Yennett, Turn Taker

Commander / EDH Creatureless Infinite Combo Miracle Scry Turns WUB (Esper)

rcvines

Land (36)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Brightclimb Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 4x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mirrorpool
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nimbus Maze
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 2x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Port Town
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shineshadow Snarl
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Enlightenment
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Hidden Retreat
• 1x Monologue Tax
• 1x Penance
• 1x Soothsaying

Instant (20)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dismember
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Nexus of Fate
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (18)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Dimir Machinations
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Mnemonic Deluge
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Temporal Mastery
• 1x Temporal Trespass
• 1x Terminus
• 1x Time Warp
• 1x Vindicate

Commander (1)

Artifact (19)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Goblin Charbelcher
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Proteus Staff
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana Vess
• 1x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

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On attack, Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign lets you cast the top card of your library for free if its mana value is odd. Turns out, most "take another turn" cards have odd CMC. This deck takes advantage of odd CMC take another turn cards like Nexus of Fate and Time Warp to take a lot of turns, then power into an infinite turns loop or get just enough turns banked to cast Approach of the Second Sun twice.

This is a relatively high power, creatureless, table kill combo list. My configuration isn't powerful enough to be "CEDH" ready, but it's far from a battlecruiser.

Yennett Herself

Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign is honestly a beefy lady. 5 toughness and a slew of offensive and defensive keywords make it a surprisingly capable card that's hard for aggro decks to remove. Menace plus flying means your typical token decks and creatures toolbox decks that try to gum up the board will have a tougher time blocking her. Vigilance lets her attack for value flips without exposing yourself to a single creature alpha strike.

The only disadvantage to Yennett is her mana cost. 5 is a pretty high starting point for Esper, so if she gets removed two or three times you're relying on Command Beacon to bail you out.

Taking Turns

The key mechanic for this deck is taking lots of turns. Nexus of Fate is the best card for this strategy. With 7 mana value and a shuffle effect that protects against mill, counter magic, and hand disruption, it's the card we want to loop most frequently. Time Warp is a huge player because it's our only turn spell that goes to the graveyard, for a big three-turn plus with Mnemonic Deluge (more on that later). Expropriate also frequently sets you up to take between 2 and 4 extra turns.

Temporal Mastery and Temporal Trespass are value turn spells--if you're in a bind and you scry one, Yennett can hit them for free and give you an untap to try again.

Topdeck Manipulation

To get the right flips, we need to manipulate the top of our library. I like to break the topdeck manipulation out into three categories:

Cantrips and value scrying

We want to use our mana as efficiently as possible, so quite a few cards in this list cantrip with scrying or just have value scry effects. Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Serum Visions, Temple of Enlightenment and Temple of Deceit all let us affect the top card of the library for value, while drawing cards and using our mana efficiently.

Set-up Manipulation

Many of our top-deck manipulation effects won't outright win us the game, but help us set up either for future turns or just improve our position slightly. Lim-Dul's Vault, Scroll Rack, and Sensei's Divining Top let us stack a small portion of the library for the next one or two turns. Vampiric Tutor, Scheming Symmetry, and Liliana Vess give us some tutors to the top of the library that either can't be looped infinitely or, by the time we can loop them we are already in a winning position. Enlightened Tutor is a powerful effect, but it only gets the combo pieces for us and isn't a combo piece on its own. Dimir Machination can stack our top three cards, fateseal three, or transmute into one of our many three-drops.

A special call-out for Hidden Retreat and Penance as well. These two cards allow you to put a card from your hand on top of your library, which helps you get expensive cards out of your hand and cheated into play. In some cases this is a value move, to increase your mana efficiency when you don't have a better play. In combo situations, you can use these cards to make sure you don't draw the card you're looping with and fizzle.

Game Winning Manips

A few of our topdeck manipulators set us up to win the game immediately. With no creatures in the 99, Proteus Staff allows us to stack the entire library. Isochron Scepter + Mystical Tutor + Nexus of Fate allows us to cast Nexus of Fate with Yennett every turn, in addition to our draw and whatever we want to do with our mana. This infinite turn loop enables many of our win conditions. Soothsaying with a lot of mana can scry our entire library, giving a similar effect to Proteus Staff. It can also value scry if you're stuck with a hand full of land and an untapped Yennett--very flexible for a single blue mana.

Winning the game

There are a few options to win in this deck. Approach of the Second Sun is the most obvious and most flexible. You can very frequently win just from value turns through a Liliana and a Mnemonic Deluged Time Warp. If your Approach gets answered, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria can exile enough permanents to give you an insurmountable advantage.

With Proteus Staff, you know we have to play the cheeky Goblin Charbelcher. Stack lands on bottom, spells on top and pop that bad boy. If you need infinite turns still and don't have another topdeck manipulator, stack your Nexus of Fate under the uppermost land. Reveal the spells and the land, stick em on bottom, crash through to take an extra turn, staff to stack again. Rinse and repeat until everyone else is dead.

If the Mystical Tutor grand tour isn't coming to your hometown, Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter + Soothsaying with a couple mana rocks is an acceptable cover band. Make infinite mana, scry your whole deck, order it however you want.

In a worst case scenario, Liliana Vess at -8 can grab you the duders you need to fight, and 21 damage with Yennett isn't a completely unreasonable option if you have the turns lock.

Protection

Yennett is a duder so the combo can be a bit fragile. We play a bunch of counter magic to protect Yennett. Muddle the Mixture can also be transmuted for Isochron Scepter, and Disallow can target abilities. Mystic Confluence plays triple duty by being an odd CMC spell that can draw you cards and bounce dudes as well as protecting your combo--a solid value option if you scry it to the top. Spot removal includes premium creature exile spells Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile, among others.

For board coverage, Cleansing Nova and Austere Command cover our traditional bases. Evacuation is a bit cheeky to get threats out of the way when Yen is on the board, and Terminus is a solid scry target when you're behind and in danger. Cyclonic Rift is just good.

We pack one Silence but it isn't as powerful as you'd think. It's best used on your set-up turn, to prevent counters to your Isochron Scepter or Lim-Dul's Valut setups. Once the combo starts, Silence becomes much less valuable.

Lightning Greaves. It's in here.

Everything Else

We pack a ton of tutors to grab stuff we need. Demonic Tutor, Increasing Ambition, Grim Tutor. We run acceleration, like everyone. Mnemonic Deluge and Mirrorpool allow us to double and triple our spells--I find Mnemonic Deluge + Time Warp typically gives you just enough extra turns to find your combo pieces and win the game. Monologue Tax can create explosive turns when you're playing from behind. Rings of Brighthearth can copy a few very powerful effects like planeswalker activations, Mirrorpool, fetchlands, and transmute.

Ultimately, the goal is to set up either infinite turns or just enough turns to win the game. While this isn't the most "interactive" combo once it gets motoring, it's a very thoughtful (and often stressful) indeterminate combo that's fun to execute, and uses cards to win games that you don't see quite as often in EDH.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	2 years
Key combos	Isochron Scepter + Mystical Tutor + Nexus of Fate Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter + Soothsaying Mnemonic Deluge + Time Warp
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.05
Tokens	Copy Clone, Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Treasure