Is Keeper Viable?

[Harkius]

Hello Everyone.

I have what I think is a viable question. I play Type I, but not really in an environment that would be considered anything notable by people who are used to tournaments with over fifty people showing up. I am from a small town, and the powered decks where I am from belong to my friend and I, and we use our P9 to make otherwise non-viable decks more fun and interesting in Vintage.

I digress. I have seen a lot on this thread about the viability only of certain builds (GRUba Stax/Other Stax variants, Slaver variants, Oath variants, the rat's nest that is the archetype Combo (which appears to include several very different decks), and Fish, predominantly), and relatively little about Weissman's baby. I saw something in one of Smmenen's articles (I think...if I am misremembering the author, I beg the author's forgiveness. There is simply a paucity of other authors in Vintage lately) about 4C Control having been viable for some time, but no longer.

It seems a shame to me that the only viable control decks are Stax and Slaver, and that more classical control isn't viable anymore. Not to be labeled as a newbie, but can anyone explain, explicitly, why they are not? I am looking for a more thorough explanation than simply, "Not fast enough." It seems that it should be possible to build a deck that can edge out Stax and Slaver, if it should push them into the role of the beatdown, and still retain enough quicksand-like properties to prevent Oath and FCG from running over it like a child playing in the street.

Granted, many slots would need to be filled with hate for current Tier One decks. However, access to U/W would give you maindeck Meddling Mages, Null Rods, and Pithing Needles, all of which are cheap and effective. Dropping a little black in there for Dark Confidant would keep you drawing enough to stay viable. It may turn into an effective little aggro-control deck, or you could be riding Dark Confidant to your grave. The fact is that you would need some kind of effective (i.e., cheap and reliable) way to draw more cards.

As far as the control elements go, there are plenty of really cheap counterspells available, and you can search currently used decks for viable Type I counters. The point remains that a deck built around a moderate amount of disruption (to throw your opponent off his plan), combined with counter (to keep him off his game) long enough to allow some little guys in to do enough damage to win seems like an idea I could get behind. Even The Deck used creatures to win (although it later lost them for a while), so immediately booing and calling this aggro-control rather than control seems a bit like just renaming tech.

Also, to the moderators. Please don't move this to the deck improvement forum, because I am not building a deck here, per se. Rather, I am looking for the reason that Keeper/other control variants are no longer viable in a general strategy with regard to a variation of currently played control decks.

The largest problems that I see this having are against Stax, which you can hate out with enough counter and disruption (in theory), and Oath, which you should be able to take control of with some Swords to Plowshares and/or other targeted destruction or mass destruction, like Pyroclasm (if you go a three- or four-color route) or Wrath of God (if you don't). Granted, both of these will wipe your boys out, too, but that is always the cost of running bodies and control, and if you don't like it, non-utility creatures (i.e., manlands) can be run instead. However, that tends to take you down the Landstill pathway, and that doesn't seem incredibly viable.

My question is, I guess, is this type of deck viable? If not, why? What would be necessary for it to reach a viable status?

Thanks!
Harkius

[Tha Gunslinga]

Not really.  Keeper has trouble with Oath and Slaver, though a decent build should annihilate Stax.  I played Keeper for a couple years, and even won a Mox with it, but it's not viable at the moment.  This is actually what I rebuilt Keeper into as a test run; it might be workable; I have no idea.

   2 Cunning Wish
        1 Sensei's Divining Top
        2 Crucible of Worlds
        3 Thirst for Knowledge
        2 Skeletal Scrying
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Force of Will
        4 Mana Drain
        2 Duress
        1 Mind Twist
        2 Dimir Cutpurse
        1 Platinum Angel
        1 Darksteel Colossus
        1 Tinker
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Fact or Fiction
        1 Imperial Seal
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Time Walk
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Tolarian Academy
        4 Polluted Delta
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Island
        4 Underground Sea
        1 Library of Alexandria
SB:  4 Energy Flux
SB:  4 Back to Basics
SB:  1 Darkblast
SB:  1 Recoil
SB:  2 Nevinyrral's Disk
SB:  1 Capsize
SB:  2 Annul

[Vertigo]

Well written post and I understand the question you ask.

 Keeper is NOT necessarily dead but when you echo something enough it will be dead literally. People kept claiming Control Slaver is dead and then it won 4-5 tournaments on a worldwide scale of course..

Maybe  keeper died because people didnt want to play it anymore. Maybe because Exalted Angel and Morphling isnt good anymore? Maybe because that graveyards became a new card of board control? 

The newest list I was able to find with keeper (i didnt look very much though) is from the german championsships date: 140805

1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
3 Skeletal Scrying
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
   4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Balance
2 Decree of Justice
1 Disenchant
2 Swords to Plowshares

Lands (19):
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

 SB.
1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Coffin Purge
2 Disenchant
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Hydroblast
2 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Pithing Needle
3 Serenity
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Stifle
1 Swords to Plowshares

I dont know if it answered anything. Hopefully it did.

Vertigo

[That0neguy]

Basically Gifts is the new control slaver but instead of morphling/angel it uses darksteel colosus and instead of skeletal scrying/cunning wishes it runs gifts/merchant scroll(although ive been seeing fewer scrolls) which nets card advantage and tutors.  Keeper also seemed to boil down to playing Yawg will for a ton of card advantage to let morphling/angel win, however, gifts just does this better with a faster clock, more tutoring, and better will since gifts dumps good cards into the graveyard.  Also when keeper was viable there was much more aggro/fish decks where exahlted angel was dominant against the small flying men.

So basically keeper isn't really dead it just runs better cards now and has a different name.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Basically Gifts is the new control slaver but instead of morphling/angel it uses darksteel colosus and instead of skeletal scrying/cunning wishes it runs gifts/merchant scroll(although ive been seeing fewer scrolls) which nets card advantage and tutors. Keeper also seemed to boil down to playing Yawg will for a ton of card advantage to let morphling/angel win, however, gifts just does this better with a faster clock, more tutoring, and better will since gifts dumps good cards into the graveyard. Also when keeper was viable there was much more aggro/fish decks where exahlted angel was dominant against the small flying men.

So basically keeper isn't really dead it just runs better cards now and has a different name.

Quoted for truthery. You also have to run an absolutely horrid manabase if you want to play 3cc. Every control deck in the format has a better/faster will. Another thing to note, is that Gifts and CS abuse drain much better than 4cc. Instead of draining into a decree/scrying/angel, CS can drain into a deadly thirst, a slaver, or a tinker, and Gifts just wins if you drain anything with CC 4 or higher.

[Harkius]

This is not really the kind of thing I was looking for. I really do appreciate the advice, but decklists are also not what I am looking for. I can, with a little effort, track those down myself, and or build them myself.

Perhaps I am unclear on my deck names. I was under the impression that Keeper was merely a 2000-era name for Weissman's original creation, i.e., The Deck. It rode card advantage to victory much the way that the original Sligh builds (e.g., the one built by Paul Sligh) rode mana curves.

I wouldn't necessarily call a deck that abuses Yawgmoth's Will a control deck, but rather a combo deck. Vertigo mentions Morphling and Exalted Angel, and that is more along the lines of the builds that I was thinking of. A more exact definition of what I am looking for may be necessary. I am wondering not necessarily whether Keeper is viable (as I understand the archetype, that is. My definition would be a control deck that rides one or a few creatures to victory while building card advantage and virtual card advantage through the use of disruptive utility cards); a quick check of recent tournament reports and T8 postings will quickly show that it is not being piloted to victory, for one reason or another.

My question is, instead, how could a person make it viable once more. In part, I think that the answer relies upon a few things that Smmenen has mentioned in threads either here or on SCG (they are getting easy to mix up with the repetition). I think that this also addresses part of the problem that many people are having with Type I in general. In specific, Type I has become (or some would say always was) an environment where you attempt to toy with your opponent, whilst you disembowel them. By which, of course, I mean that you naturally want to kill them, but that you want to make sure that they are harmless first.

A friend of mine called the environment 'degenerate' and 'one-sided.' He claims that it is about ignoring your opponent. I think that he is partly correct. Type I is about making sure that you can ignore your opponent, while you safely do whatever it is that you are going to do while you win. Thinking about that, the natural conclusion seems to be that control would be the best at this idea, while combo would be the worst. (This is not intended to be a comprehensive or complete statement!) This leads to the de facto conclusion that control should be viable.

I think that there are a few things standing in its way, though. One, mentioned by Smmenen, and recapitulated by others, is that Type I has become a specialist environment. While it does take a lot of skill to successfully pilot a Tier One Vintage deck these days, that doesn't mean that fundamental play skill is a non-issue; nor does it mean that decks have become so degenerate that a stupid person (or a monkey) can pilot a deck to winning, regardless of what that deck is (okay, maybe Oath is an exception. ) With the proper amount of knowledge, a control player should be able to neutralize his opponent's plays and make the correct choices to shut down just about anything except the nuts draw, and there is precious little that anyone can do at that point. As an example, I played in a Vintage tournament in my area a few months ago. (Preface to all my Vintage stories: We have a really, really strange meta.) As I cruised through the field, I ran into a player running a ported RavAffinity deck from Type II, with Mana Crypt/Vault and other Type I accelerants. (No Moxen, though.) He was at the top of the standings. (Strange meta!) Watching him, and knowing of the deck, I realized the only way that he was going to make me suffer was his Disciples of the Vault. My friend was playing a build similar to mine, and had been quite thoroughly beaten, because he worried about the Ravagers. Ignoring them, and killing the Disciple, I neutered his deck. (Go me! I beat an unpowered Extended deck! ) The point of this story? Without knowing the deck well enough to know the interactions and the threats, I couldn't have beaten him. As it was, I emasculated his deck, and he started whining about Vintage power (it was the StP that killed him, though).

Sufficient understanding of the Tier One decks, along with correct card choice, play style, and a little bit of luck, should allow control to at least be viable in this format. The key appears to be knowing what to stop and when, as much as builds, though. So, obviously, a good deal of playtesting with and against appears to be crucial. However, individual card choices appear to be vital as well. This is where things like Sensei's Divining Top come into effect. I will admit, I haven't ever played with this little beast. Honestly, I don't think that I ever will. I think that it is suboptimal, all things considered. Instead, I would run something a little less likely to encounter hate and a little more long-term. Something like Soothsaying (which I have yet to see a single person beyond myself play). While this card has no place in Stax, Slaver, or Oath (and Sensei's Divining Top makes far more sense in a build like that, the ability to draw an extra card from time to time doesn't seem as valuable as being able to dig deep for the answers that you need (or to port off things that you don't with Brainstorm).

Another issue I would fold into this would be statistics. With proper understanding of your opponent's deck (if you know what it is...fortunately, we live in the era of the netdeck, and four cards should immediately point out what it is unless it is rogue, and a Tier Two deck should beat most really rogue builds), you should be able to predict with relative confidence what your opponent has in his hand at just about any point in the game. This type of odds-playing can get you into serious trouble, but it can also make the difference between T8 and scrubbing out. Sometimes you have to bluff, sometimes you get called when you do. If you have played the Tier One decks enough, and have prepared for the decks you simply know will be there, then you will have the ability to properly calculate the correct play. It won't mean you will win every game, but it will maximize your relative odds. Against any deck, control has a matchup between 0% and 100% probability of winning; normally it is a range. Correct play brings you to the higher end of that range, and that is sometimes all that you can ask. So, experience, once more, appears to be key for correctly running a control deck. Can you afford to let that TfK resolve? Or, do you bet that he has the Goblin Stinker in his hand? Well, does he run three or does he run four? How many cards has he drawn? Is he running 60 cards the way that he should be? Or did he decide to go rogue and run 61? Based on these, you can determine whether you need to FoW the draw, or whether you can wait and blow away his cute tricks with Ashes to Ashes.

Any other thoughts? Am I totally wrong about this? Am I running decade old tech in a shell that is just not viable? Or is it simply that playing control requires skills and choices that have become uncommon? The right control build should be able to dominate Slaver, as Slaver has a few threats backed by counter, and that lets control force it to become the beatdown, and Slaver shouldn't be able to win that fight against a conscious opponent.

Or am I wrong about that, too?

Thanks!
Harkius

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I experimented with a 3cc build designed to beat my meta a while back.  I figured that white would give great solutions in the form of disinchant and swords to plowshares and that running additional disruption compared to current 'control' decks in the form of duress would give me an edge to beat them.  My draw engine was, of course, scrying, and I decided to kill with tinker/dsc or DOJ.

The problem is, as you mentioned, that in type 1 you want to be able to ignore your opponent as much as possible.  However, rather than this fact making a 'keeper' style deck stronger it actually makes it weaker.  Quite simply, the best answer or solution to your opponent's game plan is to just kill them, and in fact it's often the easiest, too.  That's why control decks are now in reality control/combo decks.  All you need to do is slow your opponent down long enough for your deck to do it's thing and win.  With my control deck, I found myself often unable to kill my opponent.  I would remove every threat they had, counter/destroy/duress everything they had untill they had no cards left in hand, and then I found that I wanted to kill them, but I simply couldn't.  Often they would come back simply by topdecking. 

I won more games than I lost against the decks I designed my deck to beat, but I found that my entire deck simply had a flawed concept.  Instead of trying to deal with every card in my opponent's deck I should just kill them, and that's why control/combo decks are simply better and why true control or keeper style decks aren't viable.

(Also not that skeletal scrying is a horrible draw engine as you can't abuse it to get ahead of your opponent early in the game, and that all of the damage from fow, fetches, welder beats, etc, adds up so that eventually you can't even use it effectively.  Also, you are often forced to rely on drain mana to  cast scrying for a reasonable amount.  Thirst is simply better but doesn't fit with the deck unless you butcher it by adding pithing needles, engineered explosvies, etc, which is possible, but in that case you should probably just turn it into gifts or control slaver.  The one advantage my deck seemed to have was the ability to mana screw opponents with Cow+waste or cow+strip, and in fact this is how I won alot of my games.)

Oh, and check the quote by true lies owns in my sig, too.

[Vertigo]

What I meant by graveyard becoming board control I was thinking about exactly this point:

"the right control build should be able to dominate Slaver, as Slaver has a few threats backed by counter, and that lets control force it to become the beatdown, and Slaver shouldn't be able to win that fight against a conscious opponent."

Unless you are a very lucky/good player a turn one welder spells major problems for the average control player or even the aforementioned conscious player. If the control slaver player is playing right he now has two options; engage in a counterwar on resolving TfK or engaging in a control battle with one ultimate goal..reaching 8 cards in hand and then discarding a fatty.

I know of course that you said THE RIGHT CONTROL DECK..but this is a abstact material to discuss with (sorry i am danish hopefully you understand what is being meant)  as we are yet to define what this is.

In the age of netdecking it is possible to attain a certain level of information of A: what are the meta dominated by? How many random decks are present? C: who are the good players and what do they play? 

The right control deck maybe a metadeck; a deck which is boldly constructed as Bleiweiss`was.

For example lets picture a fictional meta where
a: gifts control
b: A lot of aggro
c: They play gifts combo.

4cc or whatever its called has the most numerous meta slots. They need maybe 4x win cards and then the rest can be suited towards a given meta.

Lets say, to combat:
a: red elemental blast/pyroblast/duress/gorilla shaman
b: cunning wishes maindeck/maybe even pyroclasm/ lots of swords.
c: here your specific meta relevant knowledge enters.

This is maybe an the best answers to the concept of the right control deck.

Hopefully you enjoyed my post.

[Moxlotus]

It basically comes down to what does Keeper do better than any other deck.  That answer is pretty much nothing.  It tries to control the game with counter-magic and board control and win at leisure.  Slaver controls the board with counter-magic, controls the board with Welders and utility cards, abuses Drain better, has a better draw engine, has stronger Wills and ways to set up broken plays, has a better manabase and plays the busted Slaver.  Essentially, Slaver is less prone to hate, more powerful, and more broken.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Essentially, Slaver is less prone to hate

I disagree.  There's nothing to hate in Keeper.  Null rod hoses Slaver until it gets welded out, but it does relatively nothing against keeper. 

It would seem that Keeper could itself run everyone's favorite new toy (Null Rod), and probably should also run Wastelands against shops/bazaars/other cheating lands

[PipOC]

I disagree.  There's nothing to hate in Keeper.

Land.  A single wasteland will usually keep them off drain mana for enough turns to drop a game breaking threat, due to their low density of blue producing lands comapative to other drain decks.  Face it, as long as wasteland remains a staple of vintage keeper in it's old form will remain unviable on a large scale, though it certainly remains somewhat viable in small, known metagames.

[Harkius]

It basically comes down to what does Keeper do better than any other deck.  That answer is pretty much nothing.  It tries to control the game with counter-magic and board control and win at leisure.  Slaver controls the board with counter-magic, controls the board with Welders and utility cards, abuses Drain better, has a better draw engine, has stronger Wills and ways to set up broken plays, has a better manabase and plays the busted Slaver.  Essentially, Slaver is less prone to hate, more powerful, and more broken.

That is, I think, the essence of the point, though. While Keeper may not be able to do any one thing more effectively than any other deck, it was originally designed to be able to play against all of the decks in the format. Magic, a long time ago, was like playing Rock, Scissors, Paper. More and more, I get the feeling it is going back to that. Aggro beats control. Aggro-control beats aggro. Control beats aggro-control. Etc. Replace with Oath, Stax, and Slaver, and you have a pretty effective definition of Type I, as I understand it from reading other threads. That was the point of The Deck, was to not immediately lose to anything, and to ride a different set of ponies across the finish line.

These days, everyone realizes the importance of card advantage and disruption, and very, very few decks get by without any. However, there still seems to be some room, in my head at least, for a good player (i.e., not me) to pilot this type of machine to victory. The key, I think, has got to be in knowing the matchups. Yes, Slaver can abuse Drain better. That is why you (gasp) shouldn't run Drain. Don't fight a battle you aren't going to win! Use Daze instead. Use Annul for crying out loud. Use FoW, but only because you must. They can Drain it, but, as someone (name, please?) pointed out, the correct hate against Drain is not a card, it's a play style. Most people will Drain the first thing that will provide sufficient mana for whatever they want to do, or the first thing that is threatening. If they are wise, they will play as much around your threats as they can. But if you don't use your Drains, sooner or later, they may as well be Necroplasms or something equally useless. So, they will cast them. When that happens, use Daze or a generic Counterspell to stop it. Or, learn to play around it.

My point is that no, Keeper may not have the nuts draws, and it may not have the edge-out odds against certain matchups, but it seems, logically, that it can still be good, so long as you know the right plays to make and you use the statistics that you know to evaluate threats. It seems like Keeper may be a very skill-intensive deck to play, and I, for one, would like to see it come back.

Further, I disagree that Slaver is less prone to hate, much as Moxlotus did. The deck is, after all, named after a single card. Most Slaver decks are called that because successful application of a Slaver to the face will wreck your opponent's chances of doing anything. If you can prevent that, or throw the Slaver deck off its game, it will have to play a suboptimal game. The odds are all about "everything being equal." But, if you pull decks off their balance, push them out of their favored attacking position, their attacks are usually much easier to nullify, and become much less threatening. Even a Darksteel Colossus can be taken care of, should you kick the Goblin Welder/Tinker legs out from 'neath it.

As far as this 

I disagree. There's nothing to hate in Keeper.

Land.

goes, I am going to strike it from the record, because this argument is equally valid against any deck that likes two blue mana with non-basic sources. Or against any deck using specspecializedds to power a creature into play without paying for it. Or against any deck that isn't Fish. As a result, this argument hardly seems thorough against Keeper more than it is against Gifts, which seems to be thriving anyway. If Gifts can survive, so can Keeper, it seems. If anything, Keeper should be more stable, with a lack of a defined early game goal.

Perhaps that is really what I am getting at here. Many of these decks have a defined goal early in the game, whereas Keeper's only goal is one of posiposition stability. Whereas some decks are desirous to get into a position of winning, Keeper, like Stax, is desirous of getting into a position where it has a firm grip on the floor, and is simply waiting for the inevitable shaking that will bring down its opponent. Something in the form of broken parity, or unequal resources, or perhaps shifted equilibria.

So, step one for Keeper is obviously not die. Step three is win, using something like Decree of Justice, Morphlng, Exalted Angel, or, hell, even Orzhova, if you so desired. The fact of the matter is that the amount of damage is inconsequential, so long as the lock is hard enough to make it permanent. Step two, the distance between not losing and winning, is the area where some parity needs to be established, then shattered in your favor. Classically, Balance was workable for this. Later, card advantage became a good idea. Currently, tempo is where it is at, hence the success of Stax. It seems that there are options we haven't considered. My brain is fried for right now, though, so I can't think of any. I am going to get some rest, and give this some more thought over the next couple of days. I need to find a card that is "balanced" and then to unbalance it, breaking parity and establishing a favorable condition for me. That is the beginning of the slide into Keeperstown (hey, isn't that where the baseball hall of fame is?).

Any other ideas? Any suggestions for what I should be looking for?

Cheers,
Harkius

[Whatever Works]

I think this whole discussion focuses around around 2 questions:

1.) Can Reactionary decks still compete in a metagame with todays rather anti-social decks.

Keeper was 1 on the last truly reactionary decks (with the acception of mono blue that was still only viable when perfectly tuned in the perfect metagame). All the decks in the current format DO SOMETHING. Gifts.dec resolves gifts it wins, and has ennough counters to hold off Keeper (or more modern versions like 4cc). Recoup also gives keeper problems. Then factor in edition of Crucible of worlds, and sundering titan both cards helped create the demise of 4cc.

2.) Has the power-level of cards maken the format to broken for reactionary decks to react affectively.

This question relates to the fact that when keeper was played most kill conditions took several turns, Darksteel Collosus didnt exist, Forbidden orchard didnt exist, PROXIES didnt exist or were maxed at 5, and Tendrils wasnt really in existence with the acception of the 1 waterbury where Carl Winter and his brittiny spears tokens from goblin trenches beat a rector tendrils build in the finals.

There are a billion other things I could mention such a inferior strategy, unimpressive draw engine, low threat density (not that it needs it).

Overall,

I am a huge fan of Keeper and 4cc in particular but the deck isnt playable at the moment, and unless something is printed in upcoming sets which do show a glimir of hope with the UW guild etc. being in it (which could help the mana base as well etc. to allow the play of suppression field), but its just not good enough.

Kyle

[Moxlotus]

Keeper has way more nonbasics than slaver or gifts.  Its lands are much easier to hit since it runs only 1 or 2 basic lands compared to 4-6.  In today's meta you can't have game against all the decks because they are simply too different.  You can't have game against Stax, Slaver, Oath, and Belcher at the same time.

Slaver is much less prone to hate.  That's why it continues to do very well even though everyone knows it will show up.  The same can't be said for Keeper.  GenCon Champs #1 it was the most played deck, and didn't crack top 8 because it could be metagamed for and was.  People metagame against slaver and it doesn't always work.  Just because slaver is named after 1 card doesn't make it easy to hate out.  It can do a lot of different things, and quickly.

Let's go over matches:

Slaver: slaver has as much countermagic, more must counters and a better draw engine
Stax:  Keeper runs maybe 2 islands.  Stax will take this match.
Oath:  Oath has more countermagic (including duress) and a kill that can slip under drain.
Fish:  fish is designed to smash control.

Sure, you can tech the deck out against 1, or even 2 of those decks but then you will have no game against the others.

Decks can't be too reactionary to the opponent anymore.  The power level is just too high to be able to consistantly beat back everything your opponent does.  Now any 1 spell that gets through will kill you.  Keeper hasn't won a major tournament since SCG #1 and there is a reason for that.  Could a very good player do well with it?  Sure, but they'd probably have a better chance of doing well against something else.  If I'm wrong take the deck to a big tournament and do well.

[orgcandman]

Slaver: slaver has as much countermagic, more must counters and a better draw engine

More must counters? sure, but they're all sorcery speed.
Better draw engine? I'm not so sure, since keeper runs 3 decree + cards that say "Draw X cards" and don't get hit by reb.
Also, slaver really really needs it's welders. 3c is more than capable of handling it.

Stax:  Keeper runs maybe 2 islands.  Stax will take this match.

Again, 3c keeper runs sacred ground, which last time I checked means smokestacks and wastes/strips are awful.

Oath:  Oath has more countermagic (including duress) and a kill that can slip under drain.

agreed.

Fish:  fish is designed to smash control.

agreed, but remember that more recent incarnations of fish are actually very vulnerable to older incarnations of keeper.

As for why keeper was pushed out, there's this deck, it features some gifts ungiven, and recoup. It can tinker for darksteel colossus. It has as many, if not more, must counters than CS, but some of them are instant speed, meaning the pilot can just force keeper into a counter war EOT, then untap and win.

Keeper is really awful against decks that can bust their load off and win in one turn, and aren't very susceptible to hate.

[Harkius]

Good comments by all. But, I think that there are still a few unanswered questions. First,

Slaver: slaver has as much countermagic

Oath: Oath has more countermagic (including duress) and a kill that can slip under drain.

Is this true, though? Does Slaver have that much space when it needs all the elements of its win? If you only have three-five slots dedicated to finishing the game (like a good Keeper build would, or even as few as 2-4), then you should have more space for countermagic. Why does Oath have more counter than Keeper? As I understand it, it has a bit more space than most archetypes, but why don't Oath builds use that space for something more commonly disruptive (e.g., Chalice)? Can't think of too much off hand, as I am relatively unfamiliar with Oath builds, but it seems like they should be running more disruptive things than counter.

Stax: Keeper runs maybe 2 islands. Stax will take this match.

Again, 3c keeper runs sacred ground, which last time I checked means smokestacks and wastes/strips are awful.

Sacred Ground is ineffective against Smokestack. It requires sacrifice, which in and of itself is not an effect controlled by your opponent. As I understand it, your opponent has to control the effect that causes your land to be destroyed. You need to find another way to deal with Smokestack. There are cheap and easy ways to deal with it, like Disenchant and Seal of Cleansing, both of which are likely to show up in the deck in a current build anyway. Wasteland and Strip Mine become useless, though, as Sacred Ground is even faster than a Crucible to bring your lands back.

Fish: fish is designed to smash control.

agreed, but remember that more recent incarnations of fish are actually very vulnerable to older incarnations of keeper.

As for why keeper was pushed out, there's this deck, it features some gifts ungiven, and recoup. It can tinker for darksteel colossus. It has as many, if not more, must counters than CS, but some of them are instant speed, meaning the pilot can just force keeper into a counter war EOT, then untap and win.

I understand that, but Gifts is still a relatively one-trick pony. Yes, it can force the counter war, if the Keeper player is unaware. I think, though, that this may also come down to a play style issue. In current Type I, perhaps people are countering the wrong things. Yes, losing card parity can be disastrous. But, is it the primary threat? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If you are playing against a deck whose possibility of winning is based on it "getting off", then your number one priority needs to be stopping that threat, not Thirst for Knowledge or Ancestral Recall. (Note, please, that I am not saying that the card draw is unimportant, or that you should not stop it if you can. Rather, I am saying that there may be other priorities. Knowing the field will tell you what you absolutely must counter, and what you need to let slide, so that you don't lose right now.)

This may be the point where I have to concede the fact that Keeper may not be viable. After all, if all that you can do is to hang on for dear life, and simply prevent losing, it becomes difficult to win. On the other hand, once you have prevented them from winning really fast, you can focus on establishing a secure position from which to launch your own win. 

As far as this

If I'm wrong take the deck to a big tournament and do well.

goes, I would love to. However, I am a professional student. I spend most of my time doing research, studying, and catching a few hours of sleep here and there with Magic packed in to fill out my days. As such, I can neither afford the time nor the money to travel to where tournaments are held. My local tournaments are not going to convince you that Keeper is viable, even if I have won three or four tournaments with it. If anyone is interested in trying to help me figure this out on Magic Workshop (or whatever currently popular Magic OL application is commonly used), then PM me. I would be interested in playing against Slaver/Oath/Stax to see exactly how they run and what would be necessary to kick the legs out from underneath them.

Cheers,
Harkius

[Dante]

GenCon Champs #1 it was the most played deck, and didn't crack top 8 because it could be metagamed for and was. 

In addition, it was also one of the most played decks at GenCon Champs #2 (2004, when Mark B won with C Slaver).  It won 1-2 (and top 8'd) of the earlier tournaments that year, but come to the main event, every deck there was prepared for or just better than 3/4cc.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with this thread, but my thoughts are this:

- for a small, known metagame, you can probably tweak a version of 3/4cc to do well

- playing a more reactive, true control deck in a larger environment, against a fully-powered field with strong Drain, Workshop, and combo players (stick Oath in combo OR drain, your choice) and more than likely you're going to end up in the 4-3 bracket, plus or minus a game.  Reason for this is "classic" control decks suffer from the "wrong answer" syndrome, where you need to draw the correct answer to your opponent's threats.  This was far easier to deal with "back in the day" when there was weenie aggro, fat aggro, and control.

- many of the "correct" choices for a "classic control" deck - skeletal scrying in particular, require setup.  Even with turn 1 fetch, brainstorm, the most you can Scrying for on turn 2 then is 2 cards (assuming a mox).  In addition, you've just removed a business spell (brainstorm) from your yard, taking away from your Yag Will.  Compare that to Thirst in Slaver, which for the same 3 mana, you actually get the same card advantage (assume you have an artifact to discard), but you get to put cards in the graveyard that not only make your Will's better, but work synergystically with your Welders.

- Looking at other decks like Slaver, more of their cards to more against the field than white removal cards do.  In Slaver, not only do your Welders ignore the casting costs of large artifacts, but they are a must-deal-with issue for decks that rely on Tinker/Colossus and Stax.  So they serve double duty.  

I think that's really the crux of it - cards like Welder (and Oath) not only further your own strategy, but act as disruption against the opponents (or at least enough of the field), whereas white removal is just that - spot removal.  That's all it does.

That doesn't mean that this strategy isn't viable or can't be made to win, but the bar has been raised so high in last 2 years, that you really need to ask yourself, in my drain-based "control" deck, will I win more with white removal or with <insert other strategy here>.

Dante

PS - Sacred Ground works just fine vs Smokestack, it's the opponent's card forcing you to sacrifice, so it will return.
PPS - Good Gifts decks are NOT a one-trick pony - they have the Tinker-DSC AND tendrils/charbelcher/other non-creature kill plan.  Your hands that will hold off one won't hold off the other and vice versa.  Goes back to the "wrong answer" theory.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Keeper DOES lose to Slaver, for the following reasons:

Slaver has more draw
If Slaver can get a Welder going, it's game over generally, and it's not hard to slip through a spell that costs R
Keeper's Wastes are almost useless against Slaver's large basic land count
An activated Mindslaver will often hurt you a LOT
Swords to Plowshares will be dead until you need it most, and by then you will most likely be unable to resolve it.
Exalted Angel and Decree aren't too exciting against Slaver

[orgcandman]

Sacred Ground is ineffective against Smokestack. It requires sacrifice, which in and of itself is not an effect controlled by your opponent. As I understand it, your opponent has to control the effect that causes your land to be destroyed. You need to find another way to deal with Smokestack. There are cheap and easy ways to deal with it, like Disenchant and Seal of Cleansing, both of which are likely to show up in the deck in a current build anyway. Wasteland and Strip Mine become useless, though, as Sacred Ground is even faster than a Crucible to bring your lands back.

This has been talked about forever. Sacred Ground actually does trigger off smokestack. Your opponent controls the effect that put the land into the graveyard. The point is moot though, since you agree with me that keeper has no trouble with stax.

I understand that, but Gifts is still a relatively one-trick pony. Yes, it can force the counter war, if the Keeper player is unaware. I think, though, that this may also come down to a play style issue. In current Type I, perhaps people are countering the wrong things. Yes, losing card parity can be disastrous. But, is it the primary threat? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If you are playing against a deck whose possibility of winning is based on it "getting off", then your number one priority needs to be stopping that threat, not Thirst for Knowledge or Ancestral Recall. (Note, please, that I am not saying that the card draw is unimportant, or that you should not stop it if you can. Rather, I am saying that there may be other priorities. Knowing the field will tell you what you absolutely must counter, and what you need to let slide, so that you don't lose right now.)

Gifts may be a one trick pony, but what a trick it is. Gifts runs many similar disruptive elements (read pithing needle, and engineered explosives) as keeper, but it has a win condition that seals the deal in one or two turns. In addition, it's wins are resistant to hate.

Keeper is viable, if you take the time to properly test and tune it, and then play it correctly. Keeper isn't just "OMG, 4 drains, 4 force, 3 decree, wowz0rs" it's have the correct solutions to the metagame.

[Anusien]

Some required reading, from back when Oscar Tan was good:
Why Keeper Sucks

Keeper doesn't seem to do anything scary with Drain mana.  Because it tries to have game against every deck, it has to run a lot of worthless cards like Swords to Plowshares, which other decks don't care about.  With an early Drain, about the best it can do is throw down an Exalted Angel or Morphling.  It can't throw out something like Thrist for Knowledge for a couple of reasons.  It can't afford to throw away any artifacts, and it runs a minimum of draw.  Keeper is so full of reactive answers that it kept cutting draw, and eventually just went down to a couple of Skeletal Scryings to avoid Red Elemental Blast.  It can't run the 7-8 draw spells of modern Gifts/CS, and Scrying doesn't get used turn 1.  So Keeper goes turn 2 Drain into turn 3 Exalted Angel, for a... 5 turn clock.  That gives CS and Gifts plenty of time to turn around and implement their game plan.  Heck, Keeper can't even race TPS with that kind of clock.

On a similar vein, Keeper doesn't do anything scary.  (This is why later builds were trying to use Chalice).  If CS gets one activation from Mindslaver, most decks end up way behind (Oath is a notable exception).  Keeper doesn't have many plays that scare opposing decks.  Gifts can set up incredibly awesome Wills by casting Gifts Ungiven.  In order to get a similar effect, Keeper has to slow the game down and get through most of its deck.

The rest of the format is to Keeper as Keeper is to Mono-U.  Let's imagine Keeper and Gifts get into a protracted counter war over things like Tinker and draw spells, and they have the same number of counters.  If Keeper wins the counter war, its options are Mind Twist, Will, Fact or Fiction, Tinker and Exalted Angel.  That's about it, and only Will and Fact are scary (it's really hard for Keeper to power out a Mind Twist and have mana open to protect it, especially since it's a Sorcery).  Gifts on the other hand has Will (and can bait with Will, which Keeper can't), Tinker, Gifts, Time Walk (which becomes a credible threat in Gifts), Belcher/Vault, Burning Wish/Rebuild and a handful of other options.  It's unlikely for one resolved spell by Keeper to spell game over, unless it's Yawgmoth's Will.  The same can not be said for Gifts, which gives the Gifts deck a leg up (especially since it runs more draw and Duress/Misdirection instead of jank like StP).  This becomes even more lopsided when you compare CS or Stax instead of Gifts, because those decks have the ability to play out a turn 1 Welder and negate the Keeper deck's entire control strategy.

[Smmenen]

Are you ready for my honest opinion?

I think that Keeper is viable. 

Two things though;

1) You have to be really really good at metagaming

2) You have to be really really good at magic

If you meet both of those criteria, you may have a chance.

Off the top of my head, I might build it like this:

7 SoloMoxenLotus
1 Island
4 Fetchland
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

27 mana

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Skeletal Scrying

2 Gorilla Shaman
2 Decree of Justice

1 Darkblast
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Balance

1 Fact or Fiction
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will

2 Cunning Wish
1 Burning Wish

[Imsomniac101]

isn't that list asking to get creamed by Fish/Stax? at least put in Sacred Ground.

I think that Keeper is viable. 

Two things though;

1) You have to be really really good at metagaming

2) You have to be really really good at magic

If you meet both of those criteria, you may have a chance.

That's just being a good player with a bad deck. 

Yeah, I noticed the sarcasm in your post.

[Harkius]

I think that Keeper is viable. 

Two things though;

1) You have to be really really good at metagaming

2) You have to be really really good at magic

If you meet both of those criteria, you may have a chance.

That's just being a good player with a bad deck. 

Hrm....that sounds suspiciously like a challenge. 

[MoxMonkey]

Smmenen you upset me Your list is one card off my 4CC.   the change you did was add Burning Wish over my Mind Twist?  Any comments on the dropping of Mind Twist?
Also, Whats with Cunning and Burning in the same list.  I love to have the tendrils Kill in Keeper but I think you want at least Deep too and this hurts your ability to Sideboard a lot.  Any comments on what Wish targets you want and why? 

[austinnadz]

I wouldn't worry about wastelands keeping you off mana too much. If you fear wastelands, I would certainly make room for pithing needles They can screw over most decks. What deck doesn't have something with some activated ability? and if you find them useless, side them out!

[pyr0ma5ta]

Wishes, hrm.  Isn't one of the sideboard flexibility one of the primary reasons to run Keeper?  Keeper runs a lot of solutions maindeck that should get sided out in g2/3 for better silver bullets, but if you run the Wishes, you have no sideboard capabilities.  Especially if you run both Burning and Cunning.

Additionally, 1 Island seems wrong.  Pretty sure you want 2 at least so you can at least Drain if under Wasteland pressure.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

If we are calling a responsive control strategy Keeper, then yes, Keeper is possible. Most aggro-control decks are what I would call the new Keeper. The only difference is that they have acknowledged that their starting life totals are not 40, they are 20. This leads to spreading the win out across the whole deck in the form of utility creatures that over time swing for lethal damage. Aggro-control is Keeper in that it tries to manage comprehensive control of the game. However, where Keeper previously allowed the game to advance without interfering with the opponent too much, aggro-control lists shorten the length of the game with creatures and interfere with its progression through cards like Null Rod, Chalice and Wasteland.

[Smmenen]

Smmenen you upset me Your list is one card off my 4CC.   the change you did was add Burning Wish over my Mind Twist?  Any comments on the dropping of Mind Twist?
Also, Whats with Cunning and Burning in the same list.  I love to have the tendrils Kill in Keeper but I think you want at least Deep too and this hurts your ability to Sideboard a lot.  Any comments on what Wish targets you want and why? 

Well, Burning Wish gets Pyroclasm, Mind Twist, and MOST importantly, the wishes are good because of Skeletal Scrying.

With Scrying I can remove Balance, Time Walk, or Decree and wish it back up.  Same is true of Ancestral with Cunning Wish.  You can also Will twice, which is hot.

The reason Keeper is viable is becuase most of these control decks share the same bulk of cards.

The main difference is basically scrying and efficiency.  If you can get a slight advantage with Scrying, you can leverage it to win a game against any deck.  It's going to be a battle against a deck like Control Slaver, but there is no reason you can't win it, that I can see.  I don't really think the slownes of Decree of Justice is that problematic.  If you're ahead, you're going to stay ahead.  My primary concern with the deck is not getting over run in the first couple of turns. 

[Nastaboi]

If that is your primary concern, then why not opt for Duress like Zherbus did just before he retired? It gives you needed disruption in the very first turns, and makes your Scryings online a turn faster.

[forests failed you]

I've always felt like Duress in Keeper was kind of a crutch.  If you think about it, Keeper is... even against other Mana Drain decks, the control deck because it is slower and has to keep its opponent from 'going off.'  Duress is a card most useful for its ability to soften up a counterwall, and allow the aggressive player to push its key spells through.  Objectively, I don't like it as a one mana card that lets you snatch a threat away from your opponent for two reasons.  Firstly, that is what all of your counterspells do; and secondly, what if you draw Duress in the mid game and Duress your opponent and see nothing relevent, and then they rip Yawgmoth's Will and kill you?

Also Duress forces you to fetch out Underground Seas early, which can be quite terrible especially against decks that play Waste effects.