Support Cluever George Faces a Dilemma [Limited: EOTE,SK,TDC

Here you will find a powerful George deck that has a couple interesting features in it beyond the decklist itself: first, it is a 12 or 13 experience core build, meaning it is Standalone and Ascetic ready. And second, it is a Beta Limited build, featuring cards only from three cycles (EOTE, SK, and TDC), the core set, and the investigator starter decks.

George's greatest strength is his impeccable card draw, as many as 6 per round. This maximum is achieved by discarding cards in each of the four phases:

• Mythos and Enemy via Idol of Xanatos and/or Artistic Inspiration,
• Investigator via Nautical Charts or Bound for the Horizon,
• and Upkeep via Forced Learning.

Beyond enabling George's ability with their synergy, these five cards also provide sufficient soak, boost his stats, grant extra clues, give free movement, and give extra card draw, respectively. I'm sure this general idea has been presented in other decklists, so I won't belabor it here.

But what is a George to do with all this card draw? Quite the dilemma. High draw characters tend to love fast events and skill cards that convert card draw into actions, so here we take The Scarlet Keys Survivors' approach to that with the Dilemma suite of cards. At a Crossroads gets plenty of love already, but here we also see the less ubiquitous Heed the Dream, Nature of the Beast, and Predator or Prey. These four cards give outstanding draw support to our teammates who don't have the privilege of drawing 6 cards each round, give testless clues at No Cost (probably), and give the team free movement at No Cost (possibly).

In a four player team, Heed the Dream converts 1 card into 4 new ones while also further thinning decks, for only 2xp. Eat your heart out, Cryptic Research. Nature of the Beast will almost always hit an encounter card that can be dealt with by one of the players with almost no effort. Then, fast testless clue. Predator or Prey is the least consistent Dilemma here, with effects ranging from ruining a carefully crafted enemy management plan all the way to giving everyone a copy of Shortcut and neutering one or more enemies.

The other card worth noting here is the somewhat controversial Forced Learning. While I tend to agree that the opening hand inconsistency is generally not worth the tradeoff of greater flexibility for most characters, George has a couple of things going for him that make this card an absolute must play and sufficient reason on its own to choose EOTE for your Limited build.

• First and foremost, arguments have been made that all you have to do to get the card draw from George's ability during upkeep is to draw beyond hand size, so why do we want to take a 50 card deck for the privilege? However, this argument holds less water than the Barnaboat when it has been Cast Adrift. During upkeep, without Forced Learning, you will aim to draw one card greater than handsize, discard one to the Barnabasement, then draw one more, netting 2 cards. With Forced Learning, you will draw two cards, discard one to the Barnabasement, and draw another, netting 3 cards. That is a free card every round! There is an additional advantage here that Forced Learning makes it much easier to play efficiently, because you will always trigger his ability even if your hand<boat, and you don't have to waste brainpower trying to make them equal. Just remember while considering hand and boat limits: while every other phase you can trigger is boat+1 hand+0, upkeep is boat+1 hand+2.
• Second, George is a high tempo capable investigator, who does not necessarily need much if any setup to get started, which makes the opening hand composition less impactful.
• Third, there are nearly enough high quality cards that you can fit into the extra 15 card slots. Keep in mind many of the extra cards will be discarded and placed into the Barnabasement where they are only good for committing, so there is a high density of skills with useful effects as well as cards that simply commit for . This makes George's ability comparable to a static boost, in the same way you might think about the Crystallizer of Dreams. If you decide to make changes, be careful not to put too many cards that will clog up the Barnabasement: the exclusion of additional copies of Guts and Survival Instinct, for example, is intentional, because you won't always be able to find a test to commit them to.
• Fourth and finally, George is lucky enough to have very comparably effective alternatives for his core assets: you'll be happy to see Nautical Charts OR Bound for the Horizon, Dr. Milan Christopher OR Lawrence Carlisle, Artistic Inspiration OR Idol of Xanatos. Each of these pairs has enough overlap on which phases they synergize with that you won't miss one if you have the other, but each card is different enough that their counterparts don't become dead draws. Even the extra allies commit for , which you will want to do frequently!