So Hot Right Now - is Target Acquired actually good now?

Most cards get worse over time.

It's almost inevitable in any card game I've played, almost like a cardboard equivalent to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  Over time other cards will come out that might straight up replace the older card, either directly or indirectly, or which raise the bar for what you need that card to do.

Go back to the earliest decks in Marvel Champions and there was Helicarriers, Avengers Mansions and Nick Fury in almost every deck.  Today most players would choose a Quincarrier first before a Helicarrier, and Avengers Mansion and Nick Fury is only occasionally taken because the game has moved on with better cards.  You even see this happening with heroes sometimes - Ant-Man is often regarded as an upgraded version of She-Hulk because he shares so many mechanics (flipping fequently, dealing damage on flip in direction, removing threat in the other form, Giant Stomp vs Ground Stomp etc).

It's rare for a card to get better over time, but I think with Galaxy's Most Wanted we've seen it happen.

We need to talk about Target Acquired.

What's interesting about Target Acquired is that its value is closely linked to the power level of the villains that you face and how much they take advantage of powerful boost abilities.  As villains get tougher Target Acquired tends to get better - not always as not every tough fight is tough because of boost abilities - but the potential is there.  And Galaxy's Most Wanted certainly unlocks that potential and should be pushing players to reevaluate Target Acquired because it's making big use of boost abilities in every villain encounter of the campaign.

Brotherhood of Badoon - you feel it most from the Band of Badoon module where all 10 Badoon minions have a boost ability.

Infiltrate The Museum & Escape The Museum both feature the dangerous Menagerie Medley module, especially the dreaded Psionic Ghosts that hurl themselves into play from their boost effect.  It's especially important in Escape The Museum, as in Infiltrate the benefit is offset a bit by Target Acquired going into the Collection when you use it.

Nebula is incredibly boost heavy, probably moreso than any other villain in the game, with all her signature Technique attachments going into play AND immediately resolving their effect when they appear as a boost card

Ronan takes a step back from boost effects after Nebula but still has his fair share of big ones, even grabbing the Power Stone directly from a hero!

And running through the whole campaign you're also being hunted by the dreaded Badoon Headhunter, who is a very dangerous minion (with Villainous) that launches itself into play from the boost.

How Many Target Acquired Should I Play?

It's a great question.  Just my posting pictures of some boost effects and going "ooh wow, look at the new scary things!" isn't really very helpful.  Just how scared should you be of the scary things?  Should you be scared enough to play Target Acquired?  Should you run 1 copy?  Should you run 3?

That sounded like something I could throw some maths at.

So I did.

Or if you're a visual person, like me...

My recommendation is that for any run at Galaxy's Most Wanted every player can afford to take 1 copy of Target Acquired in their deck.  Against Nebula you're going to wish you had 2 copies in every player's deck, but that's overkill for the other villains in the campaign.  

Before Galaxy's Most Wanted I would say only Mutagen Formula really cared enough about boost effects for you to definitely want to take Target Acquired, but the entire Galaxy's Most Wanted campaign uses enough Boost effects that you can rely on Target Acquired being useful.

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IMPORTANT: This recommendation isn't so that you'll definitely have a Target Acquired to counter every boost effect from the villain's deck - the probabilities of drawing cards from the hero and encounter deck can't guarantee you can do that, however many Target Acquired you pack in.

This is a recommendation based on the number of Target Acquired you should play to have a very good chance of using them.  And that in using Target Acquired it will be a more efficient and effective solution to the boost effects you face than putting another good card into your deck instead and taking the boost effect on the chin.

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How did I work this out?

I went back through every villain, gave them their 'recommended' modular sets and counted how many boost effects they had.  I then sorted those boost effects into two buckets - Minor effects and Major effects.  Not every boost effect is a gamechanger that requires Target Acquired to deal with and I wanted to make sure I reflected that, so if it was just something like 'the villain gains tough' I called it a minor effect as it's something you can take in your stride.  I also classed effects that were bad but only if something pretty unusual was happening as a minor effect.  These are effects that you can use Target Acquired against but they aren't really demanding you to include Target Acquired in your deck.

The rule I tried to apply for a boost effect being labelled as a Major effect was that it was one where it has a big impact on the game and Target Acquired is an efficient and effective way of dealing with the consequences of the boost effect.  Most effects that put a minion or attachment into play fell under this category, as did effects that prompted a new villain attack or had some other big impact like dealing a lot of damage.  

In the above examples: there's not many better ways of dealing with a Goblin Soldier than stopping it hitting play in the first place.  Avoiding the villain attacking you immediately from the Jet-Trooper could save you a good chunk of health and even keep you on the table or stop you going into Alter-Ego form.  That 1 damage from Starshark to all your team could easily devour a bunch of your allies, meaning spending the 2 cards for Target Acquired to keep them on the table is a really efficient use of your resources.

One specific example of how I did this is in Kree Militants, which you use when facing Ronan, I classed the Kree Private as a major effect because chump blocking with an ally is a very common way of dealing with a Ronan attack so Ronan gaining Overkill is very frequently going to mean you taking a lot more damage, while Kree Commando is a minor card because it's a lot more rare that you're Tough and the piercing will matter.

That's it.  You can go now.

So there you have it.  Most cards get worse.  It's kind of a rule.  It's a really nice change to be seeing an old card that players have mostly parked into long storage and never used much possibly come back to the fore.  Target Acquired... so hot right now.

I'd love to hear if you think there's any other old and unloved cards that are suddenly looking better when they come up against Galaxy's Most Wanted.  Can you think of any?