The Butcher of Arkham Asylum

Terror stalks the halls and wards of Arkham Asylum. Monsters called into reality by the nightmares of waking dreamers swarmed through the building. Carolyn Fern, enjoying a late-night cup of coffee in the cafeteria after yet another long day desperately struggling with the plague of madness in the wake of the performance of the King in Yellow, found herself ambushed by a snarling beast identical to the things described by her patients during their psychoanalytical sessions. Panicked, she fled into the kitchen, and finding herself cornered, her searching fingers luckily found the handle of a cleaver, and a burst of frantic strength gave weight to her swings, slaughtering the surprised monster. Surrounded by blood and ichor, everything became clear. A doctor needed a scalpel to excise corruption, and in her right hand, she held a scalpel large enough to excise even this corruption from the world. Terror stalks the halls and wards of Arkham Asylum, but it is not an otherworldly monster or evil, but instead the unhinged Psychologist herself, daubing the walls with bloody wards and defending its residents at any cost.

Disclaimer: This deck is intended to use at least 2 cards that have been spoiled but not yet released: Alice Luxley and crucially Meat Cleaver in place of Machete, and is not meant to be an optimal deck by any means.

Instead, it is intended to be a fun approach to Carolyn, using her broad deckbuilding to compensate for her poor Combat stat and manage a strong amount of combat potential with the Meat Cleaver, while also keeping a high Intellect for investigation and defensive abilities and tanking damage for the team. This means few events and skills, so it will primarily be based around assembling a strong board state with high base stats and a resource engine, using Keen Eye and Physical Training to use its high resource income to compensate for the broadly spread stats.

The underlying idea is to use the Meat Cleaver as a consistent attack option, using Prepared for the Worst to dig for it and give us a strong change of getting it early, Ancient Stone for healing, Peter Sylvestre for resource gain and soaking up the horror from the Cleaver plus Forbidden Knowledge for extra resources particularly when not killing stuff, Well Prepared targeting Physical Training for attack or willpower boosts and targeting Hypnotic Therapy or Forbidden Knowledge for Intellect boosts, with Ancient Stone as another Willpower target, and even Peter Sylvestre and Pathfinder for emergency Agility if targeted by such treachery cards. With the resource engine assembled and no other uses for its arcane slots, it should be able to afford one or both copies of Protective Incantation, helping out the entire team, and "Let Me Handle This!" and True Grit for tanking hits for weaker enemies. Even with Dynamite Blast, Prepared for the Worst and Ever Vigilant under Stick to the Plan, it will be vulnerable to scenarios with no time for setup or to bad opening draws.

Arcane Research is there for starting horror to let you use healing (early Ancient Stone or elder sign draws) for resources from the get-go, and to upgrade Deny Existence to the recently spoiled Deny Existence (5) when it is released.

The deck here is pretty much "complete", though it could certainly spend more exp (upgrading Vicious Blow, Deny Existence, Peter Sylvestre, Dynamite Blast, getting another Charisma and buying Beat Cop (2), etc.). The exp total is 3 lower than listed, with Shrewd Analysis giving a 3 exp discount on upgrading the two Ancient Stones.

Non-vital cards that can be replaced are Pathfinder, True Grit, and maybe Vicious Blow, Protective Incantation and Deny Existence. Possible other options include Something Worth Fighting For, Preposterous Sketches, Painkillers, Eureka!, Deduction, Scene of the Crime, Logical Reasoning, Emergency Aid and Working a Hunch. If more seeker/mystic slots are needed, feel free to drop the Arcane Research, it's mostly there for flavour anyway.

Upgrade priority would depend on exp earned, but Stick to the Plan, Charisma, Ancient Stone and Reliable seem like the main priority.

The signature cards used here are the base ones, and they should be reasonably effective, with Hypnotic Therapy boosting the heal from Ancient Stone and Meat Cleaver - Rational Thought will put a severe dent in the necessary healing for the deck, but if you have Ancient Stone and Hypnotic Therapy out you should be able to clear it relatively quickly. However, this is a deck type where Foolishness might be a particularly effective card, as this build has use for every stat to some extent, so the stat boost and 2 wild icons (for Well Prepared) will give you even more flexibility. If doing so, I would recommend a second Charisma, replacing Alice Luxley with Alyssa Graham, and maybe replacing "Let me handle this!" and True Grit with Calling in Favors and Moment of Respite, to ensure you get your allies out quickly and heal up Foolishness efficiently. Alyssa Graham and Deny Existence should be enough to deal with the threat of To Fight the Black Wind, though there's no accounting for luck.