Hey, I Heard You Like The Wild Ones

Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya…PUNK!

There are a lot of questions you’ve gotta ask yourself while playing Domino, but fortunately you’ll never have to ask yourself if you feel lucky…we make our own luck around here!!

Domino is the most complex hero currently in Marvel Champions, so while I can attempt to do her justice with a write-up, it will be impossible to cover the exponential decision tree she presents to the player. Most heroes make a handful of choices each turn, but Domino can run through 150 decision points, and you may only spot a mere fraction of them! I’ve recorded a bunch of gameplay footage to accompany this deck, check it out to get a better idea of how this all works. Ultimately, practice will make perfect!

Domino Plays and Tricks Guide

Deck Overview Video

Domino Gameplay w/Man-is-Obsolete!

“Chance favors the prepared mind!” – Louis Pasteur

Do you see the resemblance?

Swap, Stash, Stack, Shuffle

• What makes Domino so complicated? Well for starters, she can swap a card in hand with the top card of her discard pile once per round while in alter-ego. Do you know how many times your discard pile changes every turn?!?!? A lot, the answer is a lot. Every time you discard a card as a resource, every time you discard a card from the top of your deck, every time a card you control leaves play. Each of these moments is a decision point where you could swap a card in your hand with the top card of your discard pile. Every card discarded is a card that could be saved under The Painted Lady, every Domino or Posse card discarded is a card that Pip could put on top of the deck. So you have 3 decisions for each card discarded usually: swap it to hand, stash it under The Painted Lady, stack it with Pip…..and then you get a 4th choice with Jackpot!, to shuffle it back into the deck. 3-4 choices x # of cards that hit your discard. Swap, stash, stack, shuffle. Swap, stash, stack, shuffle.

• Ok, that’s a lot of choices already. Then you also have the choice to swap a card in hand with the top card of your deck once per round while in hero. You will be drawing and discarding a bunch of cards throughout a turn. Each card that enters your hand is a card that could be swapped to the deck and you have the chance to load the deck for each discard effect….so, which one?

• Domino’s last identity ability is her constant effect in hero form to double count printed wild resource icons that are discarded from the deck. A single wild becomes two, adding 2 damage to A Good Workout, Domino's Pistol, Outlaw; 2 threat to Right Place, Right Time; 2 damage to everything from Diamondback; 2 of any hero stat you use with Probability Field; and a whopping 6 choices for Luck Be a Lady! Double resources Energy/Genius/Strength also count double for all of these abilities that count printed resource icons and of course Jackpot! counts as 3! Domino benefits from having a lot of doubles, triples, and wilds in her deck…and it is even possible to make a deck of all wild resource icons (though entirely unnecessary).

Triple Double

If anyone could make a full-court shot and win a car, it would be Domino. (Remember this reporter? This but Domino) She has enough money to buy her own basketball team at this point though. We are running 10 resource cards!

• One of the most basic Domino plays to be aware of is being able to alter-ego swap double and triple resources for a second use. Something like Jackpot! plays Outlaw, swap a card to get Jackpot! back, and then Jackpot! plays Adam Warlock; 8 ER of cost for only 4 cards! One quick note is that if you try to do this with Make the Call, Jackpot! actually enters the discard before Make the Call which prevents the AE swap. However, Pip can still reach it down there

• All of the resources are here for their or multiple printed resource icons. The Power in All of Us is great to Make the Call for Professor X, Gamora, Ghost-Spider etc; and can fulfill the cost for the ability of C.I.T.T.. Innovation keeps valuable allies like Adam Warlock and Gamora alive, but also heals Diamondback or Outlaw for more swings

• Digging Deep deserves its own sub-section:

  • Extra resource when discarded from deck
  • Beware swapping it to the deck for another copy of itself, try to use your discard effects to fish for any copies remaining
  • Perfect to swap to the deck to get a card to sink resources into
  • How many left in the deck can inform how you play it. If there are none left in the deck, freely swap it and discard it
  • It often happens that the last card in hand is Digging Deep. If there aren't any left in the deck, hold it and swap it to the top next turn!

• Jackpot! is an amazing card. Triple resource that can be spent multiple times in a turn or loaded to the top of the deck for all of the discard-for-value effects. Notably, Diamondback and Outlaw can hit it in alter-ego. It is best placed on top of the deck, either to transfer it to the next hand for potentially another Adam Warlock play, or before triggering it numerous times with higher odds. In the reverse order (starting in hero and flipping to alter-ego), letting it hit the discard instead of triggering its response, allows it to be swapped into hand with the alter-ego swap. Perfect for ending up with Jackpot! as the last card for Adam Warlock or to hold into the following hand

• Make the Call, Weapon X, C.I.T.T., and our hero swap/alter-ego swap give us plenty of resource sinks to dump all of the excess that Domino can lavishly generate

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

• The main combo of this deck is to use Jackpot! towards Adam Warlock's ability. We want to ensure that Jackpot! is the last card in our hand (to guarantee our luck with Adam's random discard) and then discard it for 3 heal, 3 damage, and 3 threat. There are a variety of ways to end up with Jackpot! as the last card in hand, (see the video links)
• Beast gives us Jackpot! on tap and things like Make the Call and Call for Backup give us Beast on tap, so there are an incredible number of permutations to end up with Adam Warlock on the board and Jackpot! as the last card in hand
• We can even do this from alter-ego, by adding Jackpot! to hand from The Painted Lady or our alter-ego swap, sometimes after just having spent it on Luck Be a Lady after using Pip to put Luck Be a Lady back on top of our deck and uncovering Jackpot! as the top card in our discard
• Luck Be a Lady even keeps Adam Warlock around longer for more shenanigans!
• Of course, if Adam Warlock is the last action we take on our turn, then Jackpot! will be the top of our discard for the following turn, meaning we can get it back to hand again! With Adam's healing, we can occasionally forgo defending, and tank some hits for tempo
• After all of this sequencing, try to get Jackpot! back into the deck with Pip so that we can then hit it with our hero triggers!

Luck Be A Landlord

Domino invests her money into real estate (Weapon X), alternate modes of transport (C.I.T.T. and The Painted Lady), and pets (Pip the Pug)

• The Painted Lady at minimum is just a free card when you flip down and a free card when you flip up, catching things from her discard effects. Things I usually like to catch are double resources or cards that are playable in alter-ego like X-Gene, Weapon X, and Make the Call

• Pip the Pug enables some really crazy things, mostly putting White Fox on top for a discard effect like Weapon X that can be used from alter-ego, or putting Jackpot! back in the deck, particularly when the deck is very small, increasing the odds of hitting Jackpot! multiple times. You can also just put a card back on top of the deck and then hero swap it into hand, but this is usually very rare when there are both the alter-ego swap and Make the Calls around; the main use case would be for Luck Be a Lady. Most of the time I recommend putting Jackpot! on top and then hitting it with a discard effect to shuffle it into the deck, or draw into it the following turn (especially if staying down where you can get multiple spends out of it, see the next section)

• Weapon X is another huge enabler here. At minimum you can just draw the card you put on top with Pip, but usually you want to start with Weapon X, draw into some Digging Deeps or White Fox into play, then potentially swap for the new top card of the discard. If Weapon X hits Jackpot! things can get pretty crazy from there; spending it twice and then Pipping it back on top

• C.I.T.T. is mostly here as an extra resource dump for Gamora. Using Gamora twice will hit two events (and all of our events are powerful) and potentially hit some Digging Deeps. Old versions of this deck also had Rocket Raccoon and Groot, but were cut. These were all in here especially for their , as the original version was a 40 card all deck

• Build Support ended up getting cut, but I would consider it as card 41 to help get any of these supports into play more reliably

Pip's evolved form is Muggshot from Sly Cooper's Casino level!

Hey, I Heard You Like The Wild Ones

• Diamondback is excellent for board clears! Always be on the lookout for when she (or any ally) is on their last hit point, as you can use her ability->she enters the discard->use Neena's alter-ego swap to get her back->replay her and use her ability again. In combination with Domino's hero swap and Pip, she can hit Jackpot! twice for 6 damage to the entire board! Not being an attack means that this ignores guard and retaliate

• Outlaw is another that can trigger a discard while you're still in alter-ego, great for trying to get that one more resource from Digging Deep before flipping up. The tough is either an extra use of her ability, or a block!

• Professor X gives Domino consistent confuse access. Since he will be the last card that enters the discard on most turns, you can flip down, swap him to hand and replay him. Great against steady villains! Just be careful not to use discard effects that won't hit White Fox or Digging Deep if you have to swap him to get his confuse

• Gamora is great to fish for Luck Be a Lady, with a 1/8 or 12.5% chance to hit it, higher since we likely just pulled her off Make the Call. Other events are not bad either, giving sinks for Domino's extra resources and the bonus of hitting White Fox and Digging Deep

• Ghost-Spider guarantees us a Luck Be a Lady if it is still in the deck and is a useful to be discarded. While these last two allies can't be played from hand, they can enter play off Make the Call or Call for Backup and are easy choices to swap to the discard for Neena's alter-ego swap

• Deadpool is mostly here for his , but he is another 3-cost card to hit with the triple-double play and cheaper with The Power in All of Us

Sia could probably be a member of the Posse

So Anyway, I Started Blasting

Domino's Pistols are deceiving, but these are some of her strongest cards! At minimum, you sit on 2 free damage every round if you hit just single resources, but usually you will be doing 4-5 free damage a round that ignores retaliate thanks to ranged. Because of this, Sharpshooter becomes a must-play for Domino! Sharpshooter is copies 3 and 4 of your pistols, so you’ll be firing 4 cards off your deck every round. Now notably, you discard one at a time, so if you discard Jackpot! on the Pistol, it will shuffle back in and possibly get hit by Sharpshooter! There’s a world where you hit Jackpot! 4 times for 12 damage (or even using the campaign card Pouches to deal 13-14, 14 if Pouches is the last card in your deck and then it shuffles into your new deck and is hit again!). All of this for no resources!

“But it’s a lucky thing I had my pieces…anyway I started blasting” – Frank Reynolds

Quickly running through the rest of her upgrades:

• Probability Field is a minimum +1 to whatever stat she is using that round, including REC!! Just make sure that if you use it with REC, you don't double any wilds counted, as that is a hero ability only. This is key for the early game, great target for Superpower Training

• Lucky and Good is an upgrade that mulligans a boost card during an attack against Domino, replacing the boost icons/ability with another boost entirely and also making Domino the defender! This is great for hitting perfect defense triggers on encounter cards

• Lucky Break is an encounter card mulligan at the cost of discarding itself. Perfect to save the game or when trying to push for a win!

• X-Gene is here as a Luck Be a Lady battery, but A Good Workout and Right Place, Right Time are minimum 5 damage and 4 thwart respectively and have high ceilings so don't overlook them. This deck used to have both Deft Focus and X-Gene, but the latter was kept for its wild resource during the games where your upgrades just keep getting discarded by other effects

Alterations

• One thing to note, because of Domino's rapid discarding, there will be some games that the same upgrades/supports will be discarded numerous times with no way to get them back. That's ok! Domino doesn't need her entire deck to win and there is a lot of flexibility with the last few cards. For this reason, our "last in" cards of Deadpool, C.I.T.T., and X-Gene act as filler s
• Aside from Make the Call, we can almost thin the deck to all double/triple resources, , and White Fox by getting Weapon X, Sharpshooter, Gamora, and Adam Warlock into play, while completing our player side schemes. I find that I like the higher # of s to offset the s that leave the deck, like Domino's signature upgrades and supports
• White Fox is sometimes a detriment when we are at the ally limit and discard her! I messed around with versions that removed her or added The Triskelion, but I did like the flexibility to overwrite allies like Beast to trigger their enters play abilities sooner
• The Posse is a great card, but here our ally slots are mostly filled by non-Posse members. I recommend checking out decks from dr00 or Man-is-Obsolete for a better use of The Posse
• Pouches is excellent for Domino in the NeXt Evolution campaign! It expands the number of decisions for Luck Be a Lady to 12(!) and is another double for the double-double play

A Domino write-up could go on forever. We will be playing her for years and still picking up tricks, but I've got to cut it off somewhere. Check out some of the videos I've recorded to see additional plays that I just can't cover in writing!

Domino Plays and Tricks Guide

Deck Overview Video

Domino Gameplay w/Man-is-Obsolete!