Does Monday Night Vintage ever happen at this location? For that matter, any regular weekly vintage play?

I'm not sure this is true with Italian Legends.  I recall cracking a box and getting a Karakas, Mana Drain and Tabernacle.  I had these cards for many years until I first sold off my collection back in 2002.

Best,
Rick

#1 - Moat.  For all of the reasons listed above; it just answers so many problems!  I try to include it in my decks still to this day.
#2 - Fact or Fiction.  I keep going back and forth between running more of these instead of Jace.  Most people tend to let them resolve (whereas Jace is almost always a counter war), and it's great card advantage, especially in the right deck where you need to find that right answer.
#3 - Balance.  A tricky card to use, as it can hurt you.  In the right situations, it's simply amazing.

I would love to play in this!  Perhaps a we can arrange such an event in the mid-west at some point.

I was on BD back in the day

Very nice! Keeper isn't dead, it's just been hibernating!!

BUG has been very easy for this deck.  I'm sure a more concentrated land destruction attack would cripple it though.  It is a tad heavy on the mana base to help compensate for this fact. That's another reason it's 63 cards and not 60 or 61.  I tried to keep it at 60, but I felt as though I was losing answers to these various situations by going that low. Removing a land and a bolt (as an example) actually seems to have made a difference in its consistency to me, so I just left them in.  Lots of tutors and lots of answers, that's what I like about it

Here's my Keeper 2k14 list:

3 City of Brass
1 Flooded Strand
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Enlightened Tutor
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Mind Twist
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Sol Ring
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Voltaic Key
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Disenchant
4 Mana Drain
1 Regrowth
1 Time Vault
1 Time Walk
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fact or Fiction
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Moat
4 Force of Will
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Blightsteel Colossus

#63
Sideboard:

4 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Steel Sabotage
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Balance
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 The Abyss

#15

There are actually two Underground Seas in the deck, but the list shown isn't correct.  I will post the real list tomorrow.

Regarding null rod and strip effects, the Crucible helps. I can tutor it out early and survive.  However, this is a major downside to a five color deck.

With Keeper, there are two lines of play; win quick, or setup for the long game.  If you're going against combo, going for a quick win is usually preferred unless you're holding a good hand capable of stopping them readily. For the control match-up (blue angles, or any other control type deck), you can usually lock down the board and play out the battle over many turns because you're packing enough control and answers to deal with most other control decks.  If you try to win-out too early against another control deck, you run the risk of being countered-out and not being able to draw back to success.

In my case, I don't want to use creatures (other than the fatty Tinker targets), because they don't work well with Moat and The Abyss.  Moat absolutely hoses aggro (workshops too).  The Abyss is difficult for RUG/BUG, Young Pryomancer builds, and more.  Deathrite's don't do much in comparison (IMHO).  The build doesn't have a huge amount of draw power, unless you can get a Jace out.  However, I feel it makes up for that with just enough (Ancestral, Brainstorm, FoF) and many tutors to simply go get what you need instead of having to try to draw into it.

It was fun to pilot Keeper again.  It seems to do very well in an aggro and combo heavy meta environment.  I've been testing it for the past couple of months and it does really well against almost all deck types game one due to its "silver bullet" answers and usually better game two after side-boarding.  With most decks having a lot of creatures or combo these days, it has pretty good chances.  It's a lot of fun. 

For the TSO, it went undefeated through 4 rounds and then we decided to draw the final two.  I don't recall all of the details of each round, but here are some highlights. The first round was against Blue Angels.  I attempted a first turn Jace and then a second turn Tinker for BSC, both of which were countered.  He had nearly a full hand and was able to drop a Restoration Angel, but I balanced and reset the game, allowing me to pull back and take it.  The second round was against Griselbrand Oath.  Quick Tinkers into BSC or fetch my way to Vault/Key was a big win for me, using just enough along the way to stop Oath, even going as far as Bolting my own critters to prevent it.  The third round was against BUG.  No real problems here.  Very fast lock-down and BSC took it.  The fourth round was against Bomberman.  The third game was most interesting. We went to turns and I was able to get vault/key going on turn 1, and then used it bring out Tinker/BSC (or maybe Steel Hellkite, I don't remember) to take it.

I'm looking forward tweaking it further and having more Keeper fun
 
PS - There are four Grafdigger's Cage in the SB, not one  

But the second place guy didn't win a single game, much less a round! lol

Oh well.

How on earth did I get 4th? lol  I went 2-1 (only losing to #1), and beat the second place guy 2-0 (BTW, he also had two bye's!)

GG's.

Great article, Nat!

Hello TMD!

My name is Rick and I’ve been playing on and off since early 1994 (just at the tail end of Unlimited).  I stopped playing sometime during the Odyssey block.  Back then, I primarily played Type 1, although the occasional 1.5 or 1.x game wasn’t out of the question; I disliked Type2 and never played it.

Back then, I played extensively online using Apprentice and hung out with the Beyond Dominia crowd (on the forum and IRC), doing a lot of play testing and development, specifically on Keeper and BBS variants.  I made the unfortunate decision to sell my Keeper deck and the bulk of my cards in 2002 and stopped playing the game.

Fast forward to February 2012, I noticed a few co-workers playing Magic in the lunchroom at work.  I stopped by and watched a few games.  A few days later, Dark Ascension was released and I purchased a box and started playing Standard format with them and at local FNM events.  

While I’ve been playing Standard and EDH regularly since then, I’ve slowly been rebuilding my Vintage stockpile.  Last week, I put together a UBW control deck and joined a local Monday Night Vintage event and played Type 1 for the first time in nearly 11 years  ---  It was great!

A little about me: I’m a computer geek.  I’ve built several large data centers, including my latest project with a 11,000 sq ft, 2.5 megawatt data center.  I also work in cloud computing, developing large cloud grids and services.  When I’m not working or playing Magic, I’m either cooking or drag racing (10.44 second 2004 Mercury Marauder).  I grew up in Miami, Florida, but moved up to Columbus, Ohio a few years ago.

I’m looking forward to continued Vintage fun and making new friends! Thanks!

Best,
Rick