I hate you, Carson (AUTOGRIEF MULTIPLAYER DECK)

Couldn't they have just reprinted Trench Knife four times?

Carson is terrible. Awful stats, awful health/sanity, restrictive deckbuilding... I tend to think that an empty seat at the table would be better than having the butler on your team.

But. If there's one thing that Carson Sinclair is good for - and there is a maximum of one thing - then it's being the punching bag. The canary in the coalmine. The one who suffers.

This is an autogrief (i.e. self-grieving or sadomasochistic) deck that is, obviously, only for multiplayer. Your aim as the Carson "I have drawn the shortest of short straws" Sinclair player? Take all the damage, all the horror, and then die horribly. It's only slightly more than he deserves.

I hate you, Carson. So let's do this thing.

What am I supposed to do with these lousy cards?

Ugh. You've got some cards. I suppose you might as well play them. (Sadly there is officially no 'pass' action in Arkham Horror. EDIT: Turns out you can just burn your turn instead of taking actions, so fill your boots, Carson player, because that tea isn't going to make itself.)

• Fighting Lessons, Leadership, and "As you wish" let Carson help other investigators pass tests, because goodness knows Carson is never going to do that.
• Self-Sacrifice and "Let me handle this!" are important cards here because they allow Carson to be wounded and or take horror, which is all you really want to be doing. If he hasn't been hurt during a given round, you have failed. Beg your fellow players to throw everything at Carson and let the Mythos phase continually punch his stupid face (look at it - it's almost as if he understands).
• Tetsuo Mori, True Grit, Solemn Vow, Hallowed Mirror: all of these try to address Carson's 6/6 health/sanity, which, if you keep letting him take a well-deserved kicking, are not going to last long. Either pile on the soak or heal as needed. (Tetsuo - a kindred spirit to CS, because all he wants to do is bite the dust - can find the Mirror for you.)
• Perseverance. What is more fulfilling than watching Carson Sinclair die? Bringing him back from the brink with Perseverance, and then watching him die.
• Safeguard. Carson may well draw Frozen in Fear or something in Mythos, which may limit how many actions he can take (oh no). Safeguard can let other players drag him along, letting him commit icons to their tests and generally take the punishment for them.
• Take Heart, because you are going to be failing so many tests.
• Last Chance, because you will be committing so many cards.
• Runic Axe and Makeshift Trap: I thought long and hard about putting cards in this deck that might actually let Carson do something useful, but ultimately the axe is there to give him a slim chance of maybe dealing with a low-health enemy if he has to (spend two charges to go 5 and do +1 damage is still not great) and the trap lets him pin down or weaken enemies for other people to take out, before, ideally, having it blow up in his face (after customizing it for that purpose, naturally) EDIT: I realized Carson can't customize the trap to make it blow up, because of course he can't.
• Thermos! Take trauma whenever you can. Because why else are you playing this deck?

Wait, we got XP?

Carson Sinclair doesn't really deserve to spend XP, so the most baller option is to simply hoard the XP and never do anything with it. But if you really, really have to upgrade your deck, then I suppose consider cards like:

• Martyr's Vambrace, Nature of the Beast: allows Carson to take on ever more pain on behalf of the rest of the team.
• Taunt (any): likewise, pull the enemies to you - not so that you can kill them (because you won't), but because everyone else can then wail on them without issue.
• Bestow Resolve: helps everyone else pass more tests. Not you though.
• Customize Runic Axe or Makeshift Trap if you want, but not if it makes you actually good at anything. That wouldn't be cricket.

Worst butler ever

Look, the only way you're going to experience any glimmer of joy while playing as Carson Sinclair is by accepting that his fate must be a horrible one.

Therefore let him grant those free actions to the other investigators, so that they can do their thing, while the Mythos takes an absolute pounding on the scrawny old pillock, and you get your popcorn out.