The full set list for Secrets of Power is out and there is a lot to talk about.  Instead of focusing on all the playable legendaries, we’ll save that for a tweet and instead take a deep dive into Plots.

The plot mechanic itself has a very high ceiling.  Being able to Voltron a single or group of effects onto the deployment of your leader actually has our porgs a little worried.  Not as worried as when the Kashyyyk kindergarten class came to our headquarters for a field trip before having breakfast, but worried none-the-less.

Deploying your leader is already resource-free, and using your full resources add one or more plot cards to it draws you cards, cheats actions and potentially deals damage.  On top of that, there are very few ways for your opponent to disrupt this chain of events.  Let’s take a look at what makes a good plot and a bad plot, and what we can expect to see in the meta.

Ideally, your plot should have an immediate effect on the board. Using all of that generated advantage to simply throw a sentinel on the board or buff a unit’s health isn’t bad, but it’s also not taking full advantage of the mechanic.

Another point is that you really want your plot cards to be good enough when not played as a plot.  You don’t want your plots to be effectively dead cards after your leader is deployed.

The Buff plots

These cards are less impactful in the sense that they don’t have an immediate effect on the board and they give your opponent a chance to respond..

• Armor of Fortune
• Sneaking Suspicion
• Unveiled Might
• Sudden Ferocity

This is not to say these cards are bad.  Deploying Sabine as a 4/8 with Unveiled Might leaves a very hard to deal with leader unit.  The main difference with these is you are negating the unanswerable aspect of the plot mechanic.  You are saving yourself an action over using the Dark Saber, but you’d also rather have the 6/7 unit in an aggro focused deck.

If you are using a leader like Obi-Wan TWI, you may love to have one or two of these upgrades.  You still risk your opponent responding with a Rival’s Fall.  On top of that, none of these are cards you are excited to play from your hand.  4 resources for +2/+3 or 3 for +3/+0 are just bad value.

The one pseudo buff that looks most interesting is Jar Jar.  It feels dirty just saying it, but he looks like a very playable card.  While he doesn’t give you the permanent buff that the upgrades do, he is cheap to play, gives a great buff for his cost and leaves a 2/1 body behind.  Not every Command deck will play him, but he offers a lot for the ones that will with very little to no downside.

Disruption Plots

After the buff cards, we get some interesting disruption cards.  These don’t necessarily directly affect the board, which may make them too situational.  They do limit what your opponent can play, and they are all playable outside of your leader deployment.  

Trade Route Taxation and The Wrong Side can be especially disruptive.  Star Wars: Unlimited is generally very curve dependent.  Qi’Ra is really counting on that round 4 Overwhelming Barrage.  Control decks are often relying on the Superlaser Blast, Sabine needs that Dark Saber to put on full pressure.  Using some of these cards can delay or even force your opponent to skip a pivotal turn.

All of these cards can be played before or after your leader deployment as well.  For example:

• Cad Bane can respond to Qi’Ra’s deployment to play Garindan and name Overwhelming Barrage.  Let’s just hope she’s not playing Topple the Summit!  

• Sabine can hold a Trade Route Taxation until their control opponent has 8 resources stopping their Superlaser Blast dead in its tracks, like Alderaan’s tourism industry.

These cards have the potential to put your opponent in very awkward positions, which could be just the edge you need!

All-around

We also have some solid, all-around good plots.

• Cad Bane can defeat a unit on play (with restrictions), an effect that has certainly been useful.
  
• Chancellor Palpatine, while weak outside of plot, offers a ton of board presence for just three resources.
  
• Sly Moore looks excellent. Against many decks, there’s never a turn where she’s flat-out bad. For four resources, she can easily prevent 6–8 damage while leaving a 2/6 body on the board. For my money, Sly Moore is the second-best plot card in the set.

WTF

Now we move into what the porg poo-doo were they thinking?!  

Cinta Kaz.  This could be the kind of card that says “If you are playing in a tournament, you are likely playing aggression”.  There will be a lot of games that will end with a leader deployment.  Deploy Anakin, plot Cinta attack base for 8 damage, on to game 2.

No time for a response, just a race to deploy your leader first.  I think this is really bad for the game and people are going to hate this.  On the bright side, if it doesn’t get suspended, it’s not even 2 years we have to worry about it.

Quick Talk About Math

We need to know some statistics on drawing your plot cards at the right time since if we don’t have it by your leaders’ deploy turn the effectiveness goes down considerably.  A card you want to play with Sabine needs to be drawn by round 3.  Anakin round 5.  Assuming 3 of a specific card you can use our HyPORGeometric calculator to see some percentages, not including mulligans.

Cost	Copies	Draw Odds
4	3	49.6%
5	1	24.0%
5	2	42.6%
5	3	57.0%
6	1	28.0%
6	2	48.6%
6	3	63.6%
7	3	69.5%

We can see nearly a 64% chance of having Cinta on time, about 2 in 3 games.  The most important thing in Star Wars: Unlimited may be to have initiative going into rounds 5.  We may see players skipping round 4 to ensure initiative on round 5.  That play pattern doesn’t seem healthy.

Final Thoughts

Overall, plot has the potential to be a very strong mechanic.  It is an ability that certainly has the capability to shape the meta in the coming months and even more so after rotation.  It’s balanced by its limiting factor of when you can play it. Deploying your leader is already such a huge impact turn/action and adding one or more plot cards on top of it may make some games effectively unwinnable if one player gets their plots first.  

What are your favorite plot cards?  Do you think they will shape the meta over the next couple of years?