Domino’s skills as a mercenary make her perfect for missions that require a level of skill that can’t be taught. She is able to create domino effects on an immense scale, as demonstrated by her sabotaging of two drones during a raid by A.I.M. She also uses her psionic link with Cable to scout for potential threats. After the reality-warping events of “M-Day,” Domino teamed with Shatterstar and Caliban to liberate mutants sequestered by the Office of National Emergency, then rejoined X-Force as co-leader alongside Cable. However, when Cable began exhibiting messianic behavior and sought to place his own needs above those of the team, Domino quit and returned to her freelance work.
A domino is a flat, thumbsized, rectangular block, the face of which is divided by a line or ridge into two squares, each bearing from one to six dots or pips, the number of which determines its value. A domino is normally twice as long as it is wide, making it easy to stack and re-stack them in lines and angular patterns. The pips are normally of the same color as the domino’s background, which makes them easier to see. A domino’s value is determined by the sum of its pips, and the highest value is a double-six.
There are many games that may be played with dominoes, but most of them involve positioning dominoes edge to edge against each other so they form lines and angular patterns. The most common game is draw-and-play, in which each player draws and places seven tiles in a row (with some exceptions). The remaining tiles, called the stock or boneyard, are left face down to form the foundation for the next layer of play.
Like playing cards, of which they are a variant, dominoes are typically dealt out in pairs or sets of seven, forming what is called the hand. Each player then has the option to add or remove tiles from their hands, as they see fit, until they have seven tiles again. The most basic set of dominoes consists of 28 tiles, usually a double-six set. Larger sets are often “extended” by adding ends with more pips, increasing the total possible combinations to over 100.
A domino is much more powerful than most people realize. A 1983 study by University of British Columbia physicist Lorne Whitehead shows that a single domino can knock over objects as much as an order of magnitude larger than itself. In a demonstration, the researcher used 13 pieces of dominoes ranging in size from a Tic Tac to a three-foot tall tower. Dominos can also be placed side-by-side and overlapped, creating a much larger domino effect. See how this works in the video below.