Just what the title says. Was thinking of some of my favorite MTG artists and realized it'd be fun to have a deck where all the art (maybe even the lands?) was done by that artist. The more prolific and longtime artists are obvious choices. Not so much looking for suggestions though as if anyone has done it and who they picked both for artists and General?
I'll do anything once, but sometimes only once. My very first game playing Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign I hit Approach of the Second Sun with my very first trigger, and I had a Mystical Tutor in hand. Before my next turn everyone tried their best to take me out and got me to five life before I won. It was pretty damn fun, but right after that I swapped Approach out for another card because I didn't want to do it again the next game and I wanted to keep on playing the deck.
I remember playing against a tuned Sisay deck and applauding how the player piloted it the first game. But it was his only deck and he continued to play it the rest of the night and nobody else could keep up with it. Sad times.
I think it's the responsibility of the player to go ahead and do your powerful/broken thing to have the fun of doing it, and then consider the other players and change up cards or pull out something different for the next game.
I think Darren made most of the best suggestions, I would add the gods to that list. Indestructible and useful. If you like izzet decks, Keranos, God of Storms provides some excellent value, putting a land into hand or bolting something/someone. I've seen him helm some pretty vicious combo decks. Your other commander is gruul and Xenagod is pretty dang decent in the command zone.
Do you mean you want to play cards that affect the board state, make it more complex, without being group hug? In Atraxa colors you have punisher discard effects in black Polluted Bonds, taxing effects in white like Aura of Silence, blue has plenty of taxing controlling effects like Aura Flux and Arcane Laboratory, blue also has fun for you effects like Mind's Dilation and Dismiss Into Dream.
What you really want I think is red though with cards like Possibility Storm, red has some of the best game affecting effects.
Not sure how much you care bout colors because this would put you in 4, but what about Silas Renn, Seeker Adept... Get those artifacts back, add the two best draw colors. You can use things like Nihil Spellbomb as removal and card advantage, throw in Salvaging Station to get back your baubles and spellbombs.
Tymna and Vial Smasher, Tymna gives you the card advantage and Smasher lets your more expensive enchantments deal some damage as you cast them. Both are 3 drops and come down early. I have someone in my play group who played them together, mixed up his deck quite a bit, but kept them at the helm because they're both just engines, which is what you want.
I also think Marchesa would work well because she's also card advantage. I've played her and am often happy to lose the monarch. Deathtouch tokens are useful, and other players fighting over the monarch is also useful.
More outside of the box, Zurgo Helmsmasher does fine all on his own and doesn't give away what kind of deck you're building. If your enchantment plan falls apart, you can just swing in with him for fun.
Whoever you choose, throw Etali in your list because he seems to fit the theme. Assuming Purphoros too. Vicious Shadows.
I have what seems a well built Sigarda deck dedicated to building Brisela, and though I've played it multiple times I've yet to get her to stick long enough to even attack with her. Part of it is playing against people with answers, which I can't fault them for, but I think a huge part of it is the variability of playing with a 100 card singleton deck. How often do you see people flabbergasted at getting mana screwed when they run 38+ lands and ramp? Some strategies/deck archetypes lend themselves to consistency, and those rise to the top of the cEDH strata, but most decks are going to fail to fire a good percentage of the time when facing other real players and the randomness of the format. Frustrating, but healthy for the format I think.
Then there was that time I built a deck to solely get off the Worldgorger Dragon combo, did it the first game I played with the deck on turn four, and quickly decided that wasn't so fun and never did it again. So even when a deck I put a lot of time into fires on all cylinders it isn't necessarily fun. I've noticed some decks, particularly combo decks, are more fun to goldfish than to play against other players. Maybe that's just me.
Just my random thoughts, probably not too helpful, but there ya go.
I gotta speak up for Thassa... scry every turn is serious value in addition to the target creature being unblockable. And she's going to be a 5/5 fish goddess on occasion. In my experience Cloak always gets blown up and Thassa will often stick around all game.
I hate extra turns too, generally. Three players sitting on their hands while one durdles and maybe wins isn't my idea of a good time. But like a lot of disliked effects in EDH (like MLD for example) I find if you're just going to finish the game then and there it's not a big deal. You might not even need to take the turn if they see you'll just untap and kill them.
On a note completely unrelated to your deck, I killed someone once who had me on a capsize lock by using Final Fortune and it was glorious.
I love the flexibility of this general. What do you think of some double strike to take out a player with a single hit if you're playing control. Fireshrieker and Inquisitor's Flail seem decent. Extra turn spells would have the same effect.
I get what yer doin here, and it seems like a fun glass cannon for a bit. I probably don't need to mention how O-stone and friends with red's artifact recursion (welder and Darettie) could be helpful, but seems like they could be helpful.
It's true that any answer is meta-dependent, and also true that sometimes you fix something with deck building and sometimes you fix it with changing how you play the deck. And this deck is definitely a tricky deck to play, requiring paying attention to the developing game state - as opposed to Gishath where as long as the blue player is tapped out, go ahead and cast your dino and wreck face. Speaking of the blue player being tapped out, I like Shermanido's Capsize suggestion. You don't need to Capsize lock the whole table, just the main threat at the moment (though I did Capsize lock someone once with my version of this deck in a 1 v 1).
I don't currently run Godhead, and there is a risk in running it, but man I have a boner for that card and will eventually run it just for that.
Another option as a grindy control deck is Archaeomancer and Evacuation as a soft lock. You only have to do it once really for any good player to tone down their aggro game, but even if you're doing it every turn, we can easily redeploy.
On a side note, when I first slotted Eldrazi Displacer in next to Containment Priest I was frowning at the nonbo for myself, and then realized I could just exile any creature I wanted to and actually giggled. That is a sweet interaction.
Meddling Mage the problem commander. Creature answers are easily removed, but at least it slows them down and makes them dig for an answer rather than just aggroing out. Peacekeeper is a nice option you can just not pay for when you're ready to drop Elesh Norn. Of course you'd rather your opponents attack each other than not be able to attack at all, so that might not work for your meta. I actually think Humility would do some work - yeah it turns off your hatebears, but it turns off everything, you don't care too much with the grindy nature of your deck, and somebody will remove it and then you can have garnered some nice advantage and go to town. In the same vein, Godhead of Awe does the same thing and is a little less hateful. And with Elesh it's pretty sweet.
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar (or any of the Gideons that become creatures) equipped with Helm Of The Host, assuming he's been turned into a creature before combat and equipped with the helm... what happens? Do you keep the token that's a copy of the 5/5 indestructible creature at end of turn?
I remember playing against a tuned Sisay deck and applauding how the player piloted it the first game. But it was his only deck and he continued to play it the rest of the night and nobody else could keep up with it. Sad times.
I think it's the responsibility of the player to go ahead and do your powerful/broken thing to have the fun of doing it, and then consider the other players and change up cards or pull out something different for the next game.
What you really want I think is red though with cards like Possibility Storm, red has some of the best game affecting effects.
I also think Marchesa would work well because she's also card advantage. I've played her and am often happy to lose the monarch. Deathtouch tokens are useful, and other players fighting over the monarch is also useful.
More outside of the box, Zurgo Helmsmasher does fine all on his own and doesn't give away what kind of deck you're building. If your enchantment plan falls apart, you can just swing in with him for fun.
Whoever you choose, throw Etali in your list because he seems to fit the theme. Assuming Purphoros too. Vicious Shadows.
Then there was that time I built a deck to solely get off the Worldgorger Dragon combo, did it the first game I played with the deck on turn four, and quickly decided that wasn't so fun and never did it again. So even when a deck I put a lot of time into fires on all cylinders it isn't necessarily fun. I've noticed some decks, particularly combo decks, are more fun to goldfish than to play against other players. Maybe that's just me.
Just my random thoughts, probably not too helpful, but there ya go.
I hate extra turns too, generally. Three players sitting on their hands while one durdles and maybe wins isn't my idea of a good time. But like a lot of disliked effects in EDH (like MLD for example) I find if you're just going to finish the game then and there it's not a big deal. You might not even need to take the turn if they see you'll just untap and kill them.
On a note completely unrelated to your deck, I killed someone once who had me on a capsize lock by using Final Fortune and it was glorious.
I don't currently run Godhead, and there is a risk in running it, but man I have a boner for that card and will eventually run it just for that.
Another option as a grindy control deck is Archaeomancer and Evacuation as a soft lock. You only have to do it once really for any good player to tone down their aggro game, but even if you're doing it every turn, we can easily redeploy.
On a side note, when I first slotted Eldrazi Displacer in next to Containment Priest I was frowning at the nonbo for myself, and then realized I could just exile any creature I wanted to and actually giggled. That is a sweet interaction.