trollking21

Standstill is amazing in merfolk. Aether vial + Standstill is a win normally. Also if your ahead on board or facing a combo deck standstill is brutal.
And about island walk your right, most legacy decks run in islands , if thy don't your plan is just to get your dudes larger then the opponents

Brainstorm is bad in this deck. With 0 shuffles brainstorm does very little for a deck. Without shuffles I think ponder would be a better card in the deck.
Also tolaria west is weak really, your better off just running another cavern/island
And finally I think phantasmal image over coral helm commander. Copying a lord is sweet and coral helm is slow anyway.

It's an intresting thing in order to stay true to theme and cool for flavor. But for just usability even in his deck lightning jolt is better as it requires no set up

I agree with kmk adding in a second combo doesn't do anything productive for the deck

Also nights whisper could be run instead of entomb as let's draw cards to combo off hopefully turn 3 just a. Different option for more consistency

Awaken the ancients is bad, like supringly bad. As a 5 cost 7/7 when it dies you lose a land and a spell. Also getting it azorious charmed is pretty much a game loss,(in standard). Madcap skills is also pretty bad against anything mid range or control, I they an get 2 cards off their 1 it's bad for you.
Dragon mantle is a little meh it's given but there might be something better you could play.
My thoughts would be
-4 awaken the ancients
-4 madcap skills
+2 hammer of purphoros
+4 rakdos cackler
+1 reckoner
+1 fanatic
Then I think that dragon mantle should be some creature you can cast off of burning tree. So
-4 dragon mantle
+4 fire fist striker

Lightning blog seems better then reckless abandon because of flexibility

Dark prophecy is bad, it only does something once you are already winning. I would add discard over that slot, either thoughtseize or cabal therapy. My favorite is therapy as it has more synergy with your deck. (Gravecrawler feeds it as well as after infinite myr's you can strip any ways to wipe te board with it.

While I understand the the synergy between putrid imp and infernal tutor it seems bad to go all in to get hellbent. Instead I would run entomb (each entomb is essentially another gravecrawler). The budget version of entomb is buried alive.

I really like broken decks keep it up dude.

His +1 is the best part. Occasionally you'll do other things with it. Also given how man creatures he plays and lets you play you do ultimate him.
Elvish mystic, gets a free Kalonian hydra

If your playing against any deck that deals with your threats then Garruk helps. He single handelely takes games over
Garruk is only bad if your opponent does nothing or your already way ahead, in which case it's fine because you win anyway

3 Garrick's over time to feed.
With 32 targets he'll draw you in average 2.6 cards and most decks can't beat that. With Garruk you don't need removal you just go bigger.
Then I would lose a forest and add 2 nykthos
So
-4x time to feed
-1 forest
2 nykthos
+3 Garruk caller if beasts

They problems with 3 leylines is that you either has to mull to it or just have (almost) dead cards. 3 gives you approximately a 30% chance to have it in your opener. 4 gives a roughly 40% chance. I'm familiar with leylines probibilties cause of legacy

In your sideboard you have 3 leylines.
Leylines is kind of a all or nothing card, 4 or 0
Rest of the deck looks good, I don't see anything wrong and I'm not familiar with modern (I play legacy instead) the only card that comes to mind is thalia

Strip mine isn't legal

I like it a lot it seems way better

Thragtusk offsets the damage you do to yourself

I love a good masochist they are more fun.
If you do use shocks and pain lands I would drop an armada wurm for a thragtusk

Brushland, battlefield forge and karplusan forest are called pain lands they are all cheap and will allow you to have untapped lands, they do however cost a life when to tap them for colored mana. With that said I would replace 4 of your lands with these pain lands. It will make you just a. Touch faster
Other then that I like the deck

Lol I'm in college doing political statistics all day every day. It just carries over to magic. I play this game as mental exercise if you want to play it differently that's fine. I enjoy optimization in deck building my most fun is having deck building work out flawlessly. That's why I play the game at all.

But do feel free to build a deck that can do cool things, there is a certain allure there as welll

Typically I agree the reason hunt master was good is because he never has to transform to be good.