Turns out,
Grenahenand
Crafty Occultist are pretty good cards.
Know When to Hold 'em and
Krull, Xumuc Occultist are also great in these factions. So if we start with those cards in a deck, what’s something fun we can do that hasn’t been done already? Play
At Any Cost!
Grand Builder and Prized Sow are here to help build shadow influence quickly, and
Acantha Ascending can take advantage of that when you’re not playing
At Any Cost.
Forbidden Research might be incorrect here, since double primal is sometimes hard and we often don’t need it for the additional shadow influence.
Whispering Wind might actually work better.
Update: hit masters with this exact list. Acantha has been super effective, and AAC works great as a finisher. Moldermuck was by far my most common first market card. I never had issues with amassing shadow influence, but there definitely were games where I couldn’t find enough primal influence. Crafty and Forbidden Research were best used for late game digging for AAC.
4 Seek Power would be the easy fix that I really really want to do but it doesn't fit the deck. Vara's Favor would be my favorite choice if the problem would be to acquire shadow influence which it isn't. Vows feel risky, I'm trying a Feln Vow just to get lucky on PP early enough. Maybe trying Veteran Strategist over Grand Builder since this feels so short on Power and keen on double spelling that a unit on 4 doesn't feel too good most of the time. Will include Whispering Wind at some point hopefully and see how that works out I like your idea.
Let me know how it works out if you decide to try it.