One thing I had failed to notice with this card at first is that "the performing investigator draws 2 cards and gains 2 resources", which makes it a fantastic support card! If your friend Finn is facing rotting remains, a test he will probably fail, you can help him recover a bit. He will draw 2 cards and gain 2 resources which is a good compensation. The fact that you can take it back with true survivor and true survivor with resourceful (another innate card, see a pattern?) just makes the survivor a well oiled machine! Silas and Calvin will like it a lot. Now the survivor can alleviate others failures too, that's fantastic!

P.S: English is not my native language, so sorry if I make mistakes.

IMPORTANT: DOES NOT WORK WITH TRY AND TRY AGAIN

The card is added to the effects of step 7, while checking for failure/success is step 6. Super unintuitive, but that's how it works.

Still good though.

Cool card. Mathematically similar to Emergency Cache.

You can play Take Heart in three different ways:

A: You find an action that's safe to fail and intentionally fail it, ideally an investigate action or something that wont bite you after failing it, in this case Take Heart comes out exactly one action superior in action economy to Emergency Cache, granting 2 resources + 2 cards for 1 action and 1 card rather than 3 resources for 1 card and 1 action. Note that many survivor builds favor cards over resources.

B: You play it on a "free" test you're content failing, this would most often be a treachery test, for example Rotting Remains. You need to be careful in this case but the "1 card = 2 cards & 2 resources" actionless trade is a very large tempo boost.

C: You play it on a test you intend to fail, in order to trigger a "Look what I found!"/Dumb Luck/Oops!. And here we have the kind of deck you absolutely should take Take Heart in, the kind where you're able to turn failed tests into greatly successful ones.

At this point you might be thinking "So, its a better Emergency Cache?", not quite. The Emergency Cache is always only an action away, minimal effort for a reasonable gain, Take Heart might actually get held up by gameplay circumstance, no "Look what I found!" to combo with, no risk-free actions on the map (perhaps due to risky token effects) and no treacheries that you don't mind failing (Remaining sanity too low, risky effects), maybe even no investigates you can reliably fail (not to mention the occasional accidental success (Damn you +1 token!!).

Regardless, the survivor faction can replace Emergency Cache or even supplement it with this economy option, suddenly the "scrounger" faction has become one of the most economically healthy factions in the game.

Edit: P.S. Play this for 100% chance to draw a positive token and beat any test ; )

This is kind of a thought-provoking card.

Normally you don't want to fail tests, because failing tests means you lose anything you contributed to the test (skills, resources, items, actions, etc.) in addition to suffering the consequences for failure. Does Take Heart make it worth failing a test?

I think failing a test is normally bad enough that it's not worth deliberately failing in order to get cards and resources. So, I don't think this card will see a lot of play on its own merit. However, I think it has good interactions with the following cards:

• Calvin Wright
• Silas Marsh
• Live and Learn

Calvin Wright is a natural fit for this card - his low stats guarantee that he is going to fail tests, and so using this card in the beginning will help him get his early-game engine going. Silas Marsh also may want this card because he can contribute it to a test and then pull it back to his hand using his ability if the test succeeds unintentionally. Lastly, Live and Learn can let you fail a skill test, collect the benefit of Take Heart, and then let you take the test again with more cards, resources, and a +2 bonus. That's really good.

I don't know if it's worth a card slot on its own - conventional wisdom is that playing cards to avoid failing tests altogether are normally better than cards that let you salvage something out of the failure - but there are some interesting interactions that I think make this card effective if it's used thoughtfully.

An incredible card when teamed up with my current investigator: "Ashcan" Pete. He often gets a free test he doesn't care about when Duke takes him off to go off investigating at other locations. (When he uses the Duke investigate action to move to another location and investigate, he is effectively using one action to "move", but if there are no clues there, he still investigates, and only minds failing if there is a nasty chaos token - he's just indulging his trusty dog, who's going off sniffing around the place.)

It is especially strong when teamed up with a few more survivor cards, such as one or two Drawing Thin, to "improve" the chances of failure, by making the test 2 or 4 steps more difficult of the test, and add further economy to a test that effectively didn't even cost an action. I love the way it turns the game on its head and you really don't want to draw an elder sign, in case you waste your card.

On top of that, that you can use it with the upgraded Grisly Totem to return Take Heart to your hand afterwards, and do the same thing again next round!!

I'm currently playing my (non-taboo) "Ashcan" Pete deck and have just upgraded my Grisly Totem. Together with Rabbit's Foot; Relic Hunter, and two Drawing Thin. I'm looking forward to getting them all out, using a "free" action to investigate and deliberately fail. If i get it right, for the cost of exhausting a few assets and moving, I'd get 6 resources(2 from each Drawing Thin, 2 from Take Heart, draw 3 cards and get Take Heart back into my hand. (or using the other choice for Drawing Thin, gain 2 resources, draw 5 cards and get Take Heart back).

Do that combo for a couple of turns in a row and your hand is full of cards, with resources worthy of a rogue, ready to boost the skill checks you want to succeed with Scrapper; Fire Axe; Plucky or Dig Deep; and all those lovely skill cards you just drew.

If i fail a test with Take Heart or Rabbit's Foot by 2 or less and draw Oops!, "Look what I found!" or Live and Learn through them, can i immediately play them without taking another test? This happened during our last games a few times, just making sure i didn't play it wrong.

Ever fail so hard you win?

Take Heart + Try and Try Again = Fail

Drawing Thin + Rabbit's Foot = Even Better

(My review needed to be two hundred words to post. So I wrote a useless blurb on the bottom of my review. Honestly this process seems kinda of silly all things considered. I mean If someone can articulate a thought in a concise way without a long winded review wouldn't that be superior.)