Compared to the other XP permanents, particularly Higher Education and Streetwise, Keen Eye has a couple things working against it. First, except in an ideal situation its ability is a bit less efficient in terms of resources spent per bonus. Second, Guardians are heavily dependent on expensive assets, and all their in-class economy cards (Ever Vigilant, "I've had worse…", Stand Together) cost XP. So they probably don't have a ton of spare resources to devote to a card like this.

For these reasons, I think a lot of players underestimate Keen Eye. This is a mistake. It isn't as good as Higher Education or Streetwise, sure, but it's really, really strong. This is largely because of the amazing power of the Permanent keyword.

Don't think of Keen Eye as adding a card to your deck; think of it as adding an ability to your investigator sheet. Like your investigator ability, it's going to be there for you whenever you need it. And Keen Eye's ability is really useful. Combat and Intellect are the two game-winning skills, and the ability to substantially boost either one whenever you have extra resources is really nice. It's often the case that you'll want to spend your entire turn investigating or (more likely) fighting, and in these cases you can get some really nice efficiency out of Keen Eye.

But the true power of Keen Eye comes from the sheer consistency it offers a Guardian. The simple fact is that sometimes you really, really need to boost Combat, and you just don't have the right icons in your hand. In these situations, Keen Eye will always be there to see you through. As long as you have some resources (and that's something you can plan around), you will be able to boost yourself in an emergency. Your combat performance will therefore be much more consistent. I consider this incredibly important.

The fact that Keen Eye sometimes is genuinely efficient (if you can get +1 to 3 tests from 2 resources), in addition to offering consistency and security, is why I consider it one of the best cards in the game.

Obviously, Keen Eye is best for Zoey, who often does end up with excess resources. Keen Eye is a great way to spend them. In addition to the combat use of this card, discussed above, spending four resources and investigating like a Seeker for a turn is an awesome trick for her to have up her sleeve. In a multiplayer Zoey run I would very likely purchase this before any other upgrade, and in a solo Zoey run (where boosting her Intellect becomes very important) the decision is even more obvious. For the other Guardians, it's less urgent, but it's a good card to pick up before too long.

As a final note, Keen Eye has a nice interaction with Police Badge. It's an expensive combo, but five highly charged up attacks are a pretty cool way to take out a boss.

I completely disagree with Caius take on this card, Keen Eye is, without a doubt, the worst "Permanent: spend resources for stat boost" talent in the game by FAR. Not only it doesn't hold a candle against Scrapper, Streetwise and Higher Education (and the fact it's the only card out of these 4 not to get taboo should tell you a lot), but it's absolute ineffective on its own even without considering its class alternatives.

"Now why is that?" You may ask "Why is this card so bad? It gives a stat boost of +1 for and , two of the main game winning skills, for the rest of the turn for 2 resources, and you can even stack it if you have the cash"

And the end of that sentence is exactly the issue: Guardians do not have the cash for this kind of luxury, with possibly the exception of Zoey Samaras, Leo Anderson and Tommy Muldoon, they are constantly paying for assets, put allies in play, play events, they simply cannot afford the economy to leverage on the stat boost reliably. Nathaniel Cho can, given his playstyle is less asset heavy, but his is too low for the boost to matter, and his is high enough he doesn't need it

Second, +1 for 2 resources for all your skill checks in a round is a very bad deal in anything above easy, and very questionable on easy itself. By the time you can afford the exp for this permanent, the stat boost will probably not suffice for most skill checks you will have difficulties to complete. Sure you can spend 4 resources for a +2, but where you are gonna get enough money to do so?!

Third, and this is the reason what leaves Keen Eye completely dead in the water: boosting all of your skill checks in one turn by little is massively inneficent compared to boosting one skill check by a lot, because that means you are committing the rest of the round fighting and/or investigating. Most guardians aren't just gonna spend all of their actions investigating one location, even in multiplayer, they are very likely to want to take other actions in between, before or at the end of their turn, like moving to another location to investigate there. And even the most combat heavy guardian will struggle to do nothing but fight the whole round (unless you are playing a full 4 player game with heavy enemy spawning and high boss health), their turn will probably also be interspaced by moving and engaging. You sacrifice massive action flexibility to make use of this Permanent, which makes it very difficult to justify using. Sure the times it works (in location with lots of clues and enemies) can be pretty good, but remember you are spending 3 exp for a highly situational permanent and possibly adding to your deck and buying various economy cards just to make use of this

I cannot understate, for a 3 exp card, how bad Keen Eye is, it's almost worthless on its own and ridicolously situational if you have the economy for it. Ironically, if this was the Rogue permanent talent instead of Streetwise... It would still be absolute rubbish, but at least would fit a niche because rogues have various ways to grant themselves additional actions to make the most of the buff