Smash Domino

Deck concept

Domino ally has a powerful ability to put a card chosen from your hand back on top of your deck. Here we pair that ability with Hulk for the obvious but still pretty effective damage they can do together when she feeds him a .

Card choices

To pair Domino and Hulk we obviously have to use Spider-Woman, but that's certainly no hardship. Spider-Woman needs a good supply of low-cost aspect cards, while Hulk needs enough to guarantee at least one in every hand, and preferably more than that in case we badly want to play one of them.

Strength In Numbers and United We Stand are both 0-cost cards, so fit right in. Drop Kick and Counterattack are a little more expensive, but again both , and the kicker we get from having enough to play with Drop Kick is tempting.

Having put Strength In Numbers into the deck, a range of cheap allies make sense, as well as the usual ally-supporting cards The Triskelion, Boot Camp, and Team Training.

There are no double resources because I rarely give them to Spider-Woman. She tends to have such low-cost cards that once Finesse or Deft Focus are down she can't make much use of the double-resource cards.

Playing the deck

I haven't found it necessary to tutor Hulk or Domino, as both are pretty easy to play whenever they come to hand naturally. Until they both come out the emphasis is just on surviving through the use of Pheromones, ally-blocking, or whatever else is necessary. Spider-Woman is a really strong starter, so she can do this pretty well.

Although the deck includes Strength In Numbers, it isn't a true Strength In Numbers archetype deck. Think of this card as more akin to a version of Assess the Situation as it can draw you an extra card or two from an otherwise inactive ally (such as Domino when she's still waiting for Hulk to appear).

Hulk has more hit points than Domino so you will need to be a bit canny to get the full use out of both of them. Jessica Drew's alter-ego action may allow you an opportunity to use Hulk without using Domino first, but it isn't very reliable as there isn't that great a preponderance of in the deck. Alternately United We Stand can be used to heal Domino alone if you are playing Standard or Standard II. Once you get to stage 2, each United We Stand gets you 7 extra damage (9 if Boot Camp is in play) - not bad for a 0-cost card.

Remember that there's no requirement for Domino, Hulk's attack and Hulk's additional damage to target the same enemy. In fact you have a lot of flexibility about how that damage is applied to bypass guard, retaliate, or other irritating effects.

Spider-Woman will be taking much of the damage as you'll want to keep as many allies out as possible for Strength In Numbers. She can do that very well through her high native defence, Contaminant Immunity, and easy access to alter-ego healing.

How to lose with this deck

One way I found to get pretty close to losing with this deck is to let Wrecker scheme out and clear all the allies off your bench. Another good way is to play against a stalwart villain who ignores Pheromones. Without that card to slow the villain down the deck doesn't have really explosive card draw and can get left behind. A final way is to face too much Retaliate. Hulk can deal with one or two instances by means of his forced response, but if too many enemies have it then it can be crippling.

Conclusion

Domino is a great ally. Effectively her special ability only costs one resource and it can do so many things.