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, as 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.

Winifred Habbamock loves this card. Being able to access to Track Shoes is a pretty good deal. She's using many ability cards that allow you to draw cards from your deck on top of her own ability. You will run through your whole deck many times most of the times anyway. A bigger deck means you'll take more time to cycle it and get less horror from that. Same for Patrice Hathaway

One or even two of Versatile can help to counter some nasty weaknesses as Doomed -> Accursed Fate -> The Bell Tolls or treacheries as Beyond the Veil

When this card appeared, it was the first real big gun, with Shotgun being a little bit in a weird spot.

Unfortunately, by now it has been overpassed by a range of other weapons in every aspect:

• High value: Of course the Cyclopean Hammer which is slightly cheaper, same XP and offers the chance to go higher with Reliable x2 and a potentially unlimited amount of 3-damage hits.

• Big damage per round: Flamethrower does 4 damage per attack, comes with more Ammo and is cheaper. It has been tabooed to 8xp 6xp now though, yet if you get 1 and refill it with Ammo, you're still in a better spot.

• 3 damage, 3 times: Brand of Cthugha (4) is significantly cheaper, uses a vastly unused slot for , and offers the flexibility to not spend an ammo for 1hp left. It is a bit the M1918 BAR, with just a little less peak damage but also much cheaper and leaving your hands free. The only advantage of the Lightning Gun is in case you plan on refilling the ammos with Extra Ammunition or Venturer as doing so is useless on the Brand of Cthugha/M1918 BAR.

• Honorific mention to the Holy Spear that can deal 3 damages also more times if you can generate enough tokens find a way to unseal the tokens on it.

So unfortunately, no matter how cool and thematic this gun is, the +5 makes it a complete overkill that is now obsolete in the vast majority of the cases. This could still find play in Expert mode where shooting at 10+ can still be a strategy but it still requires a lot of build around to maintain a constant flow of ammo.

Deciphered Reality is a staple card for my 4x Standard playgroup. It performs very well in about 70% of scenarios, and on Standard difficulty it's easy to ensure success for anything but autofail.

In most scenarios, it's not hard to have at least five revealed locations with clues on them, which makes this card worth 5 additional clues for 4 resources; great deal. But it also helps that the extra clues get pulled off other locations, which helps the team finish clearing a troublesome spot while letting the Seeker continue to gather a bunch from their current location.

In the scenarios where it works, it helps either save time and Move actions; or works like Seeking Answers to pickup clues without investigating dangerous locations; or helps advance the Act quickly by getting a burst of clues. In scenarios where it doesn't work... Well, yeah, it's a bad Perception.

This card feels like it's level 5 just to limit which investigators can take it; it's not a game-breaking must-have, but for my group, it's a powerful and pretty reliable event.

This card approaches taboo level for the cyclopean hammer. Being able to have +4 (each copy gives +1 to each stat, i.e. boosts both might and will, since hammer uses both) to your combined stat of will and might is ridiculous and will even have 'unbuffed' guardians testing at a 10+. I pretty much consider this a standard upgrade anytime you're running a hammer build.