Lush Green Beasts (Modern)

The deck has a low CMC and relies on casting cheap yet resilient creatures that can withstand some punishment and force the player to spend burn and removal spells in creatures which don't mean much like Elvish Warrior, Gloomwidow or even an Llanowar Elf.

There's a high mana redundancy, this serves to further deceive the opponent and make him try to remove the Elves instead of something else that you'll be casting later on.

Treetop Village, although enters tapped (which may slow your game) will allow for you to get a 3/3 Trampler that can only be hit by instant spells and works well with a kicked Vastwood.

The Gloomwidow is a great defender, even if it 'chumpblocks' it doesn't just die for the sake of not taking damage: it softens the creature up for another one to finish it off later. Combine it with Rancor for increased effectiveness.

Elvish Warrior, Leatherback Baloth and Awakener Druid are the body of the deck. They offer much more power for their actual cost, making the deck live up to its cost effectiveness theme. Playing the Awakener Druid does require some planning, though: dropping him with three lands is usually a mistake, it's better to wait for a fourth mana source and cast him turning one of your mana into a 4/5 that can hit the same turn the Druid is cast.

As a sidenote, the deck used to feature Scythe Tiger which is a 3/2 Shroud for one mana along with Groundskepper, but the combo proved itself unrealiable and I was mostly winning when the tiger didn't show up for a turn one drop.

Rancor is Rancor, it gives you power and trample. 6/5 creatures with trample are something no one would refuse to have, there used to be 4, but I rarely use more than 2 and they're seldom countered.

Vines of Vastwood is one of the best hexproof cards for modern: it's a hexproof for one, which is nice in itself in creature heavy decks like this one, but also allows you to kick it for versatility. Either pumping for a quick kill or as punishment for an attempt at instantly removing your creature during the combat phase.

Withstand Death is a good card against board cleaners like Supreme Verdict and other cards, it doesn't try to regenerate, it outrights makes the creature indestructible. I've also used it to kill creatures in a block without losing my, so there's that aspect of it as well.

Snake Umbra didn't use to be on the deck, it was just added as 'Garruk, Primal Hunter' was removed. I've won a couple games thanks to Garruk, sure, but it was mostly never being cast because other cheap creatures were taking priority in my strategy. It was mostly used to produce creatures and draw cards, obviously! I replaced it with with Snake Umbra which is, in my opinion, a great card and better costed for my strategy. For three mana you get +1/+1, draw a card when damage is dealt to player (which can work both as a game accelerator or as a "block this creature now" card) and removal resistance against damage/destruction (not exile).

Finally, Khalni Hydra is my idea of a game finisher. Out of all the other expensive creatures I could've put into the deck this made the cut because it gets cheaper for me to cast it as my game progresses. I've never cast it with 8 forest cards in play, I've always had Elves or other creatures on the board. This works with the theme and allows me to save mana to respond with Vines or Withstand Death in case they try to target it before it gets to attack.

For my sideboard, I've got 3 'Melira, Sylvok Outcast'. This is, of course, a measure against infect decks which are a thing in modern. My deck used to have 4 fogs to deal with infect: that worked sometimes, but never permanently. This tries to be a more permanent solution to this deck's problem against infect.

Elixir of Immortality helps with 2 things: mainly with mill decks, of course, but also with beatdown if you can draw it in your opening hand or in early turns of the game.

Ground Seals are a necessity against reanimator decks that feature cards like Iona or Elesh Norn. Iona could still be hardcast and end the game if I don't have enough presence, but the deck can usually kill the opponent before they have the chance to do that. There used to be only 2 copies of it, but that proved to be heavily unrealiable in the deck, so I bumped it up to three.

Plummet and Corrosive Gale deal with flyers, but in different ways. Plummet can target big effect creatures that have flying like Elesh, Griselbrand, Olivia or anything else. Corrosive Gale lets me wipe those pesky spirits that Lingering Souls brings to the board just at the right moment to deal the damage I need.

And then, Bramblecrush is a card for me to deal with anything other than a creature. It's 4 mana, and there are many other cards that deal with specific threats for much less mana and sometimes at better ranges. But 'Back to Nature' doesn't work well with my Rancors and Umbras and Crushing Vines can be more expensive than it needs to be to remove a flying creature or an artifact. Since I'm already running 22 mana and 4 Elves, I've decided to add Bramblecrush to deal with artifacts, enchantments, lands and even planeswalkers.