Allies of Necessity has finally released in the US and there are a lot of good cards inside that will affect the standard meta. Cards like Hired Muscle and Count Dooku have gotten a lot of attention. However, the four plots included in the draft set haven’t been explored as much and I think they’re being overlooked.

Allies of Necessity

The titular card, Allies of Necessity is the first ever -2 point plot. Because of that, the cost to play it is rather steep. While discarding a card and losing 2 resources can be overcome, every time I try to use this plot, I’m stymied by the fact two of my characters have to be the same color. It prevents me from building the big rainbow lists that I really want to pull together. I think this is the least likely of the four plots to see play in standard. I’ve been using it to play eKes and eFinn for some fun trooper shenanigans.

Perilous Escapade

I don’t even think a lot of people know this card is included in the draft set, since I don’t see anyone talking about it. I compare this to Preemptive Strike, which costs 3 deck building points and only does two indirect damage. Perilous Escapade over the course of a four round game should deal three indirect, assuming you don’t have a downgrade every round, for one less deck building point. I know what you’re thinking, Preemptive Strike hasn’t been played in standard, why would this?

The reason is that some of the downgrades we’ve seen pair really well with this plot. The first, Shadowed, is also included in the Allies of Necessity draft kit. For zero resources, play Shadowed and exhaust Perilous Escapade to deal one indirect. Then whenever your opponent uses the action or power action on the character you played it on you deal one more. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it can spiral pretty quickly in your favor.

The second downgrade is Target Acquired. Play this and all of the sudden the three indirect damage that Perilous Escapade is dealing becomes direct. Because Perilous Escapade triggers after you play the downgrade, so you’ll get the direct damage from just playing the Target Acquired. Now, I know you would have to damage a character first to make that work, but the combo is still there if you can set it up. I’ve been playing around with this one in a ePadme/eCassian list so that you’re getting even more value out of Target Acquired.

Grand Design

Card draw has always been good in most card games. That’s not always true in Destiny because we draw back up to our hand size at the end of each round. However, Grand Design can be really helpful in a support based deck to smooth over bad hands clogged with too many supports. The problem in support decks is finding room for those two points. Typically these decks are three wide and are backed up against that 30 point limit. And, if you can get two points, why not three for Armored Reinforcement?

With that said, I’ve been trying to make Grand Design work in a five-die hero vehicle deck with eRose, eSatine, Anakin. It can certainly make a lot of money and having Grand Design to help me draw into more supports has been pretty good.

One last thing to keep in mind, you don’t have to play a vehicle to trigger Grand Design, it’s any support. So things like Dex’s Diner, Suppressive Fire, and Stifle would all trigger this effect.

Astrogation

I’ve saved what I think is the best for last. As if hero mill needed any more tricks, here comes Astrogation. In my limited testing with the card, you can reasonable expect to get three cards off the top of your opponents deck with this plot. That’s a pretty big swing for two deck building points. I especially like the interaction with this and Riot Shield, to play a pseudo-mitigation card and also continue to mill your opponent. Or, play Resistance Ring and mill two instead of one.

What deck is going to play this one? If winning the battlefield isn’t as important as it was in the previous Theed dominated meta, Astrogation is an easy slot into Yoda-Leia over Taking Ground. Personally, I’ve been trying to play rainbow mill with eYoda, Rose, Anakin, and Astrogation. So far the testing has been going pretty well.

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