First, some updates I made last night:
OUT: -2 Ogre Slumlord, -3 Abyssal Nocturnus
IN: +2 Night's Whisper, +3 Swamp
After doing some last minute testing last night, I discovered a few things. First, I discovered that I wasn't reliably getting to 5 or 6 mana very often. To cut back on this problem, I both cut one of my 5-drops (Ogre Slumlord) AND went up on land. This made my deck a little more consistent and able to get the cards I needed out on early turns.
Second, I found that Abyssal Nocturnus didn't generally advance my gameplan. With 8 cards (11 if you count Stabwhisker) getting value off my opponent discaring, I didn't need another 3-drop doing that just for some beats. I decided to take Nocturnus out (in favor of the aforementioned Swamps).
Third, I realized that the deck often ran out of gas. Although Waste Not and Barren Moor help this a little bit, I decided to go ahead and add in a couple of Night's Whispers to give me some extra gas when I needed it.
I think all of these choices helped me do as well as I did when I finally got to play real matches with the deck tonight at Lady Planeswalkers' Tribal Night! I went 1-1 (we did a Swiss structure but due to time only ended up with two rounds) and won exactly 50% of the games I played (I went 1-2, 2-1 and then also 1-1 if you count the practice matches before the Swiss). All in all I was SUPER happy with the deck, and feel I could probably make some changes to make it an actually viable Modern 8rack deck.
One of the best moments with this deck was Round 2 Game 1, I was playing against a white Humans deck. We had been swinging back and forth until I finally got the lethal combination of 3 Liliana's Caress and a Hypnotic Specter on board (she had no fliers to block the Specter with). On my last turn, she was at 5 and I effectively had lethal. But rather than go to attacks, I used my topdecked land to retrace a Raven's Crime from my graveyard, hitting her for a lethal 6 damage. It was a really satisfying (if somewhat troll-ish) way to end an awesome game.
