No, bless strategies are NOT the best ones, especially if you want to win a MP game. That's the short answer.
This is however dominions, so there is always a but.
Essentially, it entirely depends what nation you are playing, for example EA T'ien Ch'i is a nation whose main strength is strong magic in many different paths. So you only want a weak bless, if any, good scales and a SC awake pretender may be your best option. MA Man is better off with a awake SC pretender and good scales and so on...
However, Mictlan of all ages is very, very well suited by a high bless strategy, 2 lvl 9 blesses or even 3, however the bad scales will cost you later on in the game.
Essentially, individual nation, map size (provinces per player), magic site % and difficulty of magic research should all be carefully considered before designing your pretender and wether or not to go with a high bless.
There is mounting and strong evidence to suggest on maps of 15 provinces per player or higher, 50% magic sites and normal research anyone with a double lvl 9 bless or more is at a disadvantage to win in MP. They get dragged down by the culmative effect of bad scales like death-3, misfortune-3 and drain-3.
One final thing to consider in MP, is do you really want to win or do you just want abit of fun and hopefully get knocked out before turn 50 or so when the turns become horrendous to do, taking 2 hrs or more. This effects wether you wish to go with a heavy bless as well, since you can have a extremly fun game of having a double or triple bless, crushing 1 or 2 other players and then being crushed in turn yourself and all before turn 40!
