Five Seeker Cards That You Should Give A Second Chance (Arkham Horror: The Card Game) 

I really enjoyed running Cryptographic Cipher in the Minh deck I took through my blind-run of Hemlock Vale. I almost always spent its secrets on additional investigations. I was able to get a little interaction with it out of Scavenging to reload it and more importantly Dream Diary: Dreams of an Explorer, which made that more difficult investigation less scary and even gave a bit of a boost in circumstances where I was able to raise a location from 3 Shroud to 4.

Unearth the Ancients(2) is an absolutely bonkers card that I put into every seeker deck if possible. It really shines in Mont. Jack especially, as he (practically) cannot use the "good" seeker economy cards of lvl 1. I usually use this card not as a starting economy, but as a mid-game draw boost. With enough setup, succeeding a investigation test of shroud 2~4 is easy, so I usually target Segment of Onyx and Eon Chart.(notably, both are relics) Shroud modification is a bonus. Yes, you can play Segment of Onyx fast, but holding onto them and playing via Unearth the Ancients is a free draw and resources so.. why not? Even if the seeker asset you target is not a relic, it still allows playing assets without losing any tempo(I'm sure Justin would love this part!). Of course, you can use this as a starting economy card if enough skill cards are drawn, like Survey the Area for Mont. Jack.

Unearth the ancients (2) can also act as shroud reduction. Use it to play a mag glass, commit a deduction and that high shroud location becomes a one shroud location for this test.

Otherworldly compass also trivialises Luke’s weakness.

This is a great theme of video, would love to see more of them

just to add to all of your great comments about Persuasion, I also like it a lot because (1) dealing with enemies not engaged with you can be powerful (aloof or engaged with someone else) and (2) it can remove tokens (like doom) and attachments (like Zoey's weakness or some less common treacheries), and those aren't coming back! Snakes are a great choice of course as you say, but also something like a Mindless Dancer where it spawning far away from you on a future turn is also sweet.

I can confirm that Cryptographic Cipher works well in Norman. Fun card.