The Ancient Olm, a viable strategy?

[Itchykobu]

This guy is my favorite character. For reasons I can't explain, I really enjoy the blind cave salamander theme. I'm currently pulling a 6E6W Ancient Olm pretender who has racked up hundreds of kills, 3 of which were an enemy Draikana pretender (I'm playing against CPU).

Now, there is a big "HOWEVER" clause here. 1) I'm a complete newbie to this game, so I'm still learning a lot of ins and outs. 2) The AO pretender has lower stats in all areas compared to most pretenders (in fact, I'm surprised I've done so well with him). I can't find many pluses to using this guy, other than the large success I've experienced.

The first game I played I tried a solid D9 pretender and tried to blitz to researching Utter Dark (those Olms are good at night!). Unfortunately, the other pretenders got globals out way before I did, and my empire crumbled. So, I tossed away the Utter Dark strategy.

Now my victories sound like quite random circumstance compared to last game. Does anyone else use the Ancient Olm? If so, what are the real ups of using this guy? I'm certain my luck is either (a) random and can't hold out forever, or (b) randomly good choices by me that I should repeat.

Input?