Overview

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign turns every combat step into a small gamble. Whenever she attacks, the top card of the library is revealed: if its mana value is odd, it can be cast for free; if it's even, the card is simply drawn instead. There is no bad outcome, only a better one, and the entire deck is built to tilt the odds further in your favour. Because the trigger only checks a card's mana value, not its colour, Yennett can flip over anything from a one-mana instant to a seven-mana sorcery and cast it for free the moment the number comes up odd.

The Secret Lair Odds and Ends treatment wraps that gamble in an appropriately liminal theme. Mechanically, this is a classic Esper control shell: efficient removal in Swords to Plowshares and Skyclave Apparition, card selection in Brainstorm and Ponder, and a top-end of odd-cost bombs that reward attacking with Yennett rather than hiding behind her. Sensei's Divining Top is the deck's signature piece: it doesn't just find a good card, it lets you arrange the top three so Yennett's swing always flips something worth casting.

Key Cards

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Sensei's Divining Top
Library Manipulation · Yennett Enabler
For one mana, look at the top three cards and put them back in any order. In this deck that means stacking an odd-cost bomb directly onto the top of the library before attacking with Yennett, turning her ability from a coin flip into a guaranteed free spell. It is the single most important piece of the engine and the first target for opposing artifact removal.
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Toxrill, the Corrosive
Odd-Cost Bomb · Board Wipe on a Timer
At seven mana, Toxrill is exactly the kind of card Yennett wants to flip off the top: an odd-value finisher that is usually far too slow to hard-cast but comes free the moment it's revealed. Once online, every creature an opponent controls withers under a growing pile of slime counters until it dies, leaving behind a 1/1 Slug you can sacrifice to draw a card, turning a single lucky attack into a slow, grinding lock.
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Aminatou, the Fateshifter
Planeswalker · Fateseal Effect
Aminatou's +1 draws a card and buries a card from hand on top of the library, which doubles as a second way to set up Yennett's attack trigger: bury an odd-cost bomb, swing next turn, cast it for free. Her −1 exiles and returns any permanent you own, which can re-trigger an enters-the-battlefield effect elsewhere in the deck, such as a second exile off Skyclave Apparition.
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Void Winnower
Hard Lock · Finisher
Void Winnower's mana value is nine, an odd number, which makes it one of the biggest possible hits off Yennett's trigger: an 11/9 that costs nothing the moment it's revealed. Whether it arrives free or is hard-cast in the late game, opponents can't cast spells or block with anything at an even mana value, which is most of a typical Commander deck. It's a brutal, honest finisher for a control shell that has already spent the early turns trading resources.

Playing the Deck

The early turns are about survival and setup rather than pressure. Swords to Plowshares, Skyclave Apparition, and Rapid Hybridization answer early threats cheaply, while Brainstorm and Ponder dig toward land drops and, later, toward stacking Yennett's next hit. The deck wants to land Yennett around turn five and start attacking immediately; even without a stacked top card, drawing a card off an even flip is never a wasted attack.

The mid game is where Sensei's Divining Top earns its reputation. Once it is online, every attack with Yennett can be pre-loaded: look at the top three, find the best odd-cost card available, and put it on top before combat. Aminatou, the Fateshifter does the same job from a different angle, and her −1 can blink an enters-the-battlefield creature like Skyclave Apparition for a second piece of removal, though as a loyalty ability it only works at sorcery speed, so it can't bail Yennett out of a removal spell already on the stack. Thief of Sanity and Doom Whisperer apply pressure of their own while the engine assembles, since neither needs Yennett to be relevant.

The late game offers two distinct closing lines. The control plan lands Void Winnower and simply denies opponents the ability to interact with a huge portion of their own deck, buying time for Yennett to keep flipping bombs. The alternative is Approach of the Second Sun: at seven mana it's an odd hit Yennett can cast for free, and casting it a second time from the hand wins the game outright rather than shuffling back in. Time Stop sits in reserve as a blunt answer to an opposing alpha strike or combo turn.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths: The deck never has a truly dead attack step, since even the worst-case even flip is a free card draw. The removal suite is efficient and colour-flexible thanks to Esper's access to white and black, and the library manipulation package (Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, Ponder, Aminatou) means Yennett's swings become increasingly reliable the longer the game runs. Void Winnower gives the deck a genuine lock finisher that doesn't depend on the random-hit plan at all.

Weaknesses: Yennett herself is a five-mana 3/5 with flying, vigilance, and menace, which makes her hard to block or race but no harder to target with removal or exile effects. Losing her resets the entire plan until she can be recast, and at five mana that recast is not always immediate. The deck is also light on proactive threats before Yennett lands, which can make the first four turns feel passive against faster aggressive decks. Graveyard hate can strip value from Thief of Sanity and Doom Whisperer's surveil, and the deck has no enchantment removal of note, leaving it vulnerable to a well-timed Song of the Dryads effect on Yennett.

Verdict
The Odds and Ends Secret Lair Commander Deck is a tightly themed, genuinely clever build: Yennett's swingy attack trigger is transformed into a near-guarantee by a small but well-chosen library manipulation suite, and the deck backs that engine with real Esper control fundamentals rather than leaning on the gimmick alone. Void Winnower and Approach of the Second Sun give it two very different ways to close a game once the engine is running. For players who enjoy piloting a control deck that rewards careful sequencing and top-deck manipulation, this is one of the more mechanically interesting Secret Lair Commander releases.

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Full Decklist

All 100 cards from the Odds and Ends Secret Lair Commander Deck, enriched with current prices. Click any card to expand it.

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