Commander Collection: Riddler's Revenge

Commander / EDH WUB (Esper)

Jurrane

Land (35)

• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 6x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 3x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Port Town
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 6x Swamp
• 1x Watery Grave

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Clone Legion
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Demonic Tutor *f-etch* P
• 1x Dream Cache
• 1x In Garruk's Wake
• 1x Personal Tutor
• 1x Plague Wind
• 1x Time Wipe
• 1x Tragic Arrogance
• 1x Vindicate

Creature (17)

• 1x Angel of Despair
• 1x Angel of the Ruins
• 1x Artisan of Kozilek
• 1x Blazing Archon
• 1x Diluvian Primordial
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Hidetsugu and Kairi
• 1x Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant
• 1x Magister Sphinx
• 1x Overseer of the Damned
• 1x Pathrazer of Ulamog
• 1x Prognostic Sphinx
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Sphinx of the Final Word
• 1x Thryx, the Sudden Storm
• 1x Vega, the Watcher

Artifact (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Crystal Ball
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mask of Avacyn
• 1x Neurok Stealthsuit
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Commander (1)

Instant (15)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Brainsurge
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Stroke of Midnight
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vampiric Tutor P
• 1x Void Rend

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Soothsaying

---

{W}{U}{B} Introduction: Riddle Me This {W}{U}{B}

Show

Welcome to my primer for Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign, an EDH contol deck in Esper colours. It's being updated in real time as I play my first games with the list.

There's a bit of background to this build. When I realised my Esper Sen Triplets list wasn’t particularly enjoyable for anyone, I decided to repurpose it into a new deck. It's surprisingly difficult to find an interesting Commander in Esper colours, especially one that didn't duplicate themes I already have in my other decks. Then I saw Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign and thought a control build with a topdeck focus might be fun to build around. The result is the first draft of the list you see here.

Pure control decks are quite difficult to pull off in Commander as you typically have three opponents and there's stuff happening all over the board. I already have a Stax countrol deck and another deck that relies on topdeck manipulation so I tried to take the best elements of each and fuse them into something that approaches the game from a different angle, by using Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign to cast powerful game-breaking spells for free and control the board that way.

The goal of the deck is therefore quite simple: deal with any initial threats early on, ramp into enough mana to cast Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign and protect her at all costs. We then rely on her topdeck trigger when she attacks to power out high mana value cards that consolidate our dominant position on the game. Because we're in the Esper colour identity, we have no shortage of card draw, counterspells, removal and big nasty threats to make life difficult for our opponents.

Our (Odd) Commander

Show

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign is a pretty unique Commander. Not only do odd CMCs matter to her ability but, as some wise people on Reddit pointed out, her name uses an odd number of letters, each word in her flavour text also has an odd number of letters; plus she has a three word name, a mana value of five, odd numbers for her power and toughness, 33 words used to describe her effects and nine words in her flavour text. Even the word "Yennett" has both an odd number of letters with an even number of occurrences and an odd number of letters with an odd number of occurrences. You can't get much stronger for flavour.

Yennett's abilities are also very strong. She has three relevant keywords in flying, menace and vigilence, which means she's a formidable attacker. Any ability that enables you to cast spells for free tends to be fairly powerful in EDH and enables us to build the deck around odd mana value spells that have game breaking effects. As a result, this deck is a great opportunity to use all those big splashy Timmy battlecruiser cards that don't have a home in more optimised decks. And we can then play them for free when she attacks. What's not to like?

Power Level

Show

I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

I would categorise this deck as one of my Tier 3 builds. It's optimised to a certain level, features powerful cards in most categories but lacks some of the higher power cards that stronger or more refined Yennett builds would run (see the "Budget" section below). I'd be happy running it at low to medium power casual tables but higher powered or competitive pods would probably overwhelm it before it gets started.

Budget

Show

The average price for this deck on Card Kingdom is around $500. That's mainly because the previous incarnation of this list (Sen Triplets) had some expensive staples that I've ported over to this new list like Fierce Guardianship, Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mana Drain, and all the fetches and shocks that come with a three colour mana base. There are plenty of budget alternatives available and this doesn't need to be a deck that's particularly expensive to build.

Bombs

Show

One of the fun things about this deck is its ability to cast powerful high CMC spells for free using Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign's attack trigger. Many of these are are "bomb" cards: big impactful creatures and sorceries that can immediately tip the scales in our favour if they resolve. Here's a list of those bombs:

• Angel of Despair: A Vindicate on a stick plus a hefty flying body.
• Angel of the Ruins: Good exile removal for artifacts and enchantments is still relatively rare in EDH. Takes care of The One Ring, for example. Plus it's another great flying threat with good stats.
• Approach of the Second Sun: The classic control deck alternate win condition. We like it here because (a) we can play it for free with Yennett; and (b) we have enough topdeck manipulation that we can often dig for it relatively easily after we've cast it the first time. Keep in mind that the second time we cast it has to be from our hand - and not from Yennett's ability - to win the game.
• Artisan of Kozilek: We could run all sorts of nasty Eldrazi in this deck but this is the most relevant one I had lying around. There may be more to follow.
• Blatant Thievery: Steal the best card from each of our opponents. Can be game-ending if there's powerful stuff on the battlefield.
• Blazing Archon: Shuts down all enemy attackers. Very expensive to cast but ideally we'll be playing it for free. Watch out for people stealing it or reanimating it though.
• Cleansing Nova: A nice versatile boardwipe. We'll usually be choosing the artifacts and enchantments mode if we're casting it for free with Yennett.
• Clone Legion: An instant army in a can. Pick a player, copy all their creatures and profit. Someone will nearly always have some decent stuff. Sometimes that player will be us.
• Diluvian Primordial: A great impactful card for the late game. As with Blatant Thievery, it can often be insane with the right cards in our enemies' graveyards.
• Doom Whisperer: A 6/6 flyer with trample is already amazing stats for {3}{B}{B} but its surveil ability is the icing on the cake. A good way to set up draws for Yennett.
• Hidetsugu and Kairi: Useful topdeck manipulation with a sting in the tail if someone tries to destroy it.
• In Garruk's Wake: Top tier one-sided boardwipe. Its casting cost makes it prohibitive to use in my other decks but casting it for free here is OP.
• Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant: Two powerful card advantage abilities. Doubles the impact of our removal spells and counters our opponents' stuff. Other players won't want to see it on our side of the table.
• Magister Sphinx: Our enemies can gain all the life they want but this will set someone's life total back down to 10. Great at softening up an opponent, ready for the killing blow.
• Overseer of the Damned: More removal on a stick and a source of extra creatures for us. Like many of our other creature bombs, it's an evasive flying beater.
• Pathrazer of Ulamog: Same principle as Artizan of Kozilek. This one's even meaner. Annihilator {3} and unblockable apart from 3+ creatures is no joke.
• Plague Wind: Pretty much a second copy of In Garruk's Wake, except it doesn't hit planeswalkers. But another top-tier one-sided boardwipe.
• Rune-Scarred Demon: Another big flying monster, this one coming with a free Demonic Tutor.
• Sheoldred, Whispering One: Great recursion enabler that forces opponents to sacrifice a creature during each of their turns. Swampwalking is a handy evasion ability too.
• Sphinx of the Final Word: One of our favourite creatures. If we manage to cast him, he's probably resolving and then he's tough to remove. Plus we makes all our other bombs uncounterable. A staple for this list.
• Thryx, the Sudden Storm: Less of a bomb and more of an enabler but worth including here. Another way of making our bomb cards uncounterable.
• Time Wipe: We're a control deck so we'll rarely lose full boards of creatures to this boardwipe. A good way of keeping the table clear if Yennett is our only creature.
• Tragic Arrogance: Another powerful boardwipe. We get to pick what sticks around and don't run many permanents ourselves so its effect is rarely symmetrical. Deals with indestructable permanents too.

Other Utility Cards

Show

We support our bombs with a series of other utility card to help the deck run smoothly. I've separated them into several categories below. These are just my current preferences for each and there are plenty of other options in these categories if you prefer.

Library Manipulation
Our success with this deck will often depend on revealing bombs and other odd-CMC impact cards from the top of our library with Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign. Fortunately there's no shortage of ways we can do so. We have one-shot scry/deck stacking cards like Brainstorm, Brainsurge, Lim-Dul's Vault and Dream Cache, and can call on repeatable effects from Crystal Ball, Soothsaying, Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top, alongside some of our creatures mentioned above.

Tutors
We can roll the dice with our scry effects but choosing which card to reveal with Yennett is even better. Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor and Personal Tutor all put a card on top of our library. Demonic Tutor serves a slightly different purpose as the card goes to our hand. I might add Cruel Tutor as another topdeck option.

Protecting Yennett
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign is a removal magnet and will be targetted frequently by opponents who recognise the broken things she can do. Our job is to keep her alive for as long as possible. We run Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Mask of Avacyn, Neurok Stealthsuit and Whispersilk Cloak to protect her, with our counterspells as a second line of defence.

Card Draw
Yennett doubles as a card draw effect herself but we also have a range of cards to ensure we have a steady stream of resources. Mystic Remora, Necropotence and Rhystic Study are all-stars and need no introduction, plus we have handy single use cards such as Brainsurge and the other scry/draw cards mentioned above. Vega, the Watcher is a great value piece in a deck like this.

Ramp
Because of all the high mana value bombs we're running, the average CMC across this deck is just under 4, which is much higher than most of my other builds. Although we're planning to cast as many of those bombs as possible for free, Yennett is an expensive Commander and we sometimes have to fall back on hardcasting some of our big mana spells. We have half a dozen mana rocks to help with ramp, plus Smothering Tithe as a premium accelerator and Dark Ritual as a one-off burst. But we're still a slow deck (see "Weaknesses" below).

Interaction & Removal
Esper is probably the best 3-colour combination in EDH for removal. We have a suite of versatile removal options that can take care of pretty much anything, including Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Stroke of Midnight and Void Rend, alongside staples like Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares. As they all odd-numbered mana values, they can be cast for free with Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign if needed. We back these up with some of the stronger counterspells such as Fierce Guardianship, Mana Drain, Arcane Denial and good old Counterspell. Between our counters and removal cards, we should be able to handle most threats.

Play Style

Show

Here are some initial thoughts about our style of play and some tips for sequencing our cards. I'm still learning with this deck and have only played a handful of games. All comments and feedback are welcome.

We're a control deck so we're generally going to start quite slowly. Other decks will outpace us and we have to be OK with that. Our game comes online when Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign hits the battlefield, survives her turn of summoning sickness (or is protected by Lightning Greaves etc) and is able to attack. At that point we have the potential to do some pretty degenerate things.

Those first few turns are critical for us so we want to be seeing removal, boardwipes or counterspells for threats that will multiply later in the game. Do what you can to avoid taking excessive damage in those early turns as we don't have many lifegain opportunities and we don't want to fall too far behind. From experience, aggro decks can be a real problem (we've already been overrun by Squirrels a couple of times in our first few games) so having boardwipes ready in advance of Yennett coming down can really pay dividends.

Unless you need to set up your draws for land, removal etc in the early turns, it's usually best to hold on to our deck manipulation cards until Yennett is live and we can use them to find our bombs. I would avoid playing Approach of the Second Sun until you have an easy way to scry it to the top of the library ready to cast if for the second time, as we quickly become public enemy number one in that instance.

Strengths

Show

Text goes here.

Weaknesses

Show

Text goes here.

Upcoming Changes

Show

Thanks for reading my primer :) The first draft of this deck is pretty much complete, apart from one or two potential changes. I'll add more commentary as playtesting continues.

---

All My EDH Decks

{W} Giada, Font of Hope {W}
S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal

{U} Talrand, Sky Summoner {U}
Blue Streak: Mono-Blue Spellslinger

{U} Orvar, the All-Form {U}
Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters Combo

{B} Sidisi, Undead Vizier {B}
Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Goodstuff

{B} Syr Konrad, the Grim {B}
Black Hole: Mono-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats

{R} Torbran, Thane of Red Fell {R}
Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug

{R} Rionya, Fire Dancer {R}
Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens

{G} Titania, Protector of Argoth {G}
Timber Terror: Mono-Green Stax

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IV {W}{U}
Control Freak: Azorius Control

{W}{U} Elminster {W}{U}
Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry

{U}{B} Oona, Queen of the Fae {U}{B}
Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal

{U}{B} Narfi, Betrayer King {U}{B}
Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies

{B}{R} Rakdos, Lord of Riots {B}{R}
Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss

{B}{R} Juri, Master of the Revue {B}{R}
Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice

{R}{G} Hallar, the Firefletcher {R}{G}
Trailblazer: Gruul Kicker

{R}{G} Wort, the Raidmother {R}{G}
Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire

{W}{G} Sigarda, Heron's Grace {W}{G}
Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal

{W}{G} Captain Sisay {W}{G}
Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

{W}{G} Sythis, Harvest's Hand {W}{G}
Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

{W}{B} Daxos the Returned {W}{B}
Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation

{W}{B} Kambal, Consul of Allocation {W}{B}
Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain

{U}{R} Firkraag, Cunning Instigator {U}{R}
Dragon’s Fury: Izzet Dragons/Goad

{B}{G} Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons {B}{G}
Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch

{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Prime Speaker Zegana {U}{G}
Wicked Twister: Simic +1/+1 Counters

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
Toxic Garden: Simic Infect

{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts

{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
Riddler’s Revenge: Esper Topdeck

{U}{B}{R} Kess, Dissident Mage {U}{B}{R}
Mindbender: Grixis Discard

{B}{R}{G} Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire {B}{R}{G}
Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal

{W}{R}{G} Pantlaza, Sun-Favored {W}{R}{G}
Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal

{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker

{W}{B}{G} Karador, Ghost Chieftain {W}{B}{G}
Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator

{W}{U}{R} Kykar, Wind's Fury {W}{U}{R}
Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens

{W}{U}{R} Hinata, Dawn-Crowned {W}{U}{R}
Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Spirits Tribal

{U}{B}{G} Yarok, the Desecrated {U}{B}{G}
Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers

{W}{B}{R} Kaalia of the Vast {W}{B}{R}
Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons

{U}{R}{G} Omnath, Locus of the Roil {U}{R}{G}
Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

Date added	1 month
Last updated	1 day
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.97
Tokens	Copy Clone, Human 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B