Just getting back into Magic

[PhlingIsStillGood]

I played magic from 2001-2005 and I just decided recently to get back into it. I used to play Vintage and Extended every friday night at a little magic place by my house, but I kinda stopped going there. In fact I remember playing Steve Menendian a few time, ofcourse at the time I really didn't know that he was the "king of vintage."

I don't really know anything about the current Vinage and Legacy metagames, but I'm sure Extended sucks now adays . Anyway, is Keeper still around? I used to love Keeper. I presume that even if it is, Phling is not still run in it. Anyway, what are the dominate decks now? Who are the best vintage players? How much as the metagame changed?

[Twaun007]

Many things in magic have changed scince 2k5, decks, new rules, the hero's, and most important the terminology of the game. For instance, In the beginning day's of magic when you would cast the game winning spell, or something that saves you from certain death, you would casually say the name of the card and smile.  Now, in today's highly competitive meta-game the proper terminolgy is to say Baaaooommm while casting the card. When using Goblincharbelcher you are also permitted to say Baaaooommm. More new terminology that relates to the game is when your hand is filled with the very best of the restricted cards. In the past most players would try to hide how good there hand was by using the good ol' poker face. Not any more. In today's wold of electrifing professional card floppers the proper saying is one of many things, my hand is pure gasoline, I have so many broken plays, and the famous my hand is so hot I'm supprised my sleeves aren't melting together.

In all seriousness you should read some tourney reports and check out the deck and tournament archives on starcity's and TMD websights.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

Well, checking scg and tournament reports is sound advice. Also, you're probably not used to proxy-tournaments yet, so if you're American you'll have the surprise of playing against Plains that are Ancestral Recall and not winning instantaneously.
I also suggest looking at morphling.de to simply get to look at a lot of t8s fast and easy (most of them from Europe, so no proxies). As for the special question about Keeper, the deck is pretty much dead, it's position as the most controlish deck typically occupied by Slaver. Nonetheless, Womprax, another Keeper-lover, lately t8ed with this (look at the 4th place) in Germany.
Hope this helps

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

There are a few main archetypes that you should look at, so I'll name them all briefly with a short explanation:

5c Grim Long (combo deck with grim tutors and duresses)

Pitch Long (U/B combo deck with grim tutors, misdirections, and force of wills)

Meandeck Gifts (control combo deck, characterized by misdirections, 4x merchent scroll and gifts)

Thirst for Knowledge Gifts (thirst for knowledge added, fewer gifts, 0-2 merchents)

Control Slaver (some build changes since 2005 but mostly preference and metagame changes)

Oath (I think you're familiar with this)

U/W fish (Jotun Grunt added recently)

U/W/b fish (has dark confident and sometimes duress)

5c Stax (I think that you're familiar with this, also)

Uba Stax (mono red with bazaars and uba masks and null rod)

Dragon (with no squee or compulsion, and with deep analysis, read the ruins, and cunning wish added)

Bomberman (aggro/control/combo deck with auriok salvagers and trinket mages, the combo is salvagers+lotus+spellbomb ftw)

Sullivan Solotution or SS (U/B fish style deck without rod, chalice, or vial.  It runs 4x duress, stifle, and fow, 4x erayo, dimir cutpurse, and dark confident)

That's all I can think of that seems to be popular at the moment.  I probably missed something, but whatever.

Edit: Ya, I forgot to mention intution tendrils or IT, which is another U/B combo deck.  It runs 4x duress and fow, with Intuitions and Grim Tutors.  Pitch Long is more popular right now, though.

Some decks that have had some sucess in the past but never really been popular are Confident Control (U/B Mana Drain deck based around confident and lots of cheap disruption), Izzet Control (U/B/r Mana Drain control with Izzet Guilgmages, Intution/Accumlated Knowledge, and also an infinite mana combo with Izzet Guildmage+Reset startable with 5 mana and at least 4 land in play), also Vinelasher Kudzu.dec, U/G/w aggro/control with strips, wastes, ghost quarters, life from the loam, and you guessed it, Vinelasher Kudzu)

Oh, there's also The Mountains Win Again (TMWA), a R/W aggro/control hate deck, with things like maindeck tormod's crypt, swords to plowshares, goblin vandal, gorilla shaman, hearth kami, lighting bolt, pyrocblast, pyrostatic pillar, etc

I suggest reading up on the more popular deck at the very least (you can probably find dicsussions of most of them on these forums), going over lists, then trying them, goldfishing, testing, etc, to get a feel for what the meta is currently like.