Odds and Ends Secret Lair Commander deck guide

Fifty-seven of the 62 spells in Odds and Ends have an odd mana value. The five that don’t are two mana rocks, a four-mana planeswalker, a four-mana sweeper and a six-mana instant. The deck is built so that Yennett finds something to cast for free on most attacks, and at $149.99 it comes in under what its cards sell for.

Fifty-seven hits in ninety-nine cards

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign has flying, vigilance and menace for five mana, and one attack trigger that does all the work. When she attacks, you reveal the top card of your library and may cast it for free if its mana value is odd. If you don’t cast it, you draw it.

So the useful question is what sits in the library. Of the 99 other cards, 57 are odd-valued spells, 37 are lands and 5 are even-valued spells. On a fresh library that is a free spell on 57.6% of attacks, and on the other 42.4% you draw the card you revealed. A miss is never a wasted attack, because revealing doesn’t move the card. Lands count as even, since zero is even.

The curve is a comb because of this. By mana value the 62 spells run 12 at one, 2 at two, 24 at three, 2 at four, 13 at five, 1 at six, 5 at seven and 3 at nine. The 57 odd ones are the one, three, five, seven and nine columns. The even five are Arcane Signet, Talisman of Progress, Extinction Event, Space Beleren and Time Stop, and those are the only cards in the box that give Yennett nothing to cast.

She also can’t attack until the turn after you cast her, so on a five-land curve the first free spell shows up on turn six. Until then the deck does ordinary Commander things, with Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Talisman of Progress available to get her out early.

The eight spells the mana never reaches

A free cast ignores the cost, and that matters most for the top of the curve. Eight spells in the deck cost seven or more: Approach of the Second Sun, Breach the Multiverse, Enigma Sphinx, Toxrill, the Corrosive and Virtue of Persistence // Locthwain Scorn at seven, and Ethersworn Sphinx, Profane Transfusion and Void Winnower at nine. Profane Transfusion alone needs {6}{B}{B}{B}. Nobody pays that on turn nine in a three-colour deck, and Yennett pays it for nothing.

Several of those pay out again on their own. Cascade triggers when you cast a spell, so Ethersworn Sphinx and Enigma Sphinx each give you a chance at a second free spell with a lower mana value. Breach the Multiverse mills each player ten cards, then puts one creature or planeswalker card from each player’s graveyard, yours included, onto the battlefield under your control. Toxrill puts a slime counter on each creature you don’t control at every end step, turn after turn, and each counter is a −1/−1.

Profane Transfusion needs a note. It makes an X/X Horror where X is the gap between the two life totals after the exchange, so it is worth the most when you target the highest-life player at the table.

Approach of the Second Sun is the exception, and I’d argue it’s a trap if you draw it expecting a win. The first copy cast off the top goes seventh from the library top and gains 7 life. Its win condition is a second cast from your hand, so you have to draw that same card again, which takes at least seven draws from where it lands, and pay all seven mana.

Setting the top card up

Because Yennett reveals the top card, anything that arranges the top of the library makes her attack more reliable. The box has five of them: Sensei’s Divining Top, Ponder, Brainstorm, Soothsaying and Aminatou, the Fateshifter, whose +1 draws a card and then puts a card from your hand on top.

Brainstorm and Aminatou put a card from your hand on top, so you choose an odd one outright instead of hoping the top three held one. The Top is also the second most expensive priced card in the box, at $33.11 foil, or 17.4% of the $190.16 in Secret Lair printings. Of the cards that serve this plan rather than just the deck, it is the one that costs real money.

Vega, the Watcher turns the whole thing into a draw engine, since a spell cast from your library is a spell cast from somewhere other than your hand. Vega has mana value 3, so she is also a free hit herself. She is $1.43, and nothing else here draws a card when you cast from the library. Aerial Extortionist has the same clause but only for other players’ spells.

An even number is a sweeper that spares you

Extinction Event makes you choose odd or even, then exiles every creature with that mana value parity. Here every creature you own is odd, commander included. Choose even and the only things of yours that go are tokens and face-down creatures, which have mana value 0. That means Shadrix Silverquill’s Inklings, Nadir Kraken’s Tentacles, a Profane Transfusion Horror and anything Jeskai Infiltrator manifests.

Void Winnower leans on the same parity, continuously. Opponents can’t cast spells with even mana values and can’t block with even-valued creatures, and the rulings count face-down creatures and ordinary tokens as mana value 0, so neither can block. It’s also odd itself at nine, so Yennett can drop it for nothing.

How much either card hurts depends on the pod. An opponent built around three-drops and five-drops loses far less to them than one built on twos and fours.

Answers, and the one that hands out copies

The seven spot answers in the list are all odd, so Yennett can fire any of them for free: Swords to Plowshares, Rapid Hybridization, Oubliette, Skyclave Apparition, Imprisoned in the Moon, Leadership Vacuum and Fractured Identity. The hits are only as good as their targets, so a free Swords with only your own creatures on the table is a card you’d rather draw.

Fractured Identity is the one to read twice. It exiles a nonland permanent and every player other than its controller creates a copy. In a four-player pod, hitting one opponent’s best permanent gives a copy to you and to both of the other opponents. That makes it removal only when the permanent is worth more to its owner than to the other three of you.

Rapid Hybridization costs one mana, but the creature’s controller gets a 3/3 Frog Lizard in return. It swaps a dangerous creature for a vanilla one and doesn’t clear a body off the board.

The mana: 37 lands, six that enter tapped

The box runs 37 lands with 12 basics, and the three colours split 25 black, 28 blue and 27 white sources. Six lands always enter tapped: Arcane Sanctum, Myriad Landscape, Path of Ancestry and the three Temples. Another five are conditional.

Two of those five deserve suspicion. Prairie Stream and Sunken Hollow enter untapped only if you control two or more basic lands, and with 12 basics among 37 lands that is rare early. Played as your third land, either one enters untapped about 10% of the time, and as your fourth about 25%. The three checklands (Drowned Catacomb, Glacial Fortress, Isolated Chapel) need only a land of one of two types.

Black is the colour to watch. It has the fewest sources at 25, and the chance of two black sources by turn three is 71.8%. Only Oubliette needs {B}{B} that early, since the other black double-pip cards cost five or more. Blue is similar for Fatespinner, Exchange of Words and Nadir Kraken at {U}{U}, with 28 sources and 78.5%, and Skyclave Apparition is the only three-mana card wanting {W}{W}, with 27 sources and 76.4%.

Path of Ancestry looks like a free three-colour land, but its scry only happens for creature spells sharing a type with the commander. That is Sphinx, and the box has five Sphinx spells counting Yennett herself, out of 25 creatures.

Five names hold half the rebuild

Esper Sentinel is the single biggest line at $59.94 foil, 31.5% of the $190.16 in Secret Lair printings. For one mana it makes each opponent pay {1} or let you draw a card the first time they cast a noncreature spell each turn. It’s a fine card at the table, and nothing in the Yennett plan leans on it.

The 12 foil basics are worth $39.12 as a group. The 12 new-art foils are worth $151.04, which is already above the $149.99 sale price by itself. As of October 2026 the exclusive printings alone cover the sale price, and the 76 stamped reprints come on top of that.

For anyone who only wants to play the deck, the number to hold in mind is the $292.39 rebuild, and the five names behind half of it. Everything outside them averages about $1.50 a copy.

The decklist

The list below is the 100 cards as shipped. Hover a card name to see it.

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FAQ

Can I still buy Odds and Ends?

Not through the order window I can see. Wizards took orders from 9 a.m. PT on 28 September 2026 to 8:59 a.m. PT on 29 September 2026 and said a limited quantity would ship right away, with the rest expected in July 2027 in North America. Whether any stock remains is a question for MagicSecretLair.com, because this page can't see it.

What happens when Yennett reveals a land?

Nothing is lost. Revealing a card doesn't move it, so a land (mana value 0, which is even) or any even spell can't be cast this way and Yennett simply draws that same card. Thirty-seven of the other 99 cards are lands and five are even spells, so about 42 attacks in 100 end as a plain draw.

Does a card cast off the top of the library trigger Vega?

Yes. Vega, the Watcher draws whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, and the top of your library is such a place. Yennett's free casts, cascade, Dazzling Sphinx, Thief of Sanity and Chaos Wand all cast from outside the hand, so a hit with Vega out is a free spell and a drawn card.

Is it safe to choose even with Extinction Event?

In this box, nearly. The commander and all 24 other creatures have odd mana values, so choosing even exiles none of them. It does exile your own tokens and face-down creatures, which have mana value 0, and that means Shadrix's Inklings, Nadir Kraken's Tentacles, a Profane Transfusion Horror and anything Jeskai Infiltrator manifests.

Can Yennett win the game with Approach of the Second Sun?

Only half of it. Approach wins when you cast it a second time from your hand after having cast a spell with that name earlier, and the earlier cast can come from anywhere, including Yennett's trigger. The first cast puts it seventh from the top of your library, so the second needs you to draw it again and pay seven mana.

Which cards carry the price of this deck?

The foil Esper Sentinel at $59.94, the foil Sensei's Divining Top at $33.11, Aminatou at $14.37, the foil Sol Ring at $11.88 and the foil Void Winnower at $8.40. Together they come to $127.70 as printed in the box, against a $149.99 sale price, as of 16 October 2026.