Key to our overall strategy, the Hypnotoad's minions can be classified thusly:
Creatures in this category fall into two subcategories:
Birds of Paradise: The Birds can tap for mana, and also offers the side benefit of a blocker with Flying
Deathrite Shaman: Playable turn 1, this guy is banned in some formats for a reason. Combining graveyard hate with mana production, life gain and drain, he's just an allstar
Lotus Cobra: Takes advantage of the Landfall mechanic to ramp you as you play lands each turn. Completely BONKERS with Splendid Reclamation!!!
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: Play 2 extra lands per turn. That's it. You don't need anything else. Stop being greedy
Oracle of Mul Daya: Play with the top card of your library revealed, with the ability to play revealed lands as though they were in your hand, again is pretty cool. Playing an extra land each turn is even better
Ramunap Excavator: Crucible on legs is a welcome addition to this deck. Why have one chance at this effect when you could have two?
World Shaper: A 3/3 for that dumps 3 cards into the 'Yard when it attacks, and brings all lands into play from your 'Yard when it dies. This is an auto-include!
Dredge is a key mechanic/strategy in this deck, allowing us to dig through our deck quickly, and draw cards off of Hypnotoad, which can become more dredges. These creatures are good in their own right, but really we're running them so they'll die and help you dig for combo pieces, or other things you'd like to recur.
Golgari Grave-Troll: A massive Dredge 6, and a potentially huge body if you need him to enter the red zone or act as sac fodder to Jarrad, Golgari Litch Lord
Golgari Thug: A respectable Dredge 4, our precious thug likes to put juicy critters on top of our library when he dies
Stinkweed Imp: With an impressive Dredge 5 and pseudo-deathtouch, this imp can do a lot of work as a chump blocker that just won't die (for long)
We draw cards when lands hit the graveyard, and so it is important to have as many ways as we can to pitch lands, or other cards we want in the graveyard, to the graveyard
Noose Constrictor: Pitching a card to pump the Choke Snek on demand is great. He can be a beater, a great defense against flyers thanks to Reach, or he can also allow for free discards and instant card draw.
Olivia's Dragoon: Much like the above Choke Snek, being able to pitch a card to pump on demand is great. Can be a better (Flying) beater, great defense against flyers, or can also allow for free discards and instant card draw.
Putrid Imp: This guy is here simply as a on demand discard outlet. Granting him flying so he can block in the early game (before Threshold activates), is just a bonus
Skirge Familiar: This is a KEY combo piece. Discard a card, make a . With Dakmor Salvage and The Gitrog Monster in play, you can discard Dakmor for mana, Dredge 2 instead of drawing from Hypnotoad's trigger, and then draw a card if a land is dredged into the graveyard. Repeat ad nauseam for infinite , and draw your entire deck, recycling every time Kozilek, Butcher of Truth hits the graveyard. You'll close out the game with a huge Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate
Sylvan Safekeeper: Sacrifice a land, grant Shroud to a creature, and draw a card when Hypnotoad is in play is all-win
Wild Mongrel: Pitch a card to pump and change colour on demand is great. Can be a beater, but can also allow for free discards and instant card draw
These are all creatures that are just potentially huge and threatening. Excellent if plan A of comboing off is thwarted
Centaur Vinecrasher: Hmmm a creature that comes into play with +1/+1 counters equal to the number of lands in all graveyards? Awesome! The ability to be returned to your hand for whenever a land hits your graveyard? Whoa, what?!? Yes, yes please! Trample is the icing on the cake here
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: 12/12 for , with Annihilator 4, AND draw 4 upon being cast? What's not to love? Most of the time Sir Kozi will just hang out in your library as a combo enabler, strictly for his graveyard reshuffling ability. He's pure win, no matter which way you look at him
With so many lands entering and leaving the battlefield everything, it's good to capitalize on it. Landfall effects just got a major boost from Splendid Reclamation and I am working a bit more of this effect into the deck because of it
Lotus Cobra: Makes you mana with its Landfall trigger, every time you play a land, ramping you quickly
These cards make a splash and solve problems when they arrive
Eternal Witness: Regrowth on legs, EDH staple, need I say more?
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: As stated before, if you choose to cast this Eldrazi Titan, he makes a huge splash!
Reclamation Sage: Destroy an artifact or enchantment when it ETBs makes this an EDH staple
Riftsweeper: A 2/2 elf that returns an exiled face-up card to our graveyard. Very important in case one of our combo pieces gets exiled. Repeatable with our various creature recursion tools
Here are you other creatures that offer either excellent synergy with the deck, or enable combos
Doom Whisperer: This newly printed-pretty is too amazing to pass up trying. Everything about this card screams synergy with what we want to be doing to win; whether finding your combo-piece, or just being a big flying threat
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord: This badass Elf-Lich can not only come back over and over by sacrificing lands (oh noes!), but he also allows you to close out the game with your huge creatures, even from behind something like Glacial Chasm. His favourite Sacrifice fodder being Centaur Vinecrasher
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: As mentioned before, Kozilek is here mostly as a way to infinitely reshuffle your graveyard into your library, to enable combos
Necrotic Ooze: A true artist who knows that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this guy gets all the activated abilities of an creatures in your graveyard. He can be a really stealthy way to combo off if your opponents aren't paying close enough attention to what you have in your graveyard, since people tend to forget all your combos and interactions. With cards like Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord(dredged?) in the graveyard, he can single-handedly (do Oozes have hands?) win the game. Call him Mr. Goodstuff
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre: Much like it's twin Titan, Kozilek, Ulamog is here for redundancy when it comes to our combo shenanigans. Worst case, it's a huge beater that can get rid of something when it ETBs