This is my current version of screaming
West-Wind Herald, based on
Good News Bruh (Turn 3 Aid of the Hooru) but with some changes. The deck is way more consistent than you might expect for a combo deck, as there is a lot of redundancy.
The biggest change is the newest Promo card,
Injustice, which is excellent for this deck as a way to self-mill 4 cards while also putting power or
Haunting Scream on top of your deck. It even works nicely with
Darkwater Vines which mills from the bottom of your deck, leaving the top card in place.
You either win with
West-Wind Herald playing big spells from your void, or summon
Katra, The First Seal from your void and use her as a giant life-gaining unit that also ramps you enough that you can often play
Aid of the Hooru from hand. Or just hit the enemy twice with Katra and they will usually die.
Lethrai Marauder and
Blight Pass Smuggler are your primary ways to deal with problematic enemy cards, like flying blockers or
Adjudicator's Gavel. Marauder can also be used on turn 2 to play an elf, and then bargain
Lethrai Dead Drop on turn 3.
When mulliganing, you want as much self-mill as possible, and ideally also some way to play a unit from your void.
Injustice basically makes any opening hand great.
Darkwater Vines
x4
1
Gustrider
x1
1
Injustice
x4
2
Lethrai Marauder
x4
2
Privilege of Rank
x4
2
Re-read
x3
2
Sporefolk
x4
3
Blight Pass Smuggler
x2
3
Bone Music
x2
3
Haunting Scream
x4
4
A Life For A Life
x4
4
Katra, The First Seal
x4
5
West-Wind Herald
x4
6
Scrapfind Skimmer
x1
12
Aid of the Hooru
x4
24
The Witching Hour
x1
Justice Sigil
x4
Chairman's Contract
x4
Crest of Cunning
x4
Feln Banner
x4
Feln Painting
x4
Hooru Banner
x1
Xultan Conclave
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
Combrei = die (too many void and hand hate)
Aggro = die
Any air = near die
Good timed spell interuption = die
Hand disruption = near die (just re-read helps)
Not perfect draw = die to everyone
Like really, what are good matchups? It seems like the only good matchup is perfect draw tbh.
Flying units are only a problem if they choose to not attack, and you can still sometimes get past them if you have removal. Some Valkyrie decks can play a flying unit every turn, but that is not too common.
I find that Aggro is often a good matchup, as both West-Wind Herald and Katra can stabilize the board thanks to life-gain or big blockers. Control decks like Hooru or Combrei relics are pretty good matchups since West-Wind Herald has aegis and scream gives charge. Many midrange decks are too slow to kill you, giving you time to draw into a combo.
Also as you point out, sometimes you just get the perfect draw and that beats pretty much everything.
I like the addition of the 5th big spell, I've often felt like it just needed a bit more consistency in getting that type of payoff in the void. Witching hour certainly seems like the best non-aid spell for this deck to cheat on. I also like upping re-read, now that we have injustice, it previously felt like it would get stuck in hand often, which pushed the number down to 2. But now even more so with a relevant mill spell in the deck. It also has access to bone music here, which I suppose does something similar for re-read. The full set of Privileges is also probably correct.
I'm curious how good Bone music is in the deck, I never considered it here. I feel like I'm not sold on the market. I agree that sometimes the deck needs more interaction that also doesn't remove synergy from the deck, I've always looked towards collapse as maybe being a better fit.
Cuts need to be made somewhere, of course, but I'm surprised gustrider is in here in such low numbers. Skimmer also being something I want a lot of when I play the deck, but less suprising to the gustrider.
Bone Music has been decent, as it is another way to discard from hand and the units are relevant against both aggro and control. Bone Music is still plan C though, and I would rather play West-Wind Herald or Katra if possible. Merchant has also been fine as a situational piece of interaction, but I could definitely see playing collapse instead.
I should probably play more copies of Gustrider, but I have had too many games where it is hard to get the onslaught early. At one point I was trying a version with time influence and Gravitur Trainee was a great 1-cost discard effect. I think that Steyer's Eyes can fill a similar role.