I've played as Norman Withers through a few scenarios and this card has come up several times. I have never played this card (although I've been occasionally tempted to play it at a discount off the top of his deck). However, I really like the icons on it. Norman will ideally be doing a lot tests that take advantage of his high and , so being able to augment a critical check with this card is pretty nice. I would say that is probably the best use for this card.

If this had to be played for some reason, I don't know if it's worth it to use the icon unless the lead investigator is close to defeat and needs to avoid damage or horror in order to stay in the game. Interestingly, the effect can be used to remove the top card of your deck if you have a skill card there and you want to try to get a better asset card to play with Norman's top-of-the-deck discount. However, I don't think this is very efficient - if you're using cards that you're ok with going straight to the discard pile, maybe it's worth considering swapping them out of your deck entirely? Also, drawing a card using the draw action has the same effect - it does cost an action, but you also get a card out if it that way. Some weird scenarios do want you to mill the encounter deck, but even then this is not a very efficient way to do so.

In short - it's an interesting card, but I'd normally only ever use it for the icons. The icons are quite useful.

Carolyn Fern can take this; she can use the level 1 version because she's her, and this because it heals horror. She can also take Shrewd Analysis, which has a strange interaction here: Since this is the only "eligible" option, she flat out upgrades the second copy for free. The other version isn't eligible because she can't include it in her deck, so it's not included among the random options. Since shrewd analysis is so easy to include in a deck, it's now a viable include for Carolyn. The biggest hurdle is getting the initial investigate off to upgrade the card at all, but she can be built as a solid seeker so that's not such an issue.

To be fair, I have not used Trusted in a deck yet. I think it might be worth writing a review for why I don't normally consider it good option, though. I like the idea of Upgrade cards in theory. They are cards that are supposed to make your other key cards better, and I think normally that's pretty good. Of course, that does mean that you need cards to work well with them as they are not much use on their own.

The cards that work well with Trusted are Ally cards that normally have abilities that cause them to take damage or horror as part of the activation cost or have a ability that is triggered by taking damage or horror. Some examples would be:

• Guard Dog
• Beat Cop (2)
• Aquinnah (1)
• Aquinnah (3)
• Lady Esprit

If you play Trusted on one of these cards, you normally get one more use out of their ability, which can be pretty nice. Anything that adds value to these cards is a good thing in my opinion.

On their own, the extra points of soak are handy to have. In-faction, Guardian cards don't normally need a lot of extra health soak, but most will welcome the horror soak.

The reason I don't normally pick this card is because I feel like it has anti-synergy with Calling in Favors. Calling in Favors is the other card you want to run if you have a lot of Ally assets, but if you target an Ally that has the Trusted Upgrade on it, you lose the Upgrade and it gets discarded when the Ally goes back to your hand. When you take into consideration that both cards cost 1 resource, I personally normally just run Calling in Favors instead, since it returns the Ally card to your hand (effectively healing it) and also lets you search for your other useful allies. Trusted is nice to have, but I don't think it's effective right now to run it in addition to Calling in Favors.

An undeniably lovely alternative or companion to Acidic Ichor. It works especially well for Minh Thi Phan, who should be built around card-draw abilities anyway, but basically any Seeker would be glad to have this, if they can spare the hand-slots for it.

Remember that attacks of opportunity are resolved before the effects of the action that triggered them, so simply taking a normal draw to deal the last point of damage on an enemy isn't ideal. Consider having a partner engage it before your turn begins.

Interactions

Knowledge of the Elders makes most of your cards with drawing effects better, including innate skills like Perception, but the clearest benefit comes from Cryptic Research, which temporarily turns Knowledge into a fast automatic three damage. You should also insist your partner get Stand Together, if able, and you might likewise be interested in Lucky Cigarette Case. I don't think I'd bother with Preposterous Sketches or Laboratory Assistant in the current mix, but maybe there's a way to make them worthwhile? If some future card comes up with a recurring ability to draw 2 cards (like, say, a Seeker-ish variant of Dario El-Amin that gets cards instead of resources), Knowledge will truly be power.

Bringing this "weaponized draws" concept back to Minh for a moment, Analytical Mind plus any successful innate skill means two card-draws, and she can get those draws by contributing to another investigator's skill-check anywhere on the table. In fact, if Minh ever has Analytical Mind and Knowledge in play, have her draw the first encounter card - there's a decent chance she can draw and kill an enemy before the Investigation phase even begins!

Alternatives

The main alternatives we need to discuss are Acidic Ichor and Minds in Harmony. The more important of these is Ichor.

The hand-slot requirement might be a deal-breaker for Daisy Walker, but I don't think the hand-slots are a huge deal for other Seekers. Magnifying Glass is nice; Flashlight isn't usually a Seeker favourite; Encyclopedia is nice, although some of its utility has been absorbed by Higher Education; most other tomes aren't that important. In fact, even Daisy might eventually settle on using only Encyclopedia for her free tome action, so even for her Knowledge isn't totally out of the question.

Notably, Knowledge is vastly better than Ichor for dealing with aloof enemies, such as Whippoorwill. It's also nice to have a way to trivially remove Acolyte, and many other one-health enemies, for just one secret. Those enemies also tend to deal low damage, so it's often easiest just to draw your card and take the attack of opportunity.

I think Knowledge and Ichor are on roughly equal footing. Knowledge is slightly more powerful, given its reliability and its ability to function without necessarily taking actions, but Ichor is more versatile, and can yield a greater amount of damage across the scenario, especially if you're willing to commit to Level 3 Emergency Cache. Ichor's also the better pick against boss enemies for its ability to deal lots of damage in one turn, but if you're playing alongside someone who can get Lightning Gun, M1918 BAR, or Chicago Typewriter, maybe that doesn't matter so much. It's probably safe to say "Ichor on Normal, Knowledge on Expert," although in either case I'd want to eventually get both.

I have a slight preference for Knowledge of the Elders over Minds in Harmony, given that horror-removal is less likely to be useful to a Seeker than auto-damage in a random hypothetical scenario, but I don't think it's a slam dunk in the same way as, say, Acidic Ichor over the other Strange Solutions. If I were to draw two Harmonies using Shrewd Analysis, I'd shrug rather than gnash my teeth.

I know that this is probably not a fair comparison, but I think that interest in Elder Sign Amulet will probably decline now that the Key of Ys exists. They both take up the accessory slot, are both neutral, have the same skill icons, have the same horror soak, and have the same Item and Relic keywords, However, for 1 resource and 2 experience more the Key of Ys gives you a really powerful effect. It's really hard to justify spend 3 experience on this when you can get the Key for 2 more experience because it's almost always worth it.

The advantages Elder Sign Amulet has over Key of Ys:

• Key of Ys is unique, so only one can be out at a time per group.
• Key of Ys discards cards when it leaves play whereas Elder Sign Amulet does not.
• Key of Ys costs 2 more experience than Elder Sign Amulet and experience is a precious commidity in this game.
• Key of Ys costs 1 more resource which could make it slightly harder to play then Elder Sign Amulet for some investigators.

Key of Ys is so similar to Elder Sign Amulet that if you asserted that the Key of Ys was originally slated to just be the level 5 version of Elder Sign Amulet, I would have been inclined to believe you. Of course, saying that this card is a worse version of what many would argue is the best card of the game isn't really an insult. This is a relatively well-balanced card and I think a lot of people considered it as a reasonable source of horror soak in the core set. However, I think that going forward it will be hard for people to take this card without thinking "maybe I should save up for the Key of Ys instead..."