conditioning 1 Foreshadowing Destruction 4 Seduction Reaction (10 cards) 8 Deflection 2 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Combat (11 cards) 7 Spiritual Intervention 4 Mercy for Seth Ally (2 cards) 1 Leonardo, Mortician 1 Ambrosius, The Ferryman (Wraith) Retainer (2 cards) 2 Ghoul Retainer Equipment (4 cards) 1 Ivory Bow 1 Sengir Dagger 1 Sargon Fragment, The 1 Blow Torch Combo (6 cards) 6 Spectral Divination
This deck, as explained above in this newsletter's introduction, is still a possibility. I've thought about using Raphaela's or Carmine's Presence to fetch the Ghoul Retainer quickly via The Summoning, so Pherydima could tool up earlier and even Bum's Rush some Famed vampires dealing environmental aggravated damage while immune to *any* hitback. But it stroke me as too many moving parts for little gain, so I'm stuck at bleeding at stealth once the opportunity presents itself. It also lets me lower the average crypt size. If anyone can find something better and less cheesy to do once she's "untouchable", let me know. Maybe focus on Divine Sign and Mercy for Seth?
VI. ULTIME PAROLE DELLA PUTTANA
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"I've just been told you're not that hot anymore. Let me see what you've got - here, here..."
- Sennadurek, Untapped Bouncing Queen
Ouch, this edition was a little difficult to pull off, I must admit. I've been trying hard not to walk the well-travelled roads built with the clan, but it seems that Necromancy still has plenty of room for improvement - which is good, since we still want more sets and cards, don't we? ;-) But if you're a relatively new player and/or is not used to playing with the Giovanni, please drop me an e-mail. I've been thinking of a "back to the basics" edition of this newsletter soon, and if there's popular demand for it... Who knows.
Dead Hand-shakes,
Fabio "Sooner" Macedo
Giovanni Newsletter Editor Back in Full Effect
fabio[underline]sooner[at]gmail[dot]com
Overseen by Orpheus, Giovanni *Consiliere*
http://necrobones.free.fr