So it seemed I had enough cards laying around to build a deck around the newly spoiled hypnotoad.

wat dis deck doo?

Gitrog Monsters' abilty reads "whenever one or more lands cards are put into your graveyard from ANYWHERE, draw a card.

This means that if you discard or dredge a land you get to draw a card. So you're trying to abuse this as much as possible by playing some discard outlets and all good dredge cards. This way you can comb through the entire deck.

Gitrog makes you sacrifice a land each turn, so we are trying to play as many lands as we can, by running many lands and all the effects to play extra land. As an added bonus this gives us plenty of mana.

Why play the Hypnotoad

The EDH community just exploded with excitement when this card was spoiled. And so did my pants. This card really is asking to be abused. There are so many delightful ways to use his abilities.

I've been playing life from the loam in most of my EDH decks. And I love graveyard strategies. I've tried to play janky Haakon-loam in Modern. Until I realized I needed two more damnation and 4 lillianas'.

This is the first commander to really make dredge work.

Pros

Land drops!

One of the great things about playing a land based deck is that you can run plenty of lands with out getting flooded. It also gives you the chance to run many utility lands.

Combo!

Dredge a card, spot a land, get a draw trigger, discard a dredge card, replace draw trigger, dredge a card. repeat.

resilient

you drop so many lands that you can hopefully keep playing your commander. dredge and retrace combine nicely and provide plenty of recursion.

Black/Green

the best tutors, ramp, recursion and the second best card draw in EDH. All in two easy colours.

All Hail the Hypnotoad

memes, memes, memes

cons

glass cannon

Gitrog Monster is on the expensive side for a commander with out evasion or protection. And will become hard to cast over and over again if it draws hate.

build around

lots of cards in this deck get a lot worse when you don't have access to your commander

No blue!

The best colour in EDH is missing.

compared to other commanders

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord.

probably the best BG commander. A strong midrange deck with a solid combo finish. True and tested and probably stronger than this. But is ultimatly a very different deck. And one that just appeals less to me. And there's already a great primer on him by razzliox.

Meren of clan nel-toth

A grindy recursion deck that keeps playing fleshbag marauder. I've also been playing with this. It does stax and grindy games quite well. But i was always dissitified with the many high CMC creatures it needed combined with a low land count. Gitrog runs 39 lands and an avarage CMC of 2.33 or something. pretty insane.

Why are you not playing X?

Necropotence

the best black card draw spell since, well, necro-summer. Unfortunately this cards nonbos too hard with all my discard effects.

Crucible of Worlds

I do not have the expendable income to buy it. I was dumb enough to trade the one I had away once.

wasteland

hopefully when eternal masters comes out.

Why are you playing Y?

individual card choices explained and cool interactions.

Gaia's blessing.

This card can be a curse when you hit it if you are just trying to set up a dredge chain. But a blessing when you are chaining towards the bottom of your library. If you are careful and have plenty of time you can potentially chain dredgers into sculpting the perfect hand during your discard step. You can also Entomb this card into your graveyard as a response to graveyard hate. I'm running this over the Eldrazi spells because I can actually cast it turn two to replace itslef in not needed.

Zuran Orb

I saw this card in another list and been really wondering if it is worth it. Until I realized this is great insurance against Armageddon effects at it's best and a decent card draw at worst. Sometimes you even just need 2 lives.

Cards to Consider and upgrades

Deathcloud, Pox, Smokestack.

Could turn this deck more towards Stax. But i'm afraid it might hinder the combo potential of the deck.

Mox diamond

this card is really good normally, but broken in this deck.

petrified field

draw a card and get a cabal coffer or strip mine back. it's just another loam/crucible. but one that also synergies extra with the commander