The best time to have a quick injection of a lot of money is at the beginning of the game, especially if you are asset-heavy. If you mulligan for this or it comes up within the first few turns, you're in for a good time. Play your expensive cards, and the rest of the game will be easier. If it comes up later, maybe don't play it. Anyways, you'd better have a plan to get the money back. The best way is to either play an investigator who makes the money back passively or is rewarded for having stockpiles of cash (Jenny Barnes, Preston Fairmont, Bob Jenkins, Monterey Jack (EDIT: Monterey Jack obviously cannot take Rogue level 3 cards)), or is asset/skill heavy where you just don't need to spend too many resources past putting down your key assets. Event-heavy Rogues are probably going to spend all of their money no matter how much they get. If you do need help getting the money back, the usual suspects like Hot Streak and Faustian Bargain are fine, and The Red Clock, Lone Wolf, and Investments will get you the money back eventually, but a special mention for Cheat the System, which cares about assets in play from other classes, and hey, this one is also a Survivor Card.

Speaking of, do any Survivors besides Bob Jenkins really need this? Survivor is, after all, the class that has Dark Horse. Wendy Adams can use this to pay for Leo De Luca, and with Pickpocketing (2) and other Rogue economy cards can make the money back. Rita Young can take Trick cards, so that means Easy Mark and Sneak By are on the menu, and she may want this to pay for an early Pilfer or two. Daniela Reyes may like this to put down some expensive Guardian assets or in Survivor, Aquinnah or a Chainsaw. But paying the loan back may be a challenge with Survivor cards. You can stop playing events or assets and build up your resource pool slowly. Maybe a key Drawing Thin or Take Heart will help. If you have time at the end of a scenario take the resources with the basic action yourself, or maybe get help from a friendly Guardian, Rogue, Seeker, or psychiatrist. Of course, taking Déjà Vu to mitigate the forced Exile may be the answer.

You just need two items to break even.

But there's an additional downside to taking this that neither of the existing reviews have pointed out: this card makes your mulligan feel terrible.

Even in the most item-heavy decks, you have other events or assets that you'd really like to open with. That Beat Cop (2) or Safeguard would be great to have in your opening hand, but if you've only a single item to put down, are you going to mulligan away your ally? Your tarot? That Stand Together or Enchant Weapon or Pathfinder? Sure, you can say you won't take those cards, but that's a lot of good cards you're leaving in your binder just because they don't play well with Geared Up.

Two copies of Studious and backpacks later, an asset heavy Joe Diamond can be fairly reliable at getting efficiency out of this card. The problem is how it cripples him before he gets those two copies of Studious and his Backpacks. Neither of those cards are high priority upgrades for any investigator, and yet they are mandatory for Geared Up to function at all. If it weren't for the "Purchase at Deck Creation", this would be much more playable.

Fortunately, most guardians can actually purchase this card after deck creation, where its just known as Stick to the Plan and Ever Vigilant.

This card is a cool replacement for Arcane Research, or a nice boost to it, depending on your upgrade line. HOWEVER, It is an anti-fun card.

This card essentially makes it so you build a deck with a bunch of purchasable upgrades, and reduces your desire to get new cards. Now you could see it as offsetting the new cards, by only buying 1 new card a scenario, and upgrading atleast 1 card, leading to a net 1xp gain. For "every mystic deck ever" archetypes this card is strong.

However, If you enjoy breaking the mystic mould I see this as a detriment. This card keeps you on the straight and narrow, upgrade your Shrivelling, Rite of Seeking, Mists of R'lyeh. Grabs you Recharge, Arcane Initiate, and Ward of Protection, Grotesque Statue, Robes of Endless Nightand have at it. I just see this as dull. Don't get me wrong those cards are all core because of how powerful they are and I would take them and this upgrade into a difficulty spike campaign i.e. trying to beat expert or complete achievements, but for standard this is a buzzkill.

Is this card good or bad? as a mystic running your typical build this card is insane, as someone who loves pure xp it's insane value, but as someone who enjoys trying new builds and playing with non typical cards this isn't the card for you.

Another way to add charges, just like Recharge (2) and Recharge (4). Except this one is more reliable, costs only 1 XP, and actually adds charges to non-Spells/Relics. So far, that means Flesh Ward, and the new Close the Circle and Bangle of Jinxes. Adding charges is good, especially for expensive assets, ones with high XP, and those that are Exceptional. Akachi Onyele is a natural fit, and hey, she's already on the card. But all Mystics running powerful assets should consider this. You just have to have a spare action and resources lying around.

If you want to save that action cost, there's that juicy reaction ability if you draw this on your turn. Mystics, unfortunately aren't known for drawing cards, although you may hit this with Scroll of Prophecies or Guts (2). But you know who does have good option for card draw? Seekers and Rogues, a number of which can (and want) to take this. They also have similarly-written cards based on card draw: Cryptic Writings and Easy Mark, respectively.

If you have Seeker access, you have a lot of options for card draw on your turn. Filtered card draw is best, of course, so Eureka!, Mr. "Rook", and Old Book of Lore are good choices to find it. Cryptic Research and Preposterous Sketches are good choices, too, because you'll still need to hold onto some resources to pay for Winds of Power. Speaking of, Old Book of Lore (3), with its built-in cost reduction, will do that for you. As far as the investigators go, Luke is the standout because his Gate Box would always like charges and it starts in play. Norman Withers has powerful Mystic Spell access to drop the charges on, and can see this card coming with his ability. Daisy Walker and Mandy Thompson have the best card pool and abilities to pull this out of their deck on their turn, and their targets for charges aren't bad either: extra charges will keep Pendant of the Queen in play and have Archaic Glyphs or Archaic Glyphs last longer. Arcane Insight is also a good choice or even to combo with the previous two. As an aside, these Seekers were probably already considering running Enraptured, which also doesn't cost an action, but also doesn't cost any resources.

If you have Rogue access, your best shot is to draw with Lucky Cigarette Case or especialy its upgrade Lucky Cigarette Case (3) on your tests you oversucceed on your turn. Pickpocketing or its upgrade will help. Sefina Rousseau has all the pieces to make it work: oversucceed on Suggestion (4), draw two cards from LCC and Pickpocketing for your trouble, and hey, Suggestion even has a use for those charges itself. I'm not sure you need 5 free attack cancels from non-Elites, but there it is. Other options would be The Red Clock (2) or The Red Clock (5), but those compete with the Accessory slot. As does, by the way, the Crystallizer of Dreams, which can take advantage of two willpower icons for tests. The 0-2 Mystic spells/assets are good, too. Dexter Drake is the other investigator with Rogue/Mystic access. He'll have a tougher time digging this one out through oversucceeding, but he'll have many more targets for the extra charges. A Pickpocketing Dexter with Shroud of Shadows certainly can work! That said, Dexter's play style encourages discarding the spent assets anyways.

Very surprised that there has only an off-handed mention for Luke Robinson. This card is insane for him. Luke naturally likes Recharge, and with the new taboo on this card, it makes it a natural combo to use Pendant of the Queen with Recharge. Furthermore, Luke can take the magical Whitton Greene, which boosts his will (which needs help) and his intelligence, it also combos with Hawk-Eye Folding Camera to create a 5-6 intellect mystic. FINALLY Luke always has access to a new location, so he can activate the search 3 times, with each one having a 1/3 chance of finding a piece, not including ANY other locations (looking at you Side A dream world).

Therefore the combo for Luke is; Segment of Onyx, Whitton Greene, Recharge, Premonition, Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, Lucid Dreaming and for added spice Astounding Revelation. This makes Luke, a testless, teleporting, high intel high willpower, MACHINE. All for the low low price of 9-13xp.

*If You know the scenario well, and know you wont be able to explore much Backpack is another great option. Either way HARD MULLIGAN for Whitton Greene, even if it means you lose a segment.