Precon Upgrade Guide
Odds and Ends Upgrade Guide
What to cut, what to add, and how to play the Esper Secret Lair Commander deck led by Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign, which casts odd-mana-value spells for free.
Picking this precon up?
Shown here is the commander's card art, not the box.
Buy Odds and Ends on TCGplayer →Quick verdict
Odds and Ends has a strong core and a lot of filler. Yennett hands you a free spell most times it attacks, the deck has real tools for setting up the top of your library, and its best payoffs cost seven or nine mana you never have to pay. What holds it back is the other half of the name: a row of symmetrical, random or slow cards that make games stranger without making them more winnable, and no counterspell in a blue deck. Cut those, add interaction and bigger odd spells, and the same plan gets much more consistent.
TurnZero HQ rates Odds and Ends a 3 out of 5 on strength and a 4 out of 5 on difficulty, out of the box. The difficulty comes from two places: you get the most out of Yennett by managing your top card before every attack, and many of the deck's cards are ones most players have never seen. For the box itself, its contents and what the cards are worth, see the Odds and Ends deck page.
How the precon plays
Whenever Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign attacks, you reveal the top card of your library. If its mana value is odd you may cast it without paying its mana cost; if you don't, you draw a card. The card you draw is the one you revealed, so a land or an even card still goes to your hand. Yennett is a 3/5 flier with vigilance and menace, so it attacks safely into most early boards and is still untapped to block afterward.
The list is built around that trigger. Of the 62 non-land cards besides Yennett, 57 have an odd mana value, and with 37 lands a random top card is a free spell a little under six times in ten. The deck improves those odds with Sensei's Divining Top , Brainstorm , Ponder , Soothsaying , Doom Whisperer and Aminatou, the Fateshifter , all of which let you choose what is on top before you attack.
The payoffs are the spells you would rather not pay for. Void Winnower , Ethersworn Sphinx and Profane Transfusion cost nine; Toxrill, the Corrosive , Breach the Multiverse , Enigma Sphinx and Approach of the Second Sun cost seven. The two Sphinxes have cascade, so a free one can find a second free spell. Around them sit a group of cards that reward casting spells from somewhere other than your hand, such as Vega, the Watcher and Aerial Extortionist , and a group of oddities the deck is named for.
What works out of the box
Sensei's Divining Top ↗
One mana to look at your top three and put them in any order, every turn. The best way to make sure Yennett reveals something odd.
Doom Whisperer ↗
A 6/6 flying trampler that surveils 2 for 2 life as often as you like. Pay 2 or 4 life before combat and the top card is the one you chose.
Void Winnower ↗
Opponents can't cast even spells or block with even creatures. Tokens have mana value 0, which is even, so token boards can't block at all.
Toxrill, the Corrosive ↗
Shrinks every opposing creature each end step and turns the ones that die into Slugs you can cash in for cards. Free off Yennett, it often ends the game.
Esper Sentinel ↗
Taxes every opponent's first noncreature spell each turn with a card for you. A one-drop that keeps paying for the whole game.
Aminatou, the Fateshifter ↗
The +1 draws a card and then puts one from your hand on top. Put an odd payoff there and Yennett casts it next attack.
What needs improvement
The deck can't stop a spell. There is no counterspell in the 99, and the closest thing to one, Time Stop , costs six and ends the whole turn. Removal is better: Swords to Plowshares , Rapid Hybridization , Skyclave Apparition , Oubliette and Imprisoned in the Moon answer creatures well. Answers to artifacts and enchantments are thinner. See how much removal a deck should run →.
The bigger issue is the slots spent on symmetrical or random cards. Shared Fate , Psychic Battle , Aeon Engine and Chaos Wand are fun to read and change every game they appear in, but each one helps the table as much as it helps you, and a few work directly against Yennett. They are the right cards to cut first, unless your pod plays this deck because it enjoys exactly that.
One land is also worth a look. Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth makes every land a Forest, which does nothing for an Esper deck and helps any opponent with forestwalk or cards that count Forests. It is one of the most valuable cards in the box, so swapping it for a basic Island costs nothing in play and leaves a card worth selling toward the upgrades below.
10 cards to cut
Each of these has a real function, and several are why the deck is fun the first time. None of them does enough for this specific 99.
Shared Fate replaces every draw with exiling the top card of an opponent's library. That includes Yennett's: when you reveal an even card and choose to draw, you exile an opponent's card instead and the even card stays on top, blocking the next trigger.
Psychic Battle turns every targeted spell and ability, your own Swords to Plowshares included, into a contest over whose top card costs more. It slows every turn at the table and puts your removal at the mercy of a reveal.
Aeon Engine costs five, enters tapped, and then reverses the turn order once. Even as a free Yennett hit, it is a trigger spent on almost nothing.
Chaos Wand costs three to cast and four each time you use it, and casts whatever instant or sorcery an opponent's library happens to have. Seven mana for a random spell is too slow.
Planeswalker's Mischief spends four mana at sorcery speed to reveal a random card from an opponent's hand, and only does anything if that card is an instant or sorcery.
Exchange of Words swaps the text boxes of two creatures, which needs a good target and a bad creature of your own to trade. Most turns it is a three-mana enchantment waiting for a setup.
Mirage Mirror copies something for two mana until end of turn, every turn. It is flexible on paper and rarely better than a real card in that slot.
Jeskai Infiltrator is unblockable only while you control no other creatures. In a deck whose commander is a creature that wants to attack, that almost never happens.
Space Beleren has mana value 4, so Yennett can never cast it, and its sector rules take a long time to explain for a board wipe that only hits one sector.
Time Stop is the deck's only way to stop a spell, and it costs six, which is even. A three-mana counterspell does the job for half the price and can be a free Yennett hit.
First upgrades
Every card below has an odd mana value, so none of them makes Yennett's trigger worse. After these ten swaps, 59 of the 62 non-land cards besides Yennett are odd.
Budget, first
Agent of Treachery ↗
Mana value 7. Cast free off Yennett, it takes the best permanent on the table for good, and with two more stolen permanents it draws three cards each end step.
Vindicate ↗
Three mana, destroys any permanent. Covers the artifacts and enchantments the stock removal can't touch.
Crystal Ball ↗
Scry 2 for one mana every turn, at instant speed. Use it before combat and the card Yennett reveals is one you chose to keep.
Next
Absorb ↗
A hard counterspell at three mana that gains you 3 life. The deck's first real answer to a spell on the stack.
Toxic Deluge ↗
A one-sided wipe if you size it right: pay 4 life and Yennett, a 3/5, survives what kills most early boards.
Anguished Unmaking ↗
Exiles any nonland permanent at instant speed, for three mana and 3 life. Handles commanders and indestructible threats.
Future Sight ↗
Play lands and cast spells from the top of your library. When the top card is even, you can play it normally, so the card Yennett reveals is odd more often.
Higher-investment
Expropriate ↗
Mana value 9. Free off Yennett, it gives you an extra turn or an opponent's permanent for every vote, so it usually wins the game from an even board.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite ↗
Mana value 7. Your creatures get +2/+2 and your opponents' get -2/-2, which wipes token boards and makes Yennett a 5/7.
Rhystic Study ↗
Three mana, and a card every time an opponent doesn't pay one more. The strongest card draw engine blue has, and it fits the odd count.
Win conditions
The stock deck wins with big free spells. Void Winnower stops most of the table's blockers while Yennett and the Sphinxes attack in the air, Toxrill, the Corrosive grinds opposing boards down, and Profane Transfusion swaps your life total with an opponent's and makes a creature the size of the difference.
Approach of the Second Sun works differently with Yennett. A copy cast from the trigger isn't cast from your hand, so it doesn't win on the spot: it goes back into your library seventh from the top and you gain 7 life. It still counts as a cast, so when you draw it and cast it from your hand later, you win. The upgrades add Expropriate and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite , two more nine- and seven-drops that end games when Yennett casts them for free.
The upgraded 99, in shape
The finished list keeps the commander's engine intact: the top-of-library tools, the expensive odd payoffs and the cards that reward casting spells for free. It cuts the symmetrical and random cards that help the table as much as you, and the two expensive even spells Yennett can never cast. In their place go a counterspell, a wipe Yennett survives, removal that hits any permanent, and three more payoffs worth revealing. The deck still plays exactly like Odds and Ends. It just stops losing turns to its own oddities.
Track the deck before and after the swaps and you will see whether they helped. For the general order to make changes in, see how to upgrade a precon →.
Who should buy this precon
The best fit is a player who already knows Commander and enjoys planning a turn ahead: setting up the top of the library before attacking is the whole skill of the deck, and it rewards that every game. It also suits a casual pod that likes unusual cards, since the stock list puts several on the table that most players have never seen. It is a weaker fit for a first Commander deck. A Foundations Commander deck such as Keen Engineering teaches the format with far less to read.
The Secret Lair order window closed on September 29, 2026, so a copy now comes from another player or a store. If you already ordered one, most orders are expected to ship in July 2027 in North America and August 2027 in the EU and UK, which leaves time to collect the upgrades first.
Track Odds and Ends from your first game.
Build the stock list in TurnZero HQ for free and play it as it comes. When you make your first swaps, save them as a new version. TurnZero HQ keeps a win rate for each version, so you can see whether the upgrades helped instead of guessing.
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