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Yes I included pygmy hippo in this deck!!! It is an awsome card when used in the right circumstances and I wanted to make a deck around it. It is simply used a a mana booster to get bigger creatures out quickly. I also was thinking about control decks at the time so this is what i made. Win condition is basically followed footsteps with lighthouse chronologist to make a ton of creatures and have more time to get controllers. Otherwise other cards basically stall until you can get what you want. I know this deck could use a lot of work and so I hope people can help me improve it since it was based off a loose concept without too much knowledge of all the MAGIC cards out there.
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There's a few things that wind up a bit counter-intuitive with this deck. Also, before I begin.. I'd like to note that I'm sick and sleep deprived.. so I'm making suggestions without really considering how to keep the deck at 60. Just warning you in case I get carried away :) Firstly, Lighthouse Chronologist should be replaced with something more useful to your build. While it's an awesome creature, it's not going to be doing much for your deck but give you something to spend mana on, and give you extra draws, maybe extra creature tokens via Followed Footsteps. Otherwise, if your opponent is already tapped out, for each of those 1-4 additional turns, you'll have no additional mana to steal. On that note, Pygmy Hippo is easily countered. Your opponent can, if they have nothing to cast at instant speed and no reason to bluff that they do, they can simply tap out during their EOT step, and their mana pool will empty long before you can attack. Further along this train of thought, Dissipation Field can be both a boon and a bane. In your case, mostly a bane. If your opponent has nothing else to cast, they could simply attack with just enough creatures to recast them during their second main phase, negating you any mana to steal, as well as providing blockers. To remedy this, you need to replace those Dissipation Fields with Upwelling. It is a green enchantment that reads "Mana pools don't empty at the end of phases and turns." This means that besides anything your opponent can cast, there is no way for them to empty their mana pool before your attack phase. Even better, it means you'll continue to accumulate that mana until you find something good to spend it on. So what exactly do you have to spend your opponent's hard earned mana on? Well.. nothing really. I have two suggestions for this, also because you don't really have a clearly defined win condition. Protean Hydra is a great creature with X in it's casting cost, and Rite of Replication creates more creature tokens, even more tokens if you pay it's kicker cost. (Note, Protean Hydra is a 0/0 with x +1/+1 counters. If you copy Protean Hydra, you'll get a 0/0 without any of the counters, and it'll instantly go to the graveyard->be exiled.) With Rite of Replication in the mix, there's also Spawnwrithe, a green creature that creates a copy of himself every time he deals combat damage to an opponent. This is a great creature to run in place of Lighthouse Chronologist. Now we're beginning to move closer to a win condition.. but not quite there yet. I think Neurok Invisomancer would be a great addition to this deck. It is itself unblockable, and when it enters the battlefield it makes another creature unblockable until EOT. With Followed Footsteps that means you could not only generate an additional unblockable creature every turn, but also make another one of your creatures unblockable every turn. And there's a win condition :) But hey, let's not stop there ;) It's always good to have a back up plan. Untamed Might is a green instant with X in it's casting cost. Target creature gets +x/+x until EOT. Think of all that mana you've been saving up with Upwelling in play.. cast it on an unblocked / unblockable creature for the kill! I think that pretty much sums it up, aside from a few minor tweaks. Distortion Strike is an amazing spell, but in this deck I'd go with Whispersilk Cloak for it's persistance. Rampant Growth is great, but possibly consider either Cultivate of Harrow instead. They each cost 1 more, but also search for 2 lands instead of 1. Also, reduce a few of those basic lands (2 of each?) and add 4x Terramorphic Expanse, or 4x of a land that adds both G or U to your mana pool. There are a few uncommons that do this, and are pretty cheap to acquire. As it stands, your lands are split 50/50, but you have 48 blue mana symbol occurrences, while only 10 for green. You'll end up with more forests than you can do anything with, and more blue spells than you can cast. I think the suggestions I made above would balance that out a good deal though. Backfire will encourage opponent's not to attack with their enchanted creature, hence leave it open as a blocker. Get rid of this spell to make room for something else. There you go :) Hope you like these suggestions, and if you do make changes please reply to this comment so I know to check back. I might take a swing at building a deck around my suggestions in the morning... but until then. Peace!
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Holy... .... did I really just type that much? XD
the only time I can see pygmy hippo being at all helpful is if the opponent runs omnath, locus of mana