Puschkin

Okay, but you don't really make use of the Witches mana cost reducing ability if you play single, not-reuseable spells on the opponent. It could have been a Charcoal Diamond and you'd get the same result. What about retrace then? Or Flashback? Recover? Something like this that can be cast repeateadly. Let's see:
- Syphon Life
- Pulse of the Dross

... damn, that's it! Modern sucks :)

Accused Witch is a funny card and makes great casual decks, however, I would couple her with BUYBACK! Brush with Death, Mind Peel, Fanning the Flames, Seering Touch ... but those aren't Modern.

That would be redundant to Pestilence. And it would be, like, a 5-card-combo. Remember, whenever you "throw something in", you also have to cut something.

Okay, usually combat damage has to be assigned to a player to trigger the effect, so this part of my critique isn't valid.

Hm? Gifts Ungiven IS Modern legal! It isn't budget, though.
What you probably mean is Intuition - that would be great here but isn't modern legal. Well, and it isn't budget either ...

You have way too few creatures considering what you try to achieve! There is also a hole in your mana curve (no creature with casting cost 3) which is why I recommend something like Tunneling Geopede or Guttersnipe.

* Ugh? This is rarely going to work ... Living Lore is your only creature and as you said yourself it has to deal combat damage to do it's trick. It may be huge but it lacks trample, so it can be blocked by anything while the other creatures the opponent has are still bashing your head in. Also, since it is the only creature, the opponent's creature removal spells will accumulate in his hand. A single Terminate, Path to Exile, Oblivion Ring or whatever will ruin your day. Graveyardhate ALSO ruins you, which might not be that much of a problem in FNM, then again more and more decks use their graveyards as a resource each year so I wouldn't count on that.

* I also question the inclusion of Skin Invasion - it does nothing until you kill the enchanted creature and this deck has ... wait, let me count ... well, not counting the Ultimatums because they will hit play either way too late or never, you have exactly ONE spells that kill creatures! Skin Invasion should be another creature that supports your theme like:
- Aberrant Researcher
- Academy Elite
- Magnivore
- Spellheart Chimera
- Spellbound Dragon
The former help you setting up, the latter are a threat by themselves that the opponent needs to deal with (so creature removal is spent) and Spellbound Dragon is both.

* From under the Floorboards: I doubt you will have enouogh extra mana to pay for the madness because all your ways to discard this cost mana on their own. Your best shot is Faithless Looting, but you want to cast your discard spells early on, which is where you don't have any access mana (and you need at le very least 3 additional mana!). And I doubt you would cast him via Living Lore because there are better targets. So your plan is to cast it regularily? If you want something useful with madness I suggest something with low madness cost that helps you survive:
- Dark Withering
- Fiery Temper
- Alms of the Vein

* Counterspells:
Will you have the mana to play them? Think Twice is your only other spell you can cast outside your turn. I think you will (have to) tap out each turn to either set up or to defend yourself. You will need counterspells later on to protect your Living Lore, however, by that time your opponent has enough mana himself, so Mana Leak will most likely not work!

That's what everybody else does, I prefer it black/white. But it's your deck of course^^
I'll just warn you, if you go white/red, the deck will slowly shift to something completely else and before you know it, no En-Kors except maybe the Shaman are left. But if you do - don't forget Boros Reckoner.

Nice to see some good old En-Kor action. You already figured out all the good combos yourself. There is a bit room for improvement, though. On the one hand you have a few redundant spells, I don't think you need 14 En-Kors since a single one is needed in play to do the trick, so there is some room. On the other and there are few things you can't handle:
- Tramplers. With trample you only need to assign as much to a blocking creature as you would theoretically need to kill it, the rest can be applied to the face. For this reason I would be hestitant to remove Souls of the Faultless.
- As has been mentioned anyhing that give -X/-X. This includes the abilities Wither and Infect.
- Flyers. While not a problem per se, you just don't have any and therefore won't be able to block and redirect.
- Direct damage to your face from any source (most likely instants and sorceries aka "burn" but there are also things like Black Vise, Stormbind etc.)
- You have no removal whatsoever. It's not just that you lack artifact and enchantment killers like so many decks here on Vault (even though every second deck prooves you absolutely need it, this deck being no exception), it's also because there are tons of creatures out there that are problematic for other things than regular combat damage (annihilator from eldrazis for example) or attacking at all (something like Seedborn Muse). And planeswalkers. Don't forget about those!
- While Pestilence is great in this I still think it isn't optimal, mainly for it's mana requirements. It's not only double-black, it also requires black to pump.

Here are some ideas:
* Removal is the easy part because black/white decks have access to the best spot removal in the game, it's just a question of how much money you throw at it. Vindicate is probably what you want and something like Utter End what you can afford :)

* There are no flyers with rediction capabilities, however, why redirect if you can suck up all damage? May I introduce to you: Dawn Elemental. It needs 4 white, though, but we have to get rid of the double-black cards anyway.

* I highly recommend redirection effects in the form of instants! My favourite would be Simulacrum. This has several advantages:
- The opponent doesn't see it coming and might run into his ruin
- You are not dependant on having redirectors in play
- You can use it on any damage you receive, not just combat damage
- After you played the first one the opponent will be very hesitant to deal any further damage to you
Simulacrum should replace some of the redundant En-Kors

* Wall of Souls instead of Souls of the Faultless to get rid of any double-black

* It's not easy to replace Pestilence when you exclude everything with more than one black mana. Best I can come up with is Time Bomb.

* Alternatively you could also add a few Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, to end all black mana problems.

Redirecting damage doesn't change the source. So, if you redirect damage from a red creature to a proto-red dude, then that damage will be prevented. BTW, combat damage will still combat damage after redirection, damage that was unpreventable (such as damage from a a kickered Uraz's Rage) remains unpreventable, redirected damage from an Incinerate prevents regeneration and so on.

BasilicaNero is correct. According to current rules the loop ends when the opponent received lethal damage because he will die as a state based effect. Padfoot would have been right in 199X when the game only checked for player's deaths between phases (back then you could have negative life as long as you were up in the positives by the end of the step, which allowed the combo-kill of the first true combo deck, "ProsperBloom", as well as the combo-kill via Mirror Universe + City of Brass).

I never cancel subscription to my own decks, so, yes, I still check this. I will check out your deck. Please give this deck/thread a like so that other players have it easier finding their way to this. Sad but true, this "deck" has a mere 17 likes even though I already helped out dozens of players.

I was under the impression that this deck is meant for casual. This assumes longer games and slower starts. While that doesn't justify a manabase like this it does allow you to play something like the Alchemist. Street Wraith, however, looks out of place here. As you said you are not suppose to play it, you want to cycle it. But this isn't a combo deck or tight tempo deck that reallly benefits of of having 56 cards. Moreover I doubt you can afford to pay that life!

Isn't that nice? Win-Win :)

Nice! I see a few problems, though:

* Most importantly: The mana base. You probably wanted to keep the price tag of the deck down in order to get noticed, however, in this case I don't think it'll work out. The Palace requires double-black and Oriss double-white, I just don't see this happening. Statistically speaking you'll have that in play after drawing 15 cards, which would be about turn 8 ... you absolutely need some duallands or other mana fixers. Come on, you don't have anything productive to do on turn 1, you can afford to run some of the cheaper duallands that come into play tapped. Temple of Silence is a good pick, the Scry helps you finding combo pieces and it is down to about 1.5 dollars!

* Most decks run instant creature removal and you have no way to stop that. Sure, you have ways to get Oriss back, however, all your opponent needs to do is killing Oriss in response to you using it. You may get it back during your turn but if you replay it, it will have summoning sickness and can't be used for a full turn. I recommend something like Lightning Greaves. It not only protects Oriss from most spot removal spells (creature removal instants are typically targetted spells), it also gives Oriss haste, so should you need to replay one, you can use it right away!

* This is again a deck that runs no removal whatsoever! You can't possible think that your opponent won't resolve a single spell ... something WILL enter play. And there are creatures out there that don't need to attack to be dangerous, same is true for enchantments, artifacts and planeswalkers. And let's not forget lands! Lands aren't stopped by your combo at all. This depends on your meta of course, in my meta man-lands are a common sight. But in either way I would add something like Vindicate, obviously something cheaper than thatm money wise. Utter End, Anguished Unmaking, something like that.

* IF you ever get rid of the budget restrictions and for some reason add fecthlands ... then you could replace some of the Raise Deads and/or Macabre Waltz with Grim Discovery.

And here a great suggestion:
* Both Oriss and Grand Abolisher happen to be clerics. I would add Battletide Alchemist, probably instead of the Street Wraiths ... with those you get a lot less damage and aren't hellbent anymore to stop the opponent attacking every turn! Together with Oriss' other ability these creatures alone should be a hard nut to crack!

You should have graveyardhate yourself (sideboard), otherwise you might end up in situations where casting Living End would kill you or at least prevent you from winning if something pops out of the grave you can't get past.

Also solid but I have enough 2-mana-walls and the one I have produce more mana.

Yeah, ok.
Why the Hedron Crab then? Should be something like Spellskite to protect the Painter.

You just have to know where to look^^

No, Summer Bloom is indeed banned in Modern. Strange things happen^^