Magic’s Leaked Secret Lair Commander Deck Includes an Overpowered $60 Cyborg
There's something very Odd going on with this deck
The full decklist for yet another upcoming Magic: The Gathering Secret Lair Commander deck has leaked online, and it contains one of the most valuable collections of reprints we’ve seen in quite some time. “Odds and Ends” taps Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign as the Commander. Because of Yennett’s core ability, this deck is packed with powerful cards with odd mana costs — including a $60 Commander staple that’s incredibly hard to find.
Leaks related to Odds and Ends first began circulating late last year, featuring distinctive artwork from Spanish artist Ricardo Cavolo. Now, after someone reportedly received an unreleased copy of Odds and Ends by mistake, the complete 100-card decklist has been posted to Reddit and deck-building sites like Moxfield and Archidekt. Existing copies cards in Odds and Ends have an estimated combined value between $300 and $448.
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign is an Esper-colored 3/5 Sphinx with flying, vigilance, and menace. Whenever Yennett attacks, you reveal the top card of your library. If it has an odd mana value, you can play it without paying its mana cost. Otherwise, you draw it.
As the card’s creator, principal designer Gavin Verhey, said in a Good Morning Magic YouTube video back in 2020, there are a lot of strange things about this card beyond its core ability. The flavor text, hidden details in the art, and virtually everything about it are a bit off. Even the ability is unusually worded. The “otherwise” means that playing the odd card for free is optional, and if you opt out you draw the card, but it also means if there’s an even-numbered card at the top of your library, you get to draw it.
The central strategy of any Yennett deck is to manipulate the top of your library with powerful, expensive odd cards you get to play for free. This particular deck has tricky cards such as Brainstorm, Ponder, and Sensei’s Divining Top that let you scan the top few cards in your deck. There are also flashy nine-mana cards like Profane Transfusion, Ethersworn Sphinx, and Void Winnower.
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Void Winnower is the funniest possible expression of the deck’s core strategy. The 11/9 Eldrazi costs nine mana, so Yennett can cast it for free. Once it’s on the battlefield, your opponents can’t cast spells with even mana values or block with creatures that have even mana values. It essentially rewards you for playing the odd half of Magic, while preventing everyone else from using the even half.
The deck’s other most flavorful inclusion is Approach of the Second Sun. The first time it’s played, the card goes back into your library seventh from the top. If you play it from your hand a second time, you win the game. Yennett can cast that first copy directly from the top of your library for free. Then all you need to do is get it back out and cast it once more to win. It’s the perfect execution of a sphinx’s trickery at play.
While all the odd-card manipulation is going on, Odds and Ends also has a tricky secondary strategy that involves swapping and stealing cards from opponents. Exchange of Words swaps the text boxes of two creatures. Perplexing Chimera lets you trade it to an opponent in exchange for control of a spell. Inniaz, the Gale Force can move permanents around the table, while Shared Fate forces everyone to effectively play cards from their opponents’ libraries. Then there’s Aeon Engine, which reverses the game’s turn order — because apparently disorienting your opponents is the “Ends” part of Odds and Ends.
The real monetary value in this deck, however, comes from Esper Sentinel. Non-foil copies of the one-mana (white) artifact creature currently sell for close to $60. Whenever an opponent casts their first noncreature spell each turn, Esper Sentinel lets you draw a card unless that player pays an amount of mana equal to its power. It’s essentially a scalable Rhystic Study slapped onto a white creature, generating card draw while taxing opponents. It’s hugely powerful and has only ever been printed in Modern Horizons 2 and on The List, so copies are actually hard to come by.
Sensei’s Divining Top is the second-most valuable reprint, with existing copies hovering around $40. The one-mana artifact lets you look at the top three cards of your library and rearrange them, so it’s pretty useful for Yennett (and for pulling Approach of the Second Sun ever closer).
The previously mentioned Void Winnower costs around $18. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth ($16) turns every land into a Forest in addition to its other types. (This one’s an unusual choice, since we’re not in a green deck.) Other valuable cards include Misleading Signpost, Smuggler’s Share, Venser’s Journal, Aboleth Spawn, Command Beacon, and Toxrill, the Corrosive. Most range from around $8 to $15, so there’s a solid amount of value beyond the flashiest cards in the deck.
Wizards of the Coast has not officially announced Odds and Ends, so this particular decklist remains unconfirmed. We also don’t yet know anything about the release date or price. The recent Hatsune Miku Commander deck cost $150 and was available through a 24-hour print-to-demand ordering window, but Wizards described that approach as an experiment rather than a permanent change.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see when Wizards might confirm the deck. Let’s hope they do it on an odd date like September 1 or 3 — it’s just too bad we’re currently in an even-numbered year.