Be Gone
x4
1
Call the Ancients
x4
1
Dark Return
x4
1
Envelop
x4
1
Ornamental Daggers
x4
1
Permafrost
x4
1
Sabotage
x4
1
Shakedown
x4
1
Suffocate
x4
1
Unstable Form
x4
2
Torgov's Trading Post
x4
2
Whispering Wind
x4
Primal Sigil
x4
Shadow Sigil
x3
Time Sigil
x4
Diplomatic Seal
x4
Seat of Cunning
x4
Seat of Mystery
x4
Seat of Wisdom
x4
View Deck on Shiftstoned
One change I do really like is adding one single 3+ drop. This gives you the option to toss a 2 drop with Wind (which has been pretty relevant) and it gives you a single card that you can easily get when needed. You get stuck on 3-4 power a lot so it should be cheap. The obvious choice (to me) is a Merchant, I'm using a Jennev Merchant with Equivocate, Gift of Battle, Cliffside Porter, Crystallize, and Pitfall Trap. I'm not super sold on that market (I think I want Haunting Scream), but I do like the Pitfall Trap and Cliffside Porter a lot. Porter is great for more Wind fodder, when you're out of cards you can easily grab a Merchant then Porter for some more Ancients or whatever. Pitfall Trap is just great when it goes off, but this deck doesn't have a lot of units for it. The other cards are theoretically useful but I haven't grabbed them much.
I think there might be a version of this deck that uses a bunch of units and Pitfall Trap to be more aggressive. Nightfall has been really nice because the raw number of cards in hand is pretty important for this deck (don't cut any Echo cards), so something with Gloaming Wisp. I added 4 Slow instead of 2 Envelop. a Permafrost and a Power. I took out another power for Jennev Merchant. I don't think this deck needs more than 25 power.
Though I haven't tried it, I would advise against putting in haunting scream maindeck (though it does sound great in market): I was trying a version with a self-mill subtheme to "draw" cards, running last chances and sporefolk, and I found I just drew the sporefolk instead of cards I wanted way too often. You could put in some amount of copies of last chance as an additional way to recur answered whispering winds though if you find people are able to remove them too often: I didn't want to put in too many cards I couldn't use to stall but there is a real value proposition there.
I'm running the extra power after a couple of games where I just had trouble drawing my influence, but I've played a version with 25 that was mostly fine so it's possible I was overcorrecting. I originally had -2 sigils -1 sabo +3 slow, and though I felt like I got some value out of the slow, my aim with hand disruption ended up mostly being to ensure whispering wind survives, and with cards like torch, anni. and hideout pistol, slow wasn't stopping the cards I was scared about. That said, decks playing a lot of those are already a miserable matchup for you, so I could see slow potentially being good in your more winnable matchups.
While I was making the deck in the first place, I tried a version with pitfall trap maindeck, but came to the same conclusion as you about unit count. Maybe a version with porters instead of or as well as the daggers maindeck (since they are only there to be discard food anyway) could get away with pitfall trap, and now that you've mentioned porters I might give that a shot because the games I lose tend to be ones where I can't find the key cards so cycle would be appreciated.
Something that might be worth trying is frostwave instead of crystallize in market since it can also be a cheap way to protect your posts/self as well as being a pseudo crystallize against small boards, and I don't think you want to play power past 4ish anyway. For similar reason about power I'm skeptical of chalice, especially since you only have whispering winds and the merchant as targets. Keep in mind power is also a fine discard target for winds: discarding 1 drops will draw you combo pieces, discarding power will usually draw you interaction (at least until you have way too many titans in your deck). Equiv, porter, pitfall trap, and haunting scream market all make perfect sense to me.
I'm going to try a version with a merchant now, thanks for taking the time to try out the deck and leaving such a detailed comment!
I thought about Last Chance too, but I don't think there's really room for it, and it sucks to discard to Wind because you can get 1 drops. Getting 1 drops isn't awful but it's definitely not ideal. Self mill seems interesting with the deck but I'd agree that the specific cards we have for it don't really work.
You'll definitely have games where you miss Influence, even in this deck which has some of the easiest influence imaginable. The curve stops at 2 and you always get 2 power, so you really don't need more than 25. I think that's one of the strengths of this strategy actually. I also think the deck can afford to run more Sigils, some Crests, and maybe Standards since the curve is so low.
I ended up not running Slow for similar reasons, although I did really like the interaction with Envelop and Be Gone. But I ended up cutting those cards for some units and Pitfall trap and making some other changes.
I'm running 4 Gloaming Wisp, 4 Entrancer, 3 Cliffside Porter and 1 Elysian Merchant for the units. This seems like a pretty good number for Pitfall Trap. I would like a few more but I'm not sure if any of the current other 1 drops are worth it. The Daggers have been pretty nice with all the random cheap units, I wouldn't cut them. The Porters have been really nice, I'd definitely recommend adding them.
I haven't tried it but running a Deadly unit might be worth trying, probably Pathlighter. Fallen Oni also seems interesting but it's probably not worth.
I switched to the Elysian Merchant for Xenan Obelisk and Disjunction. Obelisk has been pretty nice but Disjunction hasn't seemed that useful. Chalice might be better than Obelisk but it kind of stops being useful after a while with the Ancients. Although if you're drawing a lot of ancients you probably win anyway.
Frostwave is something I considered initially, and after playing a bunch of games with my version I agree that it's probably better than Crystallize. I ended up moving Pitfall Trap to the main deck because I needed a black market and having multiple Traps is great. This is my current version but I would like to try one with Jennev Merchant and Chalice/Porter in the Market:
4 Call the Ancients (Set1 #350)
3 Cliffside Porter (Set1001 #7)
4 Dark Return (Set1 #250)
4 Entrancer (Set4 #51)
4 Gloaming Wisp (Set3 #55)
4 Ornamental Daggers (Set1 #69)
4 Permafrost (Set1 #193)
4 Pitfall Trap (Set5 #116)
4 Shakedown (Set1004 #18)
3 Suffocate (Set1 #251)
3 Unstable Form (Set1 #189)
4 Torgov's Trading Post (Set5 #203)
4 Whispering Wind (Set1 #202)
1 Great Valley Smuggler (Set5 #204)
5 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)
5 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)
3 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)
4 Seat of Wisdom (Set0 #63)
2 Seat of Mystery (Set0 #61)
2 Seat of Cunning (Set0 #62)
4 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)
--------------MARKET---------------
1 Disjunction (Set3 #63)
1 Equivocate (Set1003 #21)
1 Haunting Scream (Set1 #374)
1 Xenan Obelisk (Set1 #103)
1 Crystallize (Set1 #232)
And here's a version with 4 Merchants and Chalice that I'm about to test:
4 Call the Ancients (Set1 #350)
4 Cliffside Porter (Set1001 #7)
4 Dark Return (Set1 #250)
4 Entrancer (Set4 #51)
4 Gloaming Wisp (Set3 #55)
2 Ornamental Daggers (Set1 #69)
4 Permafrost (Set1 #193)
4 Pitfall Trap (Set5 #116)
4 Shakedown (Set1004 #18)
3 Suffocate (Set1 #251)
3 Unstable Form (Set1 #189)
3 Torgov's Trading Post (Set5 #203)
3 Whispering Wind (Set1 #202)
4 Jennev Merchant (Set4 #169)
5 Time Sigil (Set1 #63)
5 Primal Sigil (Set1 #187)
3 Shadow Sigil (Set1 #249)
4 Seat of Wisdom (Set0 #63)
2 Seat of Mystery (Set0 #61)
2 Seat of Cunning (Set0 #62)
4 Diplomatic Seal (Set1 #425)
--------------MARKET---------------
1 Equivocate (Set1003 #21)
1 Haunting Scream (Set1 #374)
1 Torgov's Trading Post (Set5 #203)
1 Whispering Wind (Set1 #202)
1 Crystalline Chalice (Set1 #359)