As you might remember, at Can Nats last month I ran an Energize character with some pretty good results. I wanted to take a stab at another Energize effect: Domino. But I wasn’t content with using it just once. I wanted to create a way to use it again and again. A battery, if you will. Call it…
The Energizer
The Team: Keep going and going…
Format: Legacy League
This team actually has two different strategies. The main strategy is to use Kitty Pryde’s discount to buy up Domino dice, trigger their Energize effect, and use Parallax to reroll all of my Domino dice, hoping they’ll land on double energy, and do it again. And again. And again.
In case of blankers, though (since Dwarf Wizard is still legal in our league), I put in a secondary strategy. Old-school players will recognize Colossus, the big bruiser who encourages pacifism (keep your stuff around and hurt your opponent). What if I copy him with Hope? Oh dear, this may not end well…especially if both are on the board together.
I put in Mimic and Storm for removal. Both are really fun options depending on what you’re up against. The fact that both can be discounted through Kitty (and that Hope can easily copy Storm) is not to be underestimated.
I put in Constantine for control and for cheap shields (useful when trying to buy multiple Dominos), Transfer Power (more recently known as Splinter’s Teachings) is a useful defensive global, and Resurrection serves for ramp and churn.
And with all of that said, on to the games!
Game 1:
I started off against a fun Thunderbolts team. The strategy got going fairly smoothly, all things considered. I got all of my Domino dice pretty quickly. However, this bogged my bag down pretty hard. I did get damage going pretty quick, but my opponent was ramming me with an Overcrushing Mach-1. Constantine slowed him down long enough, and I eventually attacked with Hope (copying Storm) and a bunch of Dominos. Hope thinned out his board and allowed me to deal more damage than my opponent could stop. I won.
1-0
Game 2:
Next up, my opponent had an interesting mix: SR Ultraman + Kryptonite on the one hand, and R Merlyn with Parasite on the other. Two good strategies, but my strategies…didn’t work. Kitty Pryde would just not roll, and I fell into the Parallax trap. I tried rerolling her again, again and again, to no avail, wasting turns that could’ve been somewhat useful by going for the big finish. Despite this, I was controlling him pretty well with Storm and Constantine (he went for Merlyn + Parasite), and almost, ALMOST, got the win thanks to Domino + Hope (copying Colossus) with tons of Parallax rerolls. I was literally one energy short of a win. But I missed, and my opponent won the following turn. Close game, though.
1-1
Game 3:
Next up, I went up against an old-school Justice League team, with Retaliation and…Batman life gain? Ugh, not a good matchup. Especially when Kitty Pryde will. not. roll. Again. I fell into the Parallax trap pretty hard again, with the same results. Thankfully though, by using Hope to copy Storm, I kept emptying my opponent’s board, forcing her to pay to re-field her characters (important note: I used Hellblazer to stop her Green Arrow’s board wipe effect, or I would’ve lost ten times over). This messed up her pace big time. While she was gaining life here and there, Domino was dealing more damage than she could recover from (especially when I eventually bought Storm and used Hope to copy Colossus). It was long and gruelling, but I eventually won by the closest of margins.
2-1
Game 4:
I finished my evening against Dragons. This matchup was defined by terrible rolls…but this time, it was my opponent’s turn to deal with those. His dragons would rarely roll, likewise for his Ring of Winter. I was making matters worse by going for removal, Mimic in particular. I didn’t rely on Domino this time. Instead, Hope copied Colossus and the damage just piled on…especially when I also fielded Colossus. I doubled the damage that way and won handily that turn (12 damage with 3 different characters, which is ridiculous).
3-1
Post-Mortem:
-To address the elephant in the room: Yes, I know, I could’ve put in the old-school PXG (one version is still legal in our legacy league) and gotten this team to be far more reliable. But recently, I’d been running some pretty nasty stuff and I decided to cool things down a bit. Still worked quite well considering, but anyone considering that strategy more seriously should seriously look at the old PXG; this strategy requires a lot of dice, after all.
-The strategy is really fun to try, but it’s not reliable if you don’t have enough dice to Parallax a lot. And I mean a LOT. This was my main issue tonight, with the exception of the following.
-These Kitty Pryde dice are cursed. Or tilted. Or something. Seriously, statistically, my bad luck with those tonight is near-impossible. But that’s life.
-Hope and Colossus is a ridiculous combo. Colossus was never intended to be a 3-cost, and it shows. That should’ve been my main strategy; it was far more effective than Domino.
So overall, Domino is serviceable, but there’s much better options out there (kind of like Domino’s pizza, actually). Hope + Colossus, though, is an awesome combo. I will have to revisit this in the future.