The War-Painted Lady

"It's not gambling if you know you're gonna win." - Alan Garner, The Hangover
"Whaddya know? I win again." - Neena Thurman, Marvel Champions

This deck combines Domino's ability to create her own luck, with 'Pool metagames so that you (almost) always win.

Our big idea here is to use Break Time, 'Pool Inspection & Da Bomb not for their printed abilities, but rather as big ammunition for War. Domino's identity abilities ensure a 100% hit rate, and The Painted Lady allows you to repeat this indefinitely over the course of the game. It's not an infinite-combo that will let you do unlimited damage in a single turn, but it gives you a cheap 6 damage/turn, in addition to whatever else you want to do.

Preparing for War

The only two cards that are absolutely essential are the deck's namesake:

• War
• The Painted Lady

The full sequence is explained below, but basically, use Domino's Hero ability to place an expensive card on top of your deck. Then, use War, knowing that it will get high value. The Painted Lady lets you grab that card and use it again in a few turns.

Additionally, since we include a few 6(+)-cost cards that we never actually intend to play, Domino's hero ability acts like a sort of pseudo-draw; not only ensuring value from War, but replacing these cards with potentially more valuable ones from our deck.

Cards that will help your engine:

• Rock, Paper, Scissors
• Pip the Pug
• Symbiote Suit

Domino has tons of resources which is a double edged sword for RPS. We almost always have a in hand to show, but we're prone to hitting other , and we lose ties. (Be extra careful if you don't have The Painted Lady yet). Fortunately, Pip will help bring back some of the identity cards that we end up discarding.

As an absolute degenerate, I'll put the Symbiote Suit in any deck, but here we want it to give Domino an extra point in THW, and 10 more HP to soak up recoil from War. The extra hand size also helps pay for the expensive cards that you aren't feeding to War. Lucky Break helps with any particularly nasty encounter cards we need to re-roll.

Healing Factor is nice, and will help to offset the potential damage from War as well. Since we will be flipping to Alter-Ego periodically, we can use basic recovery (which is buffed by both the Symbiote and Probability Field), so it's not absolutely essential.

Ammo, Allies, and

The deck includes lots of expensive cards to hit with War. Even if you're not totally set up, you can often get good value from it.

Ideally, we want to hit our 6(+)-cost 'Pool cards 'Pool Inspection, Da Bomb, and Break Time. We aren't leaning into the bad icons 'Pool gimmick, so these really aren't worth paying for.
(Break Time's cost scales with player count, so at 2+ players, it's 6+ cost. Ka-Ching! In solo, I'd definitely drop this card).

Storm is also a good ammo option as a printed 5-cost. In alter-ego, she discounts to a 4-cost to play, and she's an effective way to keep threat off the main scheme if you have a side scheme you don't care about. Heimdall (though not included in the original list) is a good option here as well, or you can play him to stack the encounter deck.

Lockjaw is a solid option as ammo at 4-cost since he retains his playability in the discard. Nick Fury is probably better used for the draw response, and if you really need the damage, you can get 4 from his response. Unless you really can't afford him and 4 damage wins the game, I'd probably avoid using him as ammo. Same for Avengers Mansion; we'd typically rather play it, but it could work in a pinch.

Our allies are all basic, so they are targets for The Power in All of Us, which also acts as an additional for RPS and identity effects.

War-Painted Lady sequence:

In the ideal situation, you are flipping and activating War with a 6-cost every single turn.

Turn A: 'Pool Inspection & Da Bomb† in hand, War & The Painted Lady on table.

• Flip to Hero side if needed
• Hero action: Place 6-cost ('Pool Inspection or Da Bomb) on top of deck
• Exhaust War - deal 6 damage
• Place 6-cost card under Painted Lady

Turn B: (6-cost in hand, 6-cost under Painted Lady)

• Hero Action: Place 6-Cost on top of deck
• Exhaust War - deal 6 damage; do NOT place under Painted Lady
• Flip to Alter Ego
• AE Action: Pull 6-cost from discard *

Turn A:

• Exhaust Painted Lady to add 6-cost to hand **
• Flip to Hero & Repeat previous turn A

† or Break Time for multiplayer
* can be done at start of Turn A, but probably more reliable here to prevent it from getting buried in discard.
** can be done at end of Turn B, but preferably you save the space in your hand.

There is plenty of room here as well to play other cards and take other actions as you normally would, and Domino has plenty of strong cards in her kit. Just be mindful not to bury a card in the discard before you flip to AE and exchange a card for it.

Other notes

Aside from feeding War, Domino's hero ability can be used in lots of clever ways. In addition to the obvious uses for her identity cards, you can also guarantee card draw from Rock, Paper, Scissors. Have a card you want to play, and Mulligan? Put your keeper on top of the deck and dump the rest.

No Laser Swords or Live Dangerously? No, since we don't lean into the bad icons here, this isn't as strong a combo. Plus, Domino already has 2 restricted pistols and I didn't want to run Side Holster.

The deck has a much higher potential for damage than thwarting, so in solo you'll need to rely on allies a bit more, and rush a little harder. Flipping to AE is always a calculated risk; sometimes it's necessary to break your sequence to avoid a scheme. That's why there are other War options besides the two 6-cost cards. (And don't bring Break Time).

Hate >40 card decks? I wasn't super concerned since there's good draw/mill, and the Symbiote Suit grants extra hand size. Also, if you clear Build Support, it's going to the victory display.
If you really want to cut something, however, I recommend Mulligan; it's main purpose here is to get to our important cards early game.
Depending on Solo/Multiplayer, you could also drop Break Time or one of the 6-costs, since our sequence loops 2 cards.

Update:

• -Hope Summers
• +Heimdall

Heimdall's ability to stack the encounter deck provides more value than Hope's ability to tutor superpowers. We don't use The Posse, so we don't care about her trait copying. More often than not, Hope was just ammunition, so the higher cost works for us as well.