My negative battery lead is ground in my real circuit and it works, but if i switch positive for negative, it doesnt work.
In other words, only conventional flow works with this circuit.
It has nothing to do with conventional current flow Vs electron flow (as interesting a topic as that can be). It's rather that most semiconductors like LED and npn/pnp transistors are polarity sensitive devices, they only allow current to flow in one direction. By changing the polarity of your battery in your circuit none of the semiconductors will allow current to flow, they will all be said to be 'reversed biased'.
Lefty