The main use for this card in the modern card pool is for tech against quests with locations that get have brutally high threat, like Forest Battleground. By moving it to the active spot when it appears, you never have to quest against it.

The other use case is with Path of Need. Quest with everyone, then when a location appears you swap it out, complete the new active location, then travel again to the one with Path of Need to have its effects active during the combat phase.

Mostly made obsolete by Thror's Map, which is reusable and generally just better. The exception is that with this card, you can immediately get something out of the staging area if it's going to ruin your questing this phase (The Brown Lands, Branching Paths, etc.) Whether that's enough of a risk to justify using Strider's Path instead, in most cases, probably not. Sudden game-ruining locations aren't as common as the other types, and a lot of them have effects that can be dealt with in the travel phase. Maybe worth a second look if you have a lot of discard manipulation or are playing against a lot of attachment punishment.

This card does basically the same what West Road Traveller does, but which one is more effective, depends heavy on situation, i think. I will always prefer ally, cause events are much more situational from my point of view. This one needs to be played right after the location is revealed, while with Traveler, you need to survive quest phase to next round, to be able to switch it in planning phase (if you don't use Sneak Attack). However both are very helpful in dealing with high Threat locations. Artwork is ok. Verdict: 3/5.