Carolyn "Anger Management" Fern (Deck Guide)

Anger Management Therapy in the Arkham Asylum

A shrink, a gravedigger, a waitress and a smuggler walk into an asylum. It's time for some Anger Management Therapy (TM).

Goal of the deck

Find clues efficiently while passively healing and supporting the team using Ancient Stone. This deck is being played in a 4-player Carcosa campaign and performs quite well there. The synergy with Agnes Baker is amazing, allowing her to trigger her damage-dealing ability more frequently. Finn Edwards also likes the horror healing, with his low . While William Yorick is not exactly easy to kill, he is quite resource-hungry so really likes the support that Carolyn provides in that regard.

The level 0 deck +3 XP from In the Thick of It can be found here.

Piloting

Play boosting assets down, and make sure you have horror healingready. Your main role will be to find clues and support your teammates. If enemies show up, Carolyn has ways to handle herself, if needed. Support your team with resources from Carolyn's and resources + cards from Stand Together and Deep Knowledge.

Healing + support: 5/5

Healing comes mostly passively from Ancient Stone. Hypnotic Therapy and Logical Reasoning also help in this respect. Blood-Rite, Deep Knowledge and Stand Together can accelerate the healing from Ancient Stone, in addition to the latter two providing cards and resources (through your and/or the card effect itself) for you and/or teammates.

Clueving: 4/5

St. Hubert's Key and Alice Luxley provide boosts without taking up limited / slots. Death • XIII is nice if you find it in your opening hand for a free boost. Keen Eye can provide boosts as needed using Carolyn's great economy. Deduction provides some clue acceleration.

Fighting: 3/5

If needed, Carolyn can pack quite a punch herself using testless damage from Dynamite Blast and Toe to Toe on Stick to the Plan, as well as Blood-Rite. Mind over Matter and Occult Invocation let her deal with some enemies using her superior .

Economy: 4/5

Stand Together on Stick to the Plan is the classic combo for a powerful setup turn. Stand Together helps you and your teammates out Carolyn's also helps with economy. Due to mental trauma from In the Thick of It, there is already 2 resources waiting to be grabbed.

Remaining cards

Pathfinder just provides some nice action compression.

Shrewd Analysis basically gives Carolyn Fern a free upgrade of Ancient Stone, since she has only one eligible upgrade option for it.

Perception and Take the Initiative provide some skill boost. Early on in the campaign, keep this for a big test on Ancient Stone to get as many charges on the upgraded version as you can.

Mulligan

Go for boosting assets, healing (preferably Ancient Stone) and economy/card draw. Ideally you want to have the assets and resources to get 3 good assets down in 1 action during your first turn using Ever Vigilant and have decent to start getting those clues.

Upgrade Path

The deck starts out with Ancient Stone and Death • XIII already in there.

Priority 1 (3XP)

First priority is upgrading the Ancient Stones.

Priority 2 (7XP)

After that, Premonition is no longer needed (it is there to help on the difficult investigate test for the stones). Stick to the Plan, Ever Vigilant greatly improve consistency so they should be next.

After that

This depends more on preference. Pathfinder instead of Safeguard for more reliable action compression, Keen Eye for the boost, Dynamite Blast for fast testless damage, Stand Together for extra card draw.

Alternative cards for the deck

Archive of Conduits and Clarity of Mind as additional heal/support options.

Backpack to help find the Ancient Stone, Occult Lexicon and St. Hubert's Key.

Charisma if you want to play additional allies (e.g. Field Agent and Alice Luxley)

Daring for a big boost as an alternative evade option with the added bonus of some extra card draw.

Mano a Mano for free damage (can unfortunately not be put on Stick to the Plan). Added bonus of the mental image of Carolyn Fern punching someone right in the face.

Survey the Area as an alternative evade option.

Conclusion

Carolyn Fern should probably follow her own anger management training as she packs quite a punch to enemies in a pinch besides reliably contributing to the clue gathering and supporting her team with heals, resources and cards.

I hope you will find this deck useful and have as much fun with it as I am having with it in our run of Path to Carcosa.

Stay tuned for the Geared Up William Yorick, Dark Horse Finn Edwards and Down the Rabbit Hole Agnes Baker decks being run in this campaign if I find the time to publish them later down the line.

Feel free to post any questions, suggestions and comments for the deck!

Disclaimer

The initial deck was made over a year ago, before the FAQ removing the interaction between Stick to the Plan and Astounding Revelation, and before Scarlet Keys came out. What can I say, the people in our playgroup are busy people. However, this deck is very much playable with some minor tweaks. Some suggestions:

-Consider putting in Analysis instead of, or in addition to Premonition to make identifying the stone less painful.

-Replace Astounding Revelation with some other seeker goodness. This could be something like Eureka!, Burning the Midnight Oil or Crack the Case.

-Consider upgrading Alice Luxley to Field Agent at some point (probably right after Stick to the Plan and Ever Vigilant), for some clue acceleration.