Better Call George! | HC 7.5k Guide

Better Call George!

This is the last deck in my 7.5k series, focusing on Drowned City cards. As a break from investigating Elder Gods, George buddies up with his criminal chum Leo to do some bank heists. Fortunately he's a Quick Learner when cons go wrong. While the feds are looking for you in your first action (you could say they make your life +2 difficulty), George uses Good Weather so it's-all good, man...

Overview

• Quick Learner with Leo gives two -2 difficulty actions per turn. Paired with Flashlight or Old Keyring, Matchbox and Gumption it's possible to reduce a 7 shroud location to a 0 test (so only will fail you), and -4 difficulty reduction is very standard. Shed a Light then piles more clues on top for reducing test difficulty to 0.

• Good Weather perfectly offsets the +2 first action penalty and then with Quick Learner provides an effective +4 swing on a stat of your choosing for actions 3 and 4 (which is insanely good), while also benefiting other investigators. This can pair with Cornered or Artistic Inspiration for more heft (if you've not used Cornered in the Mythos phase). Unrelenting can seal bad tokens to help in the first action, or seal good tokens to hinder and trigger Take Heart.

• Brute Force and Sharp Vision can also give big boosts for your first action, helping to overcome the difficulty penalty. Improvised Weapon is another combat option which pairs very well with the low difficulty environment in actions 3 and 4. Your damage dealing options are a bit sparse so you can support these with basic fight actions or evading (boosted by Good Weather, Artistic Inspiration and/or Cornered if needs must). Resourceful can also recur your Brute Forces if a lot of enemies have come out of the encounter deck.

• Profane Idol and Improvised Shield are your soak, which protect Lawrence and Leo. Improvised Shield can be used to bump out empty Flashlights. Good Weather and the difficulty drop from Quick Learner let you get rid of persistent treacheries (Frozen in Fear, etc.).

• Bank Job helps afford Leo, while Lawrence's drip feed covers your event resource cost making this gel together. Kudos to Valentin1331 for writing the playbook on how assets like Cornered and Artistic Inspiration trigger George's ability, see his deck for a comprehensive primer. You'll want to mill your deck hard to find Leo and resource economy cards, so (if you can't commit enough skills in your basement to reduce max hand size, or overdraw with Empirical Hypothesis) don't be afraid to take a draw action to put you over your hand limit for upkeep and trigger George's ability again.

Campaign starter and planned progression

With In the Thick of It this is a 29 XP deck. In terms of side deck Bound for the Horizon is a good pick, but I think there's enough triggers for George's ability as it stands. If you want it in, you can downgrade Improvised Weapon •• and drop a level 0 card of your choosing. Leather Coat can be used over Improvised Shield, but I do think Shield bumping out empty Flashlights is a feature not a bug. Lucky! is nice for the level 0 deck, but you have to upgrade out of it early so I opted for Overpower instead to help flex. 0 XP deck is below (and link here):

To explain the upgrade path below a bit, after getting Cornered as core tech for George, then Good Weather is purchased ASAP (swapping out combat options, as Good Weather itself provides the same boost you get from Overpower but across all actions). With Good Weather in place, then you can get your first Quick Learner, and with Quick Learner in place then you can dive much more seriously into the 0 difficulty clue tech. As such, a recommended order of purchases/upgrades is:

• 1 x Artistic Inspiration → 1 x Cornered

• Overpower, 1 x Hand Hook → Good Weather

• Quick Learner

• 1 x Lantern, 1 x Matchbox → Shed a Light

• 1 x Lantern → 1 x Old Keyring ••••

• Unexpected Courage → Unrelenting

• 1 x Winging It → 1 x Gumption (19 XP here for standalones)

• 1 x Hand Hook, 1 x Improvised Weapon → Brute Force

• Quick Learner

• Contemplative → Sharp Vision

• 1 x Improvised Weapon → 1 x Improvised Weapon ••

Final thoughts

I think previously Quick Learner was considered the purview of Stella, and to a lesser extent Pete and Wendy with Leo for the fourth action. George by contrast has above average (and Lawrence Carlisle to boost it further) plus Seeker tech like Deduction and Artistic Inspiration. All of this better enables you to find clue in the high difficulty first action, and then reap similar benefits to all Quick Learner Survivors with Old Keyring and Shed a Light in actions 3 and 4. This is an "always on" power unlike Darrell's difficulty reduction, and George is a bit more combat ready than Darrell too (I love me some flex). Quick Learner decks also aren't common any more (most of the highly rated ones are 2022 or older) so it's nice to spotlight a less-used card.

The recent ruling that the penalty definitely doesn't apply in the Mythos phase is an added bonus, and I'd say Good Weather now makes Quick Learner a wildly powerful strategy. Having -2 difficulty in actions 3 and 4 on top of +2 to a chosen skill means that George can test at an effective 6 or more even for .

Anyway, that's the series over with - I hope you've liked some of decks along the way. Thanks to Val for providing early feedback on several of these before posting. I do have another series fully play-tested around a different idea, so I'll be posting that very soon (likely on Fridays). For this George deck in particular, remember, "You don't want a criminal lawyer. You want a criminal lawyer..."