So, reading this, you're wondering: "Is there finally someone at the helm of control that isn't prime stinker zegana?" I'd like to hope this is it. I initially designed this to be a massive tempo/control list, playing bombs like Plow Under and Stunted Growth. Open to criticism/ideas. Thanks for the input!
Tempo is nice if you already have pressure applied on your opponent, or will soon, but I'm not sure you're really doing that with this deck. So the land destruction and Stunted Growth seem out of place. Stunted Growth in particular is one of the most overrated green cards in this format. Especially in a blue deck with 35 instants.
I'm in the minority on this one, but I think Kiora is pretty bad.
Finally, Fallow Earth is very inferior to Ice Storm. There's this idea that putting cards on top of someone's library is "tempo", but it's not necessarily. Tempo is just setting someone back on their ability to follow their gameplan. In most cases, you'd rather the land be in the graveyard, than back on the board the next turn.
mikel123, I think you underestimating the effects of plow under type cards. You are delaying their development, and costing them a draw or two.
I also want to build a Plow Under tempo deck. Temporal Spring would be a good addition or substitute for Fallow Earth. Also, if you want to add more creatures, Primal Command is also good. Some strong green tempo creatures, that would be worth tutoring for... Primeval Titan, Scavenging Ooze, Courser of Kruphix, Reclamation Sage, Woodland Bellower, and Hornet Queen is a good card when you are behind in creatures. I would also put in Mirri's Guile
Jace would also be powerful.
Jenara, Asura of War, would be a good general, because white adds some powerful cards...on theme Unexpectedly Absent, the three mana Memory lapse, Wrath of God.
If they want to draw land, Fallow Earth isn't costing them a draw.
It's funny, I almost praised the OP for not including Temporal Spring, because every person ever puts it in their "tempo deck" because of its name and not because it actually fits what they're trying to do.
Again, delaying development is good if you actually have some pressure to put on them. But if you're delaying their development and then hanging onto a counterspell to counter their next play, you're not doing anything useful. You're delaying their development and then giving them time to (re)develop.
Kaseto is a freaking Gray Ogre in this deck, because this deck is either holding mana up to counterspell (Plasm Capture) or tapping out for Stunted Growth and Plow Under. You're paying 3 mana for a 2/2 with no built in protection at all. Half the time you even try to pump it, it will get killed in response.
As Martial says, control and tempo don't really mix. If I were forced to make a Kaseto deck, I'd have 30 creatures, at least, to ensure a couple are sticking on the board, and I'd use the other ~30 spell slots for disruption. Which could be counterspells, could be "tempo", could be whatever. But like aggro, tempo is hurt by a 30 life system.
Trying to avoid hyperbole here, but since 2001 or whenever Temporal Spring was printed, was it ever in a top tournament caliber decklist? In the past 3 years, has it ever showed up in a duelcommander top 8? Did Edric play it? Has a Jenara deck ever used it?
It's a trap card, a skill tester. We want it to be good because it's in UG, the two favorite colors, and it has "tempo" right in the name, but in an eternal format it will never be one of the best 99 cards in a deck unless you're forcing it in.
>If they want to draw land, Fallow Earth isn't costing them a draw.
They are drawing something they previously had on the battlefield, so your stunting your opponent's development.
Fallow Earth / Plow Under was used in Trinity Green when Replenish was a strong deck in Standard back in the day. Trinity beat Replenish because that deck had a hard time getting to four mana. Temporal Spring, if you have access to blue mana is an upgrade to Fallow Earth and is 1/2 of a combo with Force of Will.
I agree that an agro-tempo list would be better than control-tempo
Everything you do to your opponent's battlefield is stunting their development. Duress, Terror, Stone Rain, Twiddle, Raze, Boomerang, they all stunt your opponent's development. That's not something unique to Fallow Earth and Stunted Growth and other put-on-top-of-library cards.
Thought experiment: how bad would land destruction strategies be if their opponent could opt to draw a land off the top of their deck every turn? They'd be terrible, because eventually the player would run you out of Stone Rains and would be able to cast their spells while you spend turns drawing more Stone Rains that have less and less impact. But this is what Fallow Earth does, on the small scale of one turn.
Putting a card on top of a library is not nearly as good as putting it in the graveyard. This is why Counterspell is better than Memory Lapse. We all agree on that, right? But then it comes to moving lands off the battlefield and everyone starts drooling over Fallow Earth when Ice Storm, Winter's Grasp, and Thermokarst exist. Fallow Earth was a 2x in a deck from 1999 in an extremely limited cardpool. If any ACTUAL 3cc land destruction was available that year in standard, like the three cards I mention above, any one of them would have ensured that Fallow Earth never got played in a serious tournament deck ever.
Put-on-top-of-library cards are cool and fun, and they look really good when they win, but they're underpowered compared to other cards that more permanently deal with things. And there's no inherent tempo advantage to putting cards on a library rather than in a graveyard.
>drooling over Fallow Earth when Ice Storm, Winter's Grasp, and Thermokarst exist. Fallow Earth was a 2x in a deck from 1999 in an extremely limited cardpool.
Fallow Earth was played as a four of in Trinity Green in Saga/MM/ 6th Standard. In the Replenish match up many games it was first turn elf, second turn Fallow Earth on a tapped Saprazzan Skerry. Third turn Blastoderm, followed by a Plow Under next turn. At this point assuming there was no drawn cards other from your draw step, the Trinity Green player drew 10 cards and the Replenish player only saw his opening hand and the card he drew first turn. The Trinity player had four lands drops that he could put on the battlefield, the Replenish player had three out of his four land drops, put on top of his library.
Trinity Green got popular than people started to play Angry Hermit as a reaction. Angry Hermit was a R/G deck with a touch of burn to fry elves and BoPs
In a vacuum, Stone Rain is a stronger card. But we don't play magic in a vacuum. Fallow Earth was only playeble because Plow Under existed and the meta was slower compared to Dark Ritual and Sligh decks. The meta and what other cards that are in your deck, determine if a card is strong or not.
I think there are enough of Fallow Earth type cards and enough of good bounce cards to brew a strong dual commander deck.
BTW, those blocks had a lot of great decks and I would argue that the spells that were in standard were much stronger then than now. (Not, creatures) The shop I played at , Adept in Osaka, Japan produced two MTG Hall of Famers, Fujita and Nakamaura and there were a lot of other great players. I remember Plowing Under players and if they could they would shuffle their deck in order to see a new card next turn
>>there's no inherent tempo advantage to putting cards on a library rather than in a graveyard.
Being a bit older with work and family, I can not keep up with standard. I only play commander, vintage and modern at my local shop. I have been winning with my Devotion to Green, and Tooth and Nails decks. My opponents hate getting Primal Commanded two or three times in a row, especially when are hoping to draw a kill spell for my fatty.
Drawing a land is not negating a draw *if you wanted to draw a land*. Against LD, you're in one of two situations. Either you want to draw a land, or you don't. If you don't, you probably already have things under control.
Turn 2 Fallow Earth, Turn 4 Plow Under, is not good because the lands end up on top of the library. It's good because the lands are no longer in play.
WOW! So Sorry I was away for a bit guys!Completely forgot about Temporal Spring, its a rather powerful card. Truthfully, late game, that card is nice. I'm a big fan of it, i'll give it some testing.
@3drinks
I brewed this up in hopes that it would be a new deck unlike jenara; because there really isn't a true U/G control list. This just happens to be the best (in my opinion) of all the straight U/G commanders. That, and playing cards like stunted growth/plow under just seem super fun as bombs. Besides, I only play Kaseto long after the game is under control/I have nothing else to play.
latest edits:
- 1 Forest
- 1 Sword of fire and ice
So, reading this, you're wondering: "Is there finally someone at the helm of control that isn't prime stinker zegana?" I'd like to hope this is it. I initially designed this to be a massive tempo/control list, playing bombs like Plow Under and Stunted Growth. Open to criticism/ideas. Thanks for the input!
1 Kaseto, Orochi Archmage
Artifacts 4
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vedalken Shackles
Creatures 8
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Eternal Witness
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Vendillion Clique
Enchantment 3
1 Sylvan Library
1 Treachery
1 Song of the Dryads
Instant 35
1 Anticipate
1 Beast Within
1 Brainstorm
1 Condescend
1 Counterspell
1 Cryptic Command
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Daze
1 Dig Through Time
1 Dismiss
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Exclude
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Force Spike
1 Force of Will
1 Impulse
1 Into the Roil
1 Krosan Grip
1 Mana Leak
1 Memory Lapse
1 Misdirection
1 Miscalculation
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Nature's Claim
1 Peer through Depths
1 Plasm Capture
1 Remand
1 Repeal
1 Rewind
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
1 Stifle
1 Telling Time
1 Trickbind
1 Voidslime
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Command Tower
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Flooded Grove
1 Flooded Strand
6 Forest
1 Hinterland Harbor
11 Island
1 Lumbering Falls
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Treetop Village
1 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
Planeswalkers 2
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
Sorcery 9
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Fallow Earth
1 Life from the Loam
1 Plow Under
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Serum Visions
1 Stunted Growth
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Jace, Telepath Unbound
1 Nissa, Sage Animist
Tempo is nice if you already have pressure applied on your opponent, or will soon, but I'm not sure you're really doing that with this deck. So the land destruction and Stunted Growth seem out of place. Stunted Growth in particular is one of the most overrated green cards in this format. Especially in a blue deck with 35 instants.
I'm in the minority on this one, but I think Kiora is pretty bad.
Finally, Fallow Earth is very inferior to Ice Storm. There's this idea that putting cards on top of someone's library is "tempo", but it's not necessarily. Tempo is just setting someone back on their ability to follow their gameplan. In most cases, you'd rather the land be in the graveyard, than back on the board the next turn.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I also want to build a Plow Under tempo deck. Temporal Spring would be a good addition or substitute for Fallow Earth. Also, if you want to add more creatures, Primal Command is also good. Some strong green tempo creatures, that would be worth tutoring for... Primeval Titan, Scavenging Ooze, Courser of Kruphix, Reclamation Sage, Woodland Bellower, and Hornet Queen is a good card when you are behind in creatures. I would also put in Mirri's Guile
Jace would also be powerful.
Jenara, Asura of War, would be a good general, because white adds some powerful cards...on theme Unexpectedly Absent, the three mana Memory lapse, Wrath of God.
It's funny, I almost praised the OP for not including Temporal Spring, because every person ever puts it in their "tempo deck" because of its name and not because it actually fits what they're trying to do.
Again, delaying development is good if you actually have some pressure to put on them. But if you're delaying their development and then hanging onto a counterspell to counter their next play, you're not doing anything useful. You're delaying their development and then giving them time to (re)develop.
Kaseto is a freaking Gray Ogre in this deck, because this deck is either holding mana up to counterspell (Plasm Capture) or tapping out for Stunted Growth and Plow Under. You're paying 3 mana for a 2/2 with no built in protection at all. Half the time you even try to pump it, it will get killed in response.
As Martial says, control and tempo don't really mix. If I were forced to make a Kaseto deck, I'd have 30 creatures, at least, to ensure a couple are sticking on the board, and I'd use the other ~30 spell slots for disruption. Which could be counterspells, could be "tempo", could be whatever. But like aggro, tempo is hurt by a 30 life system.
It's a trap card, a skill tester. We want it to be good because it's in UG, the two favorite colors, and it has "tempo" right in the name, but in an eternal format it will never be one of the best 99 cards in a deck unless you're forcing it in.
They are drawing something they previously had on the battlefield, so your stunting your opponent's development.
Fallow Earth / Plow Under was used in Trinity Green when Replenish was a strong deck in Standard back in the day. Trinity beat Replenish because that deck had a hard time getting to four mana. Temporal Spring, if you have access to blue mana is an upgrade to Fallow Earth and is 1/2 of a combo with Force of Will.
I agree that an agro-tempo list would be better than control-tempo
Thought experiment: how bad would land destruction strategies be if their opponent could opt to draw a land off the top of their deck every turn? They'd be terrible, because eventually the player would run you out of Stone Rains and would be able to cast their spells while you spend turns drawing more Stone Rains that have less and less impact. But this is what Fallow Earth does, on the small scale of one turn.
Putting a card on top of a library is not nearly as good as putting it in the graveyard. This is why Counterspell is better than Memory Lapse. We all agree on that, right? But then it comes to moving lands off the battlefield and everyone starts drooling over Fallow Earth when Ice Storm, Winter's Grasp, and Thermokarst exist. Fallow Earth was a 2x in a deck from 1999 in an extremely limited cardpool. If any ACTUAL 3cc land destruction was available that year in standard, like the three cards I mention above, any one of them would have ensured that Fallow Earth never got played in a serious tournament deck ever.
Put-on-top-of-library cards are cool and fun, and they look really good when they win, but they're underpowered compared to other cards that more permanently deal with things. And there's no inherent tempo advantage to putting cards on a library rather than in a graveyard.
Fallow Earth was played as a four of in Trinity Green in Saga/MM/ 6th Standard. In the Replenish match up many games it was first turn elf, second turn Fallow Earth on a tapped Saprazzan Skerry. Third turn Blastoderm, followed by a Plow Under next turn. At this point assuming there was no drawn cards other from your draw step, the Trinity Green player drew 10 cards and the Replenish player only saw his opening hand and the card he drew first turn. The Trinity player had four lands drops that he could put on the battlefield, the Replenish player had three out of his four land drops, put on top of his library.
Trinity Green got popular than people started to play Angry Hermit as a reaction. Angry Hermit was a R/G deck with a touch of burn to fry elves and BoPs
In a vacuum, Stone Rain is a stronger card. But we don't play magic in a vacuum. Fallow Earth was only playeble because Plow Under existed and the meta was slower compared to Dark Ritual and Sligh decks. The meta and what other cards that are in your deck, determine if a card is strong or not.
I think there are enough of Fallow Earth type cards and enough of good bounce cards to brew a strong dual commander deck.
BTW, those blocks had a lot of great decks and I would argue that the spells that were in standard were much stronger then than now. (Not, creatures) The shop I played at , Adept in Osaka, Japan produced two MTG Hall of Famers, Fujita and Nakamaura and there were a lot of other great players. I remember Plowing Under players and if they could they would shuffle their deck in order to see a new card next turn
>>there's no inherent tempo advantage to putting cards on a library rather than in a graveyard.
Being a bit older with work and family, I can not keep up with standard. I only play commander, vintage and modern at my local shop. I have been winning with my Devotion to Green, and Tooth and Nails decks. My opponents hate getting Primal Commanded two or three times in a row, especially when are hoping to draw a kill spell for my fatty.
Turn 2 Fallow Earth, Turn 4 Plow Under, is not good because the lands end up on top of the library. It's good because the lands are no longer in play.
@3drinks
I brewed this up in hopes that it would be a new deck unlike jenara; because there really isn't a true U/G control list. This just happens to be the best (in my opinion) of all the straight U/G commanders. That, and playing cards like stunted growth/plow under just seem super fun as bombs. Besides, I only play Kaseto long after the game is under control/I have nothing else to play.
latest edits:
- 1 Forest
- 1 Sword of fire and ice
+ 1 island
+ 1 temporal spring