Mini games, tough decisions, and delicate alliances

[koaladoesntcare]

Hey folks! My original idea for this was a Merieke Ri Berit deck with a ransom theme. Basically, Marieke will take your commander (or prized card) if you don't cooperate with my terms, aka. if you don't make the choice I want you to make haha. So the deck will be filled with cards that force choices or that allow me to have pretty significant interactions with my opponents like Head Games. I also like the idea of mini-games! So I am including cards like Master of Predicaments, Space Beleren, Gollum, Scheming Guide, and The Celestial Toymaker+ other pile making cards. Other ways of interacting with opponents/making the game more engaging for everybody is Perplexing Chimera, Cruel Entertainment, Hive Mind, Curse of the Cabal, Scheming Symmetry, Chain of Vapor, Lethal Vapors, and... Knowledge Pool .

There are so many awesome jank red cards like Thieves' Auction that I want to add, but I should probably stay away from getting too chaotic and really like the "ransom notice with absurd conditions theme" haha. Any suggestions you have about these more engaging/mini-game type decks would be much appreciated. I have some pretty well tuned EDH decks, but in the end, they all just do their thing in a pretty isolated way while you worry that opponents are going to stifle your game plan and all my opponents are basically doing the same thing--just existing in their own little bubbles with the occasional boardwipe causing them to look up. I just really want something that will force people to engage with each other, even if it just comes down to Knowledge Pool shenanigans and the tough decision of skipping your turn to Lethal Vapors .

My other concern is how to actually win with such a deck. Not that it is the main goal, but would be fun on occasion. One idea I have is adding in some good graveyard recursion to get back the cards that I lost to pile making or maybe even Knowledge Pool and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir which is sooo mean. Thanks for your advice!

[koaladoesntcare]

I have decided to go with The Celestial Toymaker as my commander instead of Merieke Ri Berit. I really liked the Ransom theme, but now want to learn more into the mini game/tough decision theme. Here is my very rough deck list that contains way too many cards and no land base yet. Any cut suggestions would be appreciated. I grow way too attached to cards I find and suck at cutting haha. Thanks!

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/InIAVmlVd0WOPvW4pxMObg