With Allies of Nessecities out I’m even more excited to make decks and playtest. With only 20 new cards I didn’t want to make this list long since that would be silly, if you want a full set review of AoN we did one a few weeks back. I’ve slightly changed my tune on some of the cards, I’ll talk about that in more detail below.

Now on to my list for the Top 5 Cards from Allies of Necessity that Will Impact Standard!

#5. Chalmun’s Cantina



Chalmun’s Cantina will be a nice alternative to Theed and Salt Flats. In my review I was pretty down on this card since other options seemed more powerful, that’s still true but claiming is hard for many decks and this can provide a nice first round value while not being as punishing as Salt Flats after you lose it. While it’s still slightly punishing the guaranteed blank is certainly worse. Being able to use it on your opponent’s die and then use it on yours is going to create some nice tempo swings – leaders and scoundrels are everywhere. There are also other tribal decks that aren’t leaders that will want this. The applications for the card are vast enough that I think it will find a place.

#4. Count Dooku, Corrupted Politician

Dooku has a few possible applications. The most obvious one is being paired with Kylo to go aggressive mono blue. That should be interesting as Dooku will give that deck a disruptive element that it lost with the rotation of Close Quarters Assault. He doesn’t have the same blowout potential as CQA but Vader, Sith Lord was always very annoying to play against and this team should be about the same.

He also has potential as a mill character at 11 points but that seems like a lot to pay compared to other options in other colors. Getting blue cards is nice but is that really worth it? We’ll have to test it out to see.

I will definitely try to make an aggressive-ish deck that has a backdoor win condition of mill. I’ll probably need help with that as I’ve never had success building that archtype but I’ll at least spend a day on it.

#3. Count Dooku’s Lightsaber

This card will have applications in Dooku, Vader and Palpatine decks. The die is reasonable and the ability is just icing. On Dooku it might be right to make them discard 2 cards in round one off of this ability and his power action. That can be crippling to certain decks and will certainly help you resolve your damage and resources more reliably.

I don’t think it will be good as a pure mill card. Cards that have one discard sides that cost 2 haven’t seen play and I don’t think this will change that trend. On Dooku it does discard for one right away with the potential for another when the die is rolled in but realistically how many cards do you have to discard for 2 resources to be worth it? I’d say probably 4 and this could do that but with only a third of the die being discard its inconsistent.

#2. Knighthood

This is the card that Ahsoka and Mace have been waiting for. In Ahsoka decks it gives her Fast Hands which will be very deadly considering her die. In Mace decks it will give him an extra shield or turn his partner into a Jedi. Hero blue has been waiting for something to try to put them into the conversation and this is a step in the right direction.

#1. Hired Muscle

If you read my previous review of this card you’ll be surprised that this has shot up so much for me. This has nothing to do with this card and more so with the reveal of Entourage. At the time Entourage was not a card that had been spoiled and without knowing about Entourage this card is much worse. Oddly enough my hot take of Fickle Merceneries being better than Hired Muscle is starting to seem much more mild as people realize how good that card is.

I think this will certainly be a one of in Entourage decks for sure with maybe some preferring it to Fickle Mercenaries. Big resource mirror matches might make Mercenaries a liability but I don’t think I’ve played a game where I wanted to pay 2 to take my opponent’s Fickle Mercenaries (unless they messed up). In the end you might just play them all since that makes Entourage even more deadly, I’m pretty sure the lists will evolve to that at some point.

Honorable Mentions

There are some other cards that are interesting that I will try to build with like Astrogation, Grand Design and Perilous Escapade. I’m a sucker for incremental value but with games being decided usually by round four we are at best getting four activations from the plots. That sounds fine but given spot requirements and that the incremental advantage is slow I worry they won’t be good enough. Allies of Nessecity is another card that is very powerful and worth a look. The drawback is pretty severe but it opens things up so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone found something competitive.

Thanks for reading and let me know in the comments or on social media if you think I missed any cards. Take care and as always…

-NJCuenca

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