DedWards

First, we have to resign to the fact that A) this will never be a tier 1 deck; and B) we're very weak to enchantment removal.

With that out of the way, I think we can MAKE this work. Our key cards, imo, would be the following:

Curse of Misfortunes - effectively free curses, thou limited to Curses not already on the opponent.
Accursed Witch - Makes the Curses (and Paradox hase) cost less and drains 1 life an upkeep.
Bitterheart Witch - Yet another 'free' Curse.
Languish - Helps kill off the opponent's creatures and your own Witches. Damnation would be better, but it's so dam expensive $ wise.
Wayfarer's Bauble - Mana acceleration and colour fixing.
Paradox Haze - Multiple upkeeps means multiple Curse triggers.

We want 3-4 of each of the above, but mostly because of Curse of Misfortunes, we don't relly need 4 of the rest of the curses. I suggest we keep to curses that damage the opponent as much as possible, with keeping any utility curses; like Curse of Death's Hold; to 1 of's. My choices would be:

1-2 Curse of Bloodletting
1-2 Curse of Death's Hold
4 Curse of the Pierced Heart - too cheap and too good with the other enchanments not to run 4 of.
1-2 Curse of Thirst
1 Curse of Echoes

I also just realised that with so few creatures, Hearless summoning becomes less useful. So maybe one set of Desperate Ritual as you can Splice a second onto the first, allowing for more acceleration. You won't be able to Splice very often, but just having the option makes it better than Pyretic Ritual. The Rituals only making Red mana is making me want to include Manamorphose for colour fixing.

As I've stated already, I personally use Mizzium Mortars in Bonfire's slot. I've found it to be more reliable.

Surgical Is a strong card, but I'm not sure it's absolutely necessary here, or at least not in my build.

I currently don't have Choke, so I haven't had a chance to test it. I think the best matchup it'd come in against is Fish. Land a Moon and Choke and their mana is screwed. I'd also side in two Ancient Grudge to get rid of Æther Vial.

Sucks that Accursed Witch and Bitterheart Witch are Shamans. If they where Wizards, Stonybrook Banneret could have help by making them cost {1} less. The Banneret that makes Shamans cost {1} less is Bosk Banneret, and that's green :/

Next best cost reduction I can think of in colour is Heartless Summoning. In addition to making the witches cost {2} less, it lowers their toughness, making them die easier, which triggers their abilities.

Another way to get around their high cmc's is to play red Rituals, specifically Pyretic Ritual and / or Desperate Ritual.

You could even use my personal favourite artifact land searcher: Wayfarer's Bauble. I've run both Heartless summoning and Wayfarer's Bauble in the same deck before and, while not as good as Heartless Summoning, the Bauble effectivly allows you to cast the high cmc stuff a turn earlier (as apposed to the Summoning's 2 turns earlier). It also helps with mana fixing :p

Stormbreath's prot' white makes Path to exile useless on it; its cmc makes Abrupt Decay useless; and it's p/t makes a single Lightning Bolt useless. Basically, it comes in against majority of the staple Modern removal.

Chandra's [+1] doesn't only ping mana dorks, it also helps your beasties to attack unblocked, which is especially useful for Goblin Dark-Dwellers as it has Menace; and Inferno Titan as its attack effect will ping most of the smaller stuff before blockers can be declared.

Maybe when I get back from WMCQ this September, if I remember to then. It's what I plan on playing and I don't want my list to get out just yet.

Paradox Haze, wile blue, speeds up the effect of all the curses

I only run one Fracturing Gust in my sideboard for that very reason.

I've found that a lot of the time, even if I only targeted his threat with Beast Within, the 3/3 left over, while less of a threat, has still been a problem in some matchups. Beast Within followed up by a Mizzium Mortars (which I'm using instead of Bonfire of the Damned) feels counter productive as I'm wasting two cards to get rid of one. Modern is full of cheap removal (Path to Exile), so even with a Moon out, there are a lot of matchups where they manage to remove my big beasties, making the token a problem. Just my experience with the version of this deck that I've been testing.

That's exactly why I run Stone over Molten. That {R}{R} is very limiting.

I ran mono black exalted in Standard when black exalted creatures where printed (for about a month), and I found Ring of Xathrid to be very useful. Lashwrithe could potentially be better than the ring, especially if equipped to Vampire Nighthawk, since you get a big boost immediately, rather than waiting for the upkeep to get a +1/+1 counter.

I understand what you're saying, fully, and if I where to try be serious here, I'd have shifted closer to landfall centric stuff, dropping Natural Affinity and Liege of the Tangle in favour of some stuff like Jaddi Offshoot and / or Retreat to Kazandu.
OR splash red for Omnath, Locus of Rage and Zendikar's Roil (and maybe Grove Rumbler).
OR, for a more aggro route, drop almost everything for Scythe Leopard; Undergrowth Champion; Makindi Sliderunner; Plated Geopede; and Grove Rumbler.

Going landfall themed would also run a bunch of fetch lands to get multiple triggers off in a turn.

BUT, that's only if I wanted to be serious here. (and I may eventually build that Omnath based one, I do have 3 of the card)


I tag things with "Fun" when they're not meant to be serious / tournament worthy; but more for the fun of it (hence "Fun"), ie: decks not intended to win all the time, but have fun doing what they do. In fact, some of my "Fun" decks have gone on to be (low tier) serious decks, one in particular is my Korlash, Heir to Blackblade deck (which I still need to update here).

I'm actually testing a similar deck at the moment. I've found that, while Fracturing Gust is awesome against robots / Affinity, there's one big down side to it: it destroys Utopia Sprawl.

Mainboard, I'm personally not found of Beast Within. Most games I've drawn it, the beast token was a bit of a threat when Beast Within was played too early (mostly to destroy a land during the opponent's upkeep).

Lastly, do you know why this deck runs Stone Rain over Molten Rain? I know why I don't run Molten Rain, just curious to hear why you don't.

It's obvious we don't see eye to eye here. Could you please explain what you mean by "the mana curve isn t usefull to the modern"?

I don't see a problem with the mana curve, this is a land ramp deck after all.

Natural Affinity only temporarily animates the lands, and why would I animate during the opponent's turn? I'd rather do it in my turn so I can attack (Pyroclasm and it's kind are sorceries). Also, it animates the opponent's lands too, so Pyroclasm would kill their lands too, something most players don't want to do.

Advocate and Embodiment are not the be all of the deck, they merely make it better.

Did you read the tags? This is just for "Fun". The only reason I put the "Modern" tag is to show I don't want to use older cards.

Managed to find a local site with 3x Inferno Titan and another with 3x Obstinate Baloth. Looks like I won't be needing to substitute these, like I feared I would. I had to look locally because I couldn't risk an order not getting here in time for WMCQ.

Also, I'm thinking of dropping a Magus for the third Titan; and I'm not sure about Beast Within leaving behind a 3/3 Beast, so I'm considering dropping them and bringing Stone Rain up to 4x

Wouldn't it be easier to kill the frogs with red? Red has a lot of low mana cards that deal damage to each creature, like Electrickery; and Pyroclasm. You could even curve out into Inferno Titan, which deals 3 damage, divided as you choose, for entering the battlefield and attacking. Frigging even makes Chandra Pyromaster's [+1] awesome. Frigging also turns pingers, like Thermo-Alchemist; Gelectrode; Prodigal Pyromancer; and Prodigal Sorcerer, into killing machines.

Turn to Frog is a perfect candidate for Isochron Scepter.

There's a reason I didn't mention the other three:
Swan Song on yourself seems a little counter productive as you need to cast another spell and then it does nothing.
Lumbering falls costs 4 mana to activate, making Polymorph effectively cost 8 mana.
Treetop Village effectively makes Polymorph cost 6 mana, which is only slightly better than Lumbering Falls.

Dryad Arbor? Misty Rainforest can search for it.

Also, you don't seem to have many token production, just two Nissa; and 4 Khalni Garden. Is that enough?

A set of Evolving Wilds / Terramorphic Expanse would help with mana fixing; and thin out the deck of lands so that you can draw less of them. I would suggest Scalding Tarn, but you mentioned that you want to keep it budget, so Evolving Wilds / Terramorphic Expanse is the next best thing.

Kinsbaile Cavalier?

Also, why End Hostilities? Wrath of God / Day of Judgment cost one less mana. The only extra thing you're getting from End Hostilities is the odd chance to destroy Auras and Equipment /IF/ they are attached to the dying creatures.