Is Keeper a dead Archetype?

[Danzig]

The way I see it, anything that runs Force of Will and Mana Drain will
never really die out. They are blue's "get out of jail free" card.  

[Eastman]

The way I see it, anything that runs Force of Will and Mana Drain will
never really die out. They are blue's "get out of jail free" card.  

As I see it, the cards we blue mages put around our Forces and Drains  are meta dependent.  I still believe that there is a blue control deck to beat every meta- Sometimes it is keeper.

[Justinsane]

I think keeper's superiority comes from how balanced it is.  It always has answers for most situations.  But it comes down to the fact, why play keeper when u can play tog?

GOD DAMN PSYCHATOG YOU RUINED EVERYTHING (for me) WHEN YOU WERE BORN ONTO THIS PLANET!!!!!!!!

[SpencerForHire]

Tog is overrated, I would rather run keeper then tog myself.  Too many times I have watched tog lose all it's win conditions or some other wierd scenario in which keeper could easily escape.  
Tog hasn't won any recent tournaments that I have seen, slavery is the control deck that is the one to beat not tog, blaiming the lack of power in keeper as compared to tog is pointless as long as [card]Mindslaver[/card] has existed.  
The true problem with keeper is that a decent percentage of people running it are poor metagamers, I am not throwing mud I am just stating my opinion.  Keeper is hard to run, don't get me wrong, but for the most part people running it just completely copy down someone elses deck then wonder why they lose in a completely different meta.
In order for keeper to be powerful you have to run it in a meta you know with bullets that ruin that meta.  
Tog is a control deck that doesn't have all the answers all the time.  You can meta a little bit but in the end you will never have all the answers that keeper can have.
Slaver decks are a little more combo based then keeper or tog and as such they are successful as for a specific broken combo, this deck has the potential for far less adversity then keeper.
I don't understand why keeper never ran Psychatog as a kill condition, just go about your business taking down your opponent, then finish them.. The only logic is that tog is null evasive without it's best friend Mr. [card]Berserk[/card].  As the keeper I see doesn't necessarily run wishes, this card is the only penalty that prevents keeper from running Psychatog better then say; Hulk.

[jpmeyer]

If a deck is powerful enough that it doesn't need to metagame outside of like 1 card in the maindeck and like 4 cards in the sideboard, doesn't that say something about how strong it is?  And if a deck has to be heavily changed based on whatever decks are around, doesn't that also say something for how weak it is?

Since Gush was restricted almost a year ago, my Tog deck has fluctuated by 2 cards in the maindeck (1 land and Sol Ring out, Deed/Shaman and Crypt in,) and a lot of decks have sprung up in that time frame.  Part of this comes from the fact that Tog runs the best answer in the game: winning.

The reason that Keeper doesn't run Tog (Ze Germans experimented with it last year) is because Keeper doesn't play draw spells.  Alright, the deck runs about 4, but compare that to Tog which runs almost twice that.  And add in the fact that Keeper uses Skeletal Scrying for draw rather than Intuition/AK and it's easy to see.

The more that I think about it, Keeper's biggest weakness was that it simply relies too much on what the other decks are trying to do.  This is also why I consider Keeper's best period to be from around 98-00, because during this time it could run cards like Mirror Universe (early on) and Fact or Fiction (later on) which helped the deck to both "win" and "not lose" at the same time.

[InsaneScrub]

Keeper will always be a great deck, yes Tog is better all around, I will agree with the big Z on his opinion of Keeper, but vs certain decks Keeper will always be King, and never forget that Keeper has been the longest standing tier 1 deck ever built.  I will play keeper till magic is no longer played.  I am a die hard fan of Keeper, even though tog has it's drawing attraction.

Keeper Lives I say.  (And will always be an upper deck and contender.)

[Dozer]

The reason that Keeper doesn't run Tog (Ze Germans experimented with it last year) is because Keeper doesn't play draw spells.

I absolutely agree to this. Keeper is one of my favourite decks, and has served me well often enough, up to a 6-1 finish in Dülmen. Still, it lacks a lot of things compared to Hulk and Slaver-builds: It does not have the punch that Mindslaver provides, and it does not have the card drawing of Hulk, which makes every game with Keeper a nerve-wrecking gamble. Yes, Keeper can win every game. But it needs extreme concentration on behalf of the player, a very good knowledge of what to tutor for in which situation, and also more luck than most other decks. (Granted, Keeper is built to optimize your luck, but still.)

Compared to other top decks in the format, Keeper is still the least redundant deck and about the most reactive thing you can play (as jp already pointed out, but this needs to be stressed). Keeper usually has no real game plan, unless you call "stay alive and drop a win condition" a game plan. What is it that the 4-color-control decks we are used to call "Keeper" really do? They rely strongly on their opening hand to stop an initial rush, and then hope (and try) to draw into either Will or a Decree/any win condition of choice, getting rid of any problem in between.

That is, btw, why Exalted Angels are good. They give you an alternative game plan: "Suicide Angel", translating into "drop an Angel in the first three turns and ride it home".

However, I think that 4c-Control-decks will always see play and will remain in the position to place high every time, but rarely win a tournament. I believe this has been said before: Over the course of a tournament, a properly metagamed Keeper will win most matches, but not all. To me, playing Keeper feels like having a 50% chance against any deck -- no specifically good match-ups, but no specifically bad match-ups either. The old Azhrei saying along the lines of "a Keeper is like a hot, high tempered woman: At times, she'll turn away from you, at other times she takes you on a hot cajoling ride" still is true, in my opinion.

So, to answer the initial question: Yes, Keeper is a wonderful deck. However, in terms of power, redundancy and consistency, it is being surpassed by a lot of decks. It is still a force that needs to be reckoned with, but it is actually second choice when it comes to tournament-winning decks (all other considerations excluded, like nostalgia, mental challenge, belief, and tradition).

Throwing a look into the future, I think that actual control decks, of which Keeper is a key represantative, will --for the next step of their development-- need to look into other areas of card drawing and are likely to re-evolve into aggro-control decks or at least incorporate some aggro-control elements.

Dozer