[Mind's] Eye of the Tiger Norman (TCU)

Hey! Dane from MUR here. This is my first Norman deck after seeing friend's decks and deliberating on how to build him. I'm playing a TCU campaign alongside my partner, Harrison, on Agnes Baker focusing on fighting enemies.
Initially I hadn't wanted to give thought to figuring out his strange deckbuilding, but once I saw that I could get Mind's Eye, I desperately wanted to try a build around it.

Before obtaining Mind's Eye, I focused on getting value out of the (relatively) new seeker "search and research" mechanic. The great part about Norman is that he has a natural synergy with search effects due to them shuffling your deck. This puts a new card on top to potentially play with his ability-- and if you upgrade into Seal of the Elder Sign, you can actually do some fun things like throw your Deduction back into your deck to find with another Practice Makes Perfect or shuffling back your Astounding Revelation.

Mr. "Rook" and Astounding Revelation could grab me what i need at the time. Generally I'd want to have some way to deal with Vengeful Hound before going too deep with Rook. Otherwise grabbing a Practice Makes Perfect or Hawk-Eye Folding Camera to help set up are the best finds. A note: taking Deduction or Enraptured is not quite as good as it seems unless you're desperate. The reason for this is Practice Makes Perfect.

Practice Makes Perfect puts a lot of work in if you can manage to find your deduction and (successfully) get clues. It essentially gets more mileage out of your Deduction, Enraptured and Perception.

Eureka! had provided more consistent draw, but rarely helped trigger the astounding revelations early-on, so I dropped them when upgrading into Dayana Esperence later.

Persuasion had been tech I wanted to use through TCU to see how it held up. With Norman's naturally high and assistance from Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and Perception, he's able to talk down some pretty spooky things. From Coven Initiate to Keeper of Secrets, this card came in handy. This could easily be swapped for something more optimal like Crack the Case or Shortcut, but I wanted to see how it would fare.

Mind's Eye essentially functions as an infinite Mind over Matter with HUGE benefits. With one or two Hawk-Eye Folding Camera out, Norman is at 5-6 will and can reliably shake any or test. Some examples of encounter cards this has completely negated are Trapped Spirits and Twilight Abyss.

Dayana Esperence with a Ward of Protection, Read the Signs or Spectral Razor on her is where this build becomes fully efficient. Ward obviously dealing with a ton of awful encounter cards like Fate of All Fools, Watcher's Grasp or Daemonic Piping, Read the Signs busting through high-shroud locations and negating haunting abilities and Spectral Razor being an all-star at mowing down Vengeful Hound and even tougher enemies like Malevolent Spirit.

Spectral Razor is one of the best recent cards to come out for combat support, and they definitely helped supplement "I've got a plan!" early-on when Agnes would need to set up.

If I could've changed anything about my initial build, it probably would have been to go with two Read the Signs, a single Spectral Razor by dropping the initial Prophesy and finding space for an additional Astounding Revelation-- I only put 2 in to start. I wasn't certain on correct "practiced" density, but found 6 to eventually be enough. I also wasn't keen on getting swamped with enemies while Agnes was building up. Had there been a dedicated I would feel more comfortable with going full clues, but I know is vulnerable early on when getting set up. Eager to continue adding to the strategy as we progress through the campaign!