Pit Keeper MTG Card

Time Spiral (TSP)
2006-10-06 - Number 123

Modern Masters 2017 (MM3)
2017-03-17 - Number 81

Mystery Booster (MB1)
2019-11-07 - Number 734

Pit Keeper - Time Spiral Remastered (TSR)

Time Spiral Remastered (TSR)
2021-03-19 - Number 130

Jumpstart 2022 (J22)
2022-12-02 - Number 455

The List (PLST)
2020-09-26 - Number MM3-81

Card sets	Released in 6 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost	2
Rarity	Common
Type	Creature — Human Wizard
Power	2
Toughness	1

Key Takeaways

Pit Keeper can effectively recycle creatures, enhancing card advantage and hand options.
The card integrates well with graveyard-focused strategies, offering dual utility in matches.
Despite constraints, its conditional ability can be a powerful asset in the right deck.

Text of card

When Pit Keeper comes into play, if you have four or more creature cards in your graveyard, you may return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

"The undead are not 'awakened.' They are evicted when there is no room left in the pit for more bodies."

Card Pros

Card Advantage: When Pit Keeper enters the battlefield with four or more creature cards in your graveyard, you may return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand. Offering a potent form of card advantage, this ensures you maintain a strong hand presence throughout the duel.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly offering mana acceleration, Pit Keeper’s ability to recover creatures can lead to indirect resource acceleration. By retrieving key creatures that provide mana or other resources, you’re effectively speeding up your game progression.

Instant Speed: Although Pit Keeper itself is a creature card and not an instant, its capability to return creatures from your graveyard to your hand at the time of entry can lead to instant speed interactions. Should the returned creature have flash, or you have other means to put it onto the battlefield at instant speed, Pit Keeper can set up unexpected plays and counters during your opponent’s turn.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: With Pit Keeper, it’s important to note that to benefit from its graveyard retrieval effect, you must have four or more creature cards in your graveyard. This prerequisite can be a hindrance early in the game or in decks that don’t fill the graveyard quickly.

Specific Mana Cost: Pit Keeper’s casting cost requires both black mana and generic mana. This can restrict its inclusion to decks that can consistently provide black mana, potentially limiting its versatility across various deck types.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: For a 2/1 creature, the mana investment may seem steep, considering other cards may offer stronger board presence or additional abilities for a similar cost. While the retrieval ability is useful, evaluating the opportunity cost is essential for deck optimization.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Pit Keeper offers dual utility as both an early blocker and a means to retrieve valuable creatures from the graveyard later in the game. This allows it to seamlessly integrate into a wide array of deck archetypes, particularly those revolving around graveyard manipulation.

Combo Potential: With decks that strategically stock the graveyard, Pit Keeper’s ability to resurrect key combo pieces amplifies its utility. This makes it a potent enabler in decks that rely on creature-based combos or recursion strategies.

Meta-Relevance: In metagames where control decks or attrition strategies prevail, Pit Keeper can repeatedly offer value, helping to maintain card advantage over opponents by bringing back high-impact creatures from the graveyard to the hand.

How to beat

Pit Keeper shines in Magic: The Gathering decks centered around graveyard strategies. This creature, when it enters the battlefield, offers a remunerative opportunity – retrieving a creature card from the graveyard, provided there are enough cards in the tomb. This effect, however, is conditional: it demands at least four other cards in the graveyard to be activated. Therefore, to undermine its utility, strategic graveyard management is key.

Employing cards that exile from graveyards or limit opponents’ ability to stockpile their graveyard can render the Pit Keeper’s ability moot. Tormod’s Crypt and Relic of Progenitus are excellent counters. They purge the graveyard, ensuring that the threshold for Pit Keeper’s effect isn’t met. Another strategy involves leveraging instant-speed removal to dispose of the Pit Keeper before its effect triggers, thus conserving the sanctity of one’s graveyard from potential exploitation. Lastly, cards like Grafdigger’s Cage can prevent creatures like Pit Keeper from utilizing their graveyard-recursion capabilities, effectively defanging an opponent’s strategy.

Disrupting an opponent’s graveyard not only neutralizes Pit Keeper but also hampers any broader graveyard-based tactics they might be employing, showcasing the importance of strategic counterplay in Magic: The Gathering.

Cards like Pit Keeper

Pit Keeper is an intriguing creature card in MTG that offers both a presence on the battlefield and utility upon entering the game. It resembles cards like Gravedigger, which also retrieves a creature from the graveyard to its owner’s hand. Pit Keeper stands out because it operates under a condition that requires having four or more creature cards in your graveyard to trigger its ability, while Gravedigger has no such precondition.

Looking at Cadaver Imp, another comparative card, it shares the resurrection trait but differs in power, toughness, and mana cost. Cadaver Imp flies into the fray with a slightly higher mana investment but redeems any creature without conditional constraints. Additionally, we have the likes of Sanctum Custodian, which offers a flexible defense mechanism but lacks the graveyard interaction that makes Pit Keeper a strategic choice for recurring value from your graveyard.

Given the landscape of MTG’s versatile creatures, Pit Keeper is appreciated for its low-cost, dual-role versatility. It provides an early game presence and a potential value engine for decks that rapidly populate the graveyard, revealing how these utility creatures can subtly shape the strategies and card choices of players.

Cards similar to Pit Keeper by color, type and mana cost

Order of the Ebon Hand - MTG Card versions

Nezumi Graverobber // Nighteyes the Desecrator - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Pit Keeper MTG card by a specific set like Time Spiral and Modern Masters 2017, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Pit Keeper and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Pit Keeper Magic the Gathering card was released in 6 different sets between 2006-10-06 and 2022-12-02. Illustrated by Anthony S. Waters.

#	Released	Name	Code	Number	Frame	Layout	Border	Artist
1	2006-10-06	Time Spiral	TSP	123	2003	Normal	Black	Anthony S. Waters
2	2017-03-17	Modern Masters 2017	MM3	81	2015	Normal	Black	Anthony S. Waters
3	2019-11-07	Mystery Booster	MB1	734	2015	Normal	Black	Anthony S. Waters
4	~~2020-09-26~~	The List	PLST	MM3-81	2015	Normal	Black	Anthony S. Waters
5	2021-03-19	Time Spiral Remastered	TSR	130	2015	Normal	Black	Anthony S. Waters
6	2022-12-02	Jumpstart 2022	J22	455	2015	Normal	Black	Anthony S. Waters