The Chang Reaction

August 24, 2023 update: After racking up even more Domino plays and seeing some of the great choices VillainTheory made in his take on this archetype for Domino, I recommend the following changes:

Remove:

• 2x Mutant Education
• X-Mansion

Add

• Avengers Mansion (this was a huge oversight on my part, yeesh)
• Skilled Investigator
• Crew Quarters (a cheaper version of X-Mansion now that the Mutant Education synergy is gone)

This is a 1- to 2-player deck that wants to flip to Alter-Ego as often as possible to recur high-value cards like Jackpot!, Monica Chang and Luck Be a Lady. It uses a combination of confuse effects (Sonic Rifle and Professor X, Main Scheme threshold buffing (Under Surveillance and optionally Counterintelligence for those really low Main Scheme thresholds), and Global Logistics to make it as safe as possible to flip and take advantage of the amazing collection of Alter-Ego actions available to Domino. There is a lot of room in this shell to sideboard cards to fine-tune this deck for your scenario at hand.

Card choices and fun interactions

• Jackpot! shenanigans: This applies to any Domino deck, but once Jackpot is in your discard, you are able to play it multiple times in a turn. You can dig it out from anywhere in your discard using Pip the Pug or Mutant Education. If you use Pip to get it on top of your deck, you can use Weapon X or Wolfsbane to get it into your hand or flip to hero and use her Hero ability to swap it for something in your hand. When in Alter-Ego, spend it such that it ends up on top of you discard and then use your Alter-Ego ability to swap it for something in your hand. On a turn where you draw into Jackpot, you can easily use it up to three times.
• Monica Chang recursion: The main way to recur non-identity and non-Posse cards with Domino is by using your Alter-Ego ability to swap a card in your hand with the top card in your discard. In practice you get this started by drawing into her when you are in hero form, playing her, activating her once to take her to 1 HP and then flipping to AE to have her get defeated to consequential and then you can grab her out of your discard immediately. If instead you draw into her when you are in AE, you can play her and activate her once, and then flip to Hero. Depending on the scenario and your new hand at the end of the turn that you played her, it might be safe to block with her if there's only a minimal chance that the scenario will make you discard something from your hand, the board, or your deck. Otherwise, you can wait until the next turn when you will flip back to Alter-Ego and do it all again. This deck takes advantage of having all three copies of Surveillance Team and you don't need to be shy about using them since Monica will be pulling them out again as soon as they are used up.
• Global Logistics: In addition to making your flips to Alter-Ego nice and safe, the discard for positive effect cards that Domino wants to add to her decks make it worthwhile to use Global Logistics on your own deck here and there. The specific cards you are keeping an eye out for are #White Fox and the three copies of Digging Deep, which when discarded from your deck comes into play or get added to your hand, respectively. Honestly, Domino usually has more than enough ways to discard cards from the top of your deck that you will rarely want to use Global Logistics just to do this, but occasionally you will find yourself at the end of your deck knowing that there is a high density of these cards in there to make this worthwhile. And sometimes you might use your Hero action to add a Dig Deep to the top of your deck, flip to Alter-Ego and use Pip to add White Fox to the top of your deck and then have a somewhat juicy Global Logistics on set up on your own deck.
• Weapon X: Everything discussed above related to your own deck being a juicy target for Global Logistics is equally true for things you might want to set up to get extra value out of Weapon X. Once you are set up, you will most often be using Pip to put an identity card on top of your deck and then Weapon X to grab that card. However, sometimes you will know that you have White Fox and/or one or more copies of Dig Deep on top of your deck and you can use Weapon X to benefit from their discard effects.
• Wolfsbane: With the amount of deck manipulation available to you, she provides a similar value proposition to the basic Gamora ally. The main issue is that your ally slots are pretty tight.
• Probability Field: I love this card. It can get used to boost attack, thwart, defense or recovery so it is incredibly flexible. Global Logistics, Weapon X, Wolfsbane and using Probability Field to boost recovery are the main ways you are going to discard cards from your deck in Alter-Ego so this is going to be one of your consistent ways to make discard shenanigans happen in Alter-Ego.
• Pip the Pug + Weapon X + X-Mansion (or Wolfsbane): Already discussed above here and there, but these three cards allow you to put any identity-specific card from your discard into your hand without taking any damage. In many decks, you want to use X-Mansion to heal an ally, but here you're typically using it on yourself.
• Sharpshooter: This acts as replacement for your second Domino's Pistol for scenarios where you keep Sonic Rifle in the deck. Because Sonic Rifle counts against your Restricted count, you will only have space for one Pistol, but Sharpshooter duplicates the impact of the second Pistol if you don't mind all of the damage having to be placed on the same target.
• Mutant Education: I find that I am most often using this to get the very efficient Luck Be a Lady back into your deck and then additionally A Good Workout or Right Place, Right Time as per your needs. Your deck gets pretty thin, so three copies feels like overkill.

Sideboard cards to swap out:

• Against Stalwart villains and some Steady ones, you will want to get rid of your Sonic Rifle and Professor X since their main purpose of confusing the villain won't be happening. In these situations you could also consider dropping Sharpshooter since you will now have space to play your second Domino's Pistol.
• Against scenarios with really high threat thresholds on the main scheme or in multiplayer games, you might want to reduce your confuse effects and/or get rid of Under Surveillance since you won't need to protect so fiercely against the main scheme popping.
• Mutant Education: These can be nice for your final damage push or as a way to get Luck be a Lady back into the deck, but you also tend to have so many ways to manipulate your discard that these can easily be cut for other priorities. If you get rid of both, you might also want to get rid of X-Mansion and rely on Luck Be a Lady and recovery for healing from the Weapon X damage

Sideboard cards to swap in

• Skilled Investigator: My favourite Caught Off Guard target in the game and pays for itself multiple times over in any game with lots of side schemes, including all the new player side schemes.
• Homeland Intervention: In some games you know you are going to need burst thwart beyond the Surveillance Team trickle, Right Place, Right Time and Luck Be a Lady
• Counterintelligence: Sometimes you're playing against a villain like Ultron (The Crimson Cowl) and you would prefer to have extra protection against the main scheme popping while still trying to flip to Alter-Ego every other turn.
• Moira MacTaggert: In multiplayer games with multiple Mutant characters, Moira can be a good choice.
• Chance Encounter: In a scenario where Monica Chang keeps getting buried in your discard pile
• Avengers Mansion: Want to give yourself even more options to draw the top card of your deck? (hat tip to VillainTheory and Dr00 on this one)
• Sky-Destroyer (hat tip to VillainTheory): With all of the Monica Chang recursion and the copies of Global Logistics getting played, this card will provide a ton of value. On the flip side, her Pistols provide ranged damage so the benefit of Sky-Destroyer getting around retaliate isn't as high as with some heroes.

Other cards that didn't make the cut

• A third copy of Mutant Education: This would probably be overkill given how thin your deck gets and all the ways that you can already snag things out of your discard.
• X-Gene, Deft Focus: she has a lot of card draw, so these just aren't needed.
• The Posse and Atlas Bear: Your ally slots are getting used for other things so you will rarely have the opportunity to take advantage of Posse synergy.

Thanks!

• Thanks to Ultron, Loki, Venom Goblin and Magog for all taking their turns at jobbing for this deck on Expert
• Thanks to the fine folks on Discord for feedback and discussion at various stages of putting this deck together. Thanks to man-is-obsolete for taking the deck up against Ronan!

My other decks from the NeXt Evolution wave:

• Probability Fields All the Way Down: A Repurpose Story (Domino Protection)