Watergate

Watergate, Match of the Century, and “High Treason! The Trial of Louis Real” all use a card driven system similar to many card driven war games, but applied to non-wargame scenarios

The balance of he various decks is so tight.

Watergate : great 1vs1 confrontation

I really like Watergate and Zenith (both are card playing tug of war puzzlers)...

Watergate (2 player game, really short, easy to learn)

Patchwork, Watergate, Compile, Azul and Gnome Hollow are my fiancee and I's go to 1v1 small box games on the less expensive side.

Watergate also is a great 2p that doesn't take too much room.

Just in case this might change your mind, the game has a much more fun and goofy vibe than the art and concept might suggest. It is really fun to play as Nixon and yell "CANCER ON THE PRESIDENCY" and burn evidence or to play as the press and go "Nope, there's a mass demonstration, you have to throw away your boy Hunt"

My wife’s exact comment after playing it was “I didn’t want to play it but now we have to play it again”.