The best use of trusted is probably betrayal. The second best use is keeping Survivor allies that heal themselves alive when the encounter deck does one damage or one horror to allies. But the best use hasn’t been mentioned yet in reviews, and that’s to reload Becky.

For a measly one resource, a card, zero actions and zero XP, you can make your disposable allies that much tougher. And then you kill them off, which if you’re building Tommy right you will. (Between Tetsuo, solemn vow, or even self-sacrifice, you should be cycling allies regularly.) And one damage and one horror means two more bullets in a gun that perpetually seems out of bullets.

Even better, it’s two more damage if you plan on the level two guard dog and space things out, turning the pupper into a 5/3 powerhouse. With this card, officer Muldoon can turn trust into a one-way street.

This is quite an underrated card. It gives you (your ally) +1 health and + 1 sanity for $1 without the need of spending the cost of an action. In most cases, a free action is more valuable than $1. So this card fares better than Leather Coat and Cherished Keepsake, both of which are very fine cards in themselves. Trusted also cost one less than other comparisons like Leather Jacket, and it certainly fares better than Fine Clothes, a more situational card that cost an action to play. In most cases, I also like Trusted over other lv. 0 healing cards ex. (Soothing Melody) because spending actions to do passive healing is, a many have pointed out, one of the least efficient things to do in the game. Another selling point of this card which the above mentioned cards don't have is that it not only gives you more health/sanity protection but gives your ally more mileage. Putting 2 Trusted on allies such as Aquinnah all the sudden turn her into 3h/6s worrior and Beat Cop into a 5h/4s Sergeant. Trusted really maximize their power, getting more values out of their already very strong xp ability.

I like this card, 1 resource for 1 extra health and sanity, that's a fantastic conversion of resources.

Sadly, liking cards isn't the same as them being good. First off, Dodge exists, a card that costs the same amount of resources and is very likely to net you the same amount of damage sustained or more. Take for example the core set campaign, Dodge immediately has superior payoff if you save it for the confrontation with Ghoul Priest, not every scenario has such a good example but most will present you with some route to preventing 2+ points of horror/damage.

Perhaps the most important benefit in Trusted's favor is that it also protects against treacheries, but that strength is moot against the fact that it has the added clause of needing an ally target, not to mention that allies might not stick around long enough for you play Trusted on them in the first place while Dodge is fast.

Should you play Trusted? Yes, try it. Keep in mind however that it should only be played in an ally heavy deck with more ally-support cards like Charisma, Inspiring Presence and especially Calling in Favors, it happens that Trusted helps your allies stick around and those other cards all depend on allies sticking around until you get an opportunity to heal them, swap them around or fill your board with them.

In summary: Play Trusted as a mechanic to fortify your allies to then combo them with Ally based mechanics. An extra shot with Beat Cop, an extra trigger on Aquinnah. An extra bite from your Guard Dog. Extra tank on your Art Student before you Calling in Favors on them and replay them.

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.

This card is fine. It's not bad. It's not great.

As has been noted below, it gives many allies an extra use. This is definitely helpful. Of course, then there's also the more obvious utility: 1 extra point of horror and/or damage that you don't have to take.

The cost is 1 resource and 1 card, no action.

The closest equivalent cards are: Dodge and Second Wind.

In some ways, Dodge is better. It costs 1 resources and 1 card, no action. Dodge can let you avoid more damage. Odds are you're more likely to only take advantage of either the 1 extra sanity or health with Trusted, but not both. Dodge let's you avoid a whole attack which can be much more damage.

On the other hand, Dodge only works on enemies, not treacheries. Trusted lets you store damage away from your investigator. In addition, it can make scenario allies more hearty if the scenario tries to kill them (think Adam Lynch.)

Second Wind has a different cost than Trusted: +1 action but -1 card (because you draw to replace it.) It can heal more but it has a very limited play window for best effect. This card is best suited to investigators that take damage regardless of the allies they have. Mark Harrigan and Sophie, I'm looking at you.

This card is well costed and serves a useful niche. It's not bad. It's not game breaking. I'd recommend Trusted in decks that have 6 or more allies. Maybe 4 or more if you include Calling in Favors or if your allies run very useful abilities with a self-damage component, like Aquinnah or Beat Cop.

This is one of those 'really good for one investigator, meh for everyone else' kinds of cards. And this time it's Pete that wins. Because his base health and sanity is split between him and Duke, this is essentially a boost for Pete while increasing the number of hits Duke can take.

I like this card! I'm using it in an old-school Dark Horse "Ashcan" Pete deck with Madame Labranche--all cards I'd run anyway. I'm happy to have it sit in my hand until a turn when I don't otherwise need the good lady's services, and that makes it essentially a "free," fast, slotless,1/1 heal on Duke. I'm also running Forced Learning and more often than not I choose Trusted when it appears in the upkeep phase. I also like that increasing an ally's max health and sanity can help get full value out of other healing cards (e.g., Bizarre Diagnosis). And buffing Duke is as good as healing Ashcan. Niche is not the same as bad.