Take Heart

Survivor
Skill

Innate.

Max 1 committed per skill test.

You may commit Take Heart to any type of test.

If this test fails, the performing investigator draws 2 cards and gains 2 resources.

Andreia Ugrai
Heart of the Elders #201.
Take Heart
Reviews

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.

Tsuruki23 252
Add any version of "Try and try again" and you can take many hearts. Both can be used on other player's tests as well. Just be careful of the scenarios special token side effects, when a test is failed. — Django 1593
D: You can hedge your bets. If you're stuck with a tough enemy and no good way to kill it, make an attack that requires a +1 or elder sign to succeed. Success? got rid of an enemy. Failed? might have drawn the tools you needed to kill it. — poeticmatter 57

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.

Walker 4
I’d like to see an official response FAQ about that. I completely understand your logic, but there is still a strong argument for it working because TaTA says ‘after’ which means ‘after the triggering condition has fully resolved.’ In this case, the effects of failing a skill test includes step 7. When occurs before and after after all other timing conditions which presumably includes ‘if’ timing. That said, if the timing you propose for TaTA is accurate, it can also allow for a very amusing and unique ability to fail a skill test by a negative amount by returning either Double or Nothing or Dreams of the Deep. — Death by Chocolate 10
completely counter-intuitive and a little disheartening, It's been a few months that I play with a combo and a deck that doesn't work! I'm fed up with those games where everything is open to interpretation! And we were a lot like this on the different forums saying it was a pretty good combo and no one told us it did'nt work! It stains my campaign and I'm rather angry! — mogwen 26
This comment is completely correct, and there's no rules ambiguity. Try and Try Again is triggered after the failure of the skill test, which is Step 6 of the skill test resolution framework. Take Heart is not a response effect triggered when the skill test fails, but like other Skill cards instead modifies the consequences of the skill test, which are resolved in Step 7 of the skill test. This is made clearer in the FAQ. As such, if you Try and Try Again to return Take Heart, it will be removed from the skill test before it is able to resolve. — Dai 93

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.

mogwen 26
Additionally you can „try and try again!“ — Django 1593
Looks like it works! I thought (Why?) you couldn't get its effect and bring it back to your hand but if that's the case that's wonderful news given how many times you can fail in a game! — mogwen 26
Are we 100% sure that combo works? It's super-intriguing if so, but I'd want confirmation that the returned skill card actually triggers. — CaiusDrewart 929
Take Heart triggers "if this test fails". As per rules reference, "if" triggers resolve before "after" triggers, which is what Try and Try Again is, so there's no reason why it wouldn't work. — TheNameWasTaken 2
Thank you for this clarification, that's just too good! Minh will definitely like it, among others! — mogwen 26

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 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.

ArkhamInvestigator 111
This card is actually good if you play it right. The only real con is that in some scenarios 1 or even 2 of the chaos tokens punish you for failing (the punishment can be allot worst in higher difficulties). I have been using this card on STANDARD difficulty and in my experience this is as good as or (depending on your deck) even better than Emergency Cache... And it is always more fun to play. — Alogon 9
Well... Take Heart analysis without even mention about cards like Look what I found? — KptMarchewa 1
I'm thinking of splashing one for Finn. Just depends on how reliable I think it'll be. I can play it against any mythos card that's testing willpower, is that enough? Maybe evade something with high fighting, then try to attack it without a weapon/help. But that would cost an action. — bigstupidgrin 3