I actually think this card is insane.  Since no one has mentioned the possibility of using Zenith in a Hermit Druid deck yet, I wanted to post my list, which Zenith fits into perfectly.

4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
3x Bayou
3x Misty Rainforest
1x Dryad Arbor

4x Dark Confidant
4x Hermit Druid
3x Narcomeba
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
1x Qasali Pridemage

4x Thoughtseize
3x Bridge from Below
2x Cabal Therapy
1x Dread Return
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Duress
1x Imperial Seal
1x Vampiric Tutor

4x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Worldly Tutor

1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm

2x Chrome Mox
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire

Side:

4x Nature's Claim
2x Extirpate
2x Pithing Needle
2x Swords to Plowshares
2x Ancient Tomb
1x Tinker
1x Darksteel Colossus
1x Tarmogoyf

The sideboard is by no means optimal, as it was constructed hastily since I was playing Living Wish in Green Sun's Zenith's spot, which obviously necessitated a completely different configuration of cards.  However I am very confidant in the main deck, and with Zenith's addition it has been performing well in the limited testing I have done with it (take that for what it's worth).  Zenith substantially increases the amount of times you land a turn 1 or 2 Hermit Druid, while also beating chalice at 2.  If my positive results in testing continue and if there is any interest I will make my own thread and discuss my choices in greater detail since I feel my list is different enough from the "Hermit Blaster" lists to warrant it.  However, it could be that playing elf combo is just a better way to abuse this bad boy.  This is one of the most exciting cards I've seen out of Scars block thus far, I can't wait to see how people break it.  

Any chance we can see the top 8 lists?

Another well run event, congratulations to the top 8 and especially Justin for taking it down.  I missed top 8 as a result of not playing much type 1 recently (insert random excuse here), and punted some games to win a hard fought campaign for mayor or Scrubbington.  The SoCal Vintage scene exists solely because of the efforts of Justin, and Shawn before him, and we all cannot thank you enough.  I second the motion for a DMF summer series, maybe we can drag some guys down from up north considering it doesn't look like we'll have to compete with Eudomonia this year.  Also a special thanks needs to be payed to all those that traveled from far off lands to play on Saturday, in particular Andrew and Patrick, you gentlemen are champions in my book.

While I maintain my assertion that ELVES! is a poor choice for a larger event, I feel that this was certainly the best deck in the room for this particular tournament.  There were maybe 3 decks in the room that ELVES! would have a poor matchup against, but many more where ELVES! seemed so clearly favored as to be almost unwinnable for the opponent.  My respect for the deck has certainly risen as a result, and although I still feel that a properly built ritual deck would be a very difficult matchup, every deck has a weakness.  Excellent deck choice, and maybe next time you'll play to a level that matches your good looks and charm (if you could see this adonis, you'd know this was not a jab but a daunting challenge for any man). 

Congratulations on the finish man, don't beat yourself up too much about the play mistakes, it happens to the best of us.  I feel this deck has a lot of potential, and your list looks better every time I see it. 

One of the more interesting choices here seem to be the wastes and strip in the side.  How did these work out for you, and would you play them in the future?  I see you sided them in against TPS and 3 color tezz, which makes sense as game 2 it would be reasonable for your opponent to auto fetch underground sea instead of island based on not seeing wastes game 1.  However, if you went to game 3 these decks might have enough basics to effectively play around your wastes. 

I see that your main and side do not seem well equipped to handle workshops (with the exception of sowering welders), and I assume this was a meta call.  How would you build this deck differently to handle a large influx of shops, or would you play a different deck entirely? 

Lastly, do you feel that racing with key vault, and platinum angel were sufficient to handle inkwell leviathan, or would you consider playing rebuild/hurkyl's recall in the future?  This would also give you a silver bullet against workshops.

5 color Stax would not just be on-par, but far superior to the Tezzeret decks people are currently complaining about.  I understand that Balance is a parity card, but making it asymmetrical is not exactly difficult, especially in a deck like 5 color Stax where abusing Balance is a natural part of the game-plan.  Yes this is theory on my part, but this is a thread about possible un-restrictions, a little theory is necessary.  I don't think there would be anything interesting about the un-restriction of Balance.  5 color Stax (what would most likely be the best deck at abusing Balance) would dominate until Balance was restricted again, or something equally disgusting was unrestricted.

While I feel this thread has been quite productive thus far, I cannot believe that some have suggested the un-restriction of Balance.  Balance is one of the most powerful cards ever printed, FAR better than Gush, Fact, Gifts, Flash, Brainstorm, 3sphere etc.  You can make a reasonable argument that most of those cards could be safely unrestricted (although I haven't decided if I actually want to see this happen) but Balance is closer to Yawgmoth's Will power-wise than it is to something like Gush.  I could be wrong, but I can't see how un-restricting Balance would be anything but a colossal mistake, or how anyone who has ever had 5 color stax resolve a Balance against them would disagree.

Also un-restricting Strip Mine seems like a pretty terrible idea.

This could not have been more pointless.

I may have been a little harsh in my initial analysis of this deck, as players with more experience with it than I have been quick to point out.  However, I find it hard to believe that this deck is as quick or quicker that ad nauseam.  Just looking at the two decks side by side, the power level of the cards in ad nauseam is so much higher than those in the elf deck.  That is not to say it is not more resilient to commonly played hate, but faster?  Chalice seems like an annoyance for this deck, not an auto-win, but a definite speed bump, as does engineered explosives, two cards that are commonly played in main decks.  I will make no argument as to the the viability of ELVES! as a budget deck, I would not be surprised if this was better than goblins and suicide black or whatever other fringe deck people are trying to run.  I could even make the concession that in narrower metagames infested with fish or drains this could be a decent if not optimal choice.  What I am talking about is in a larger tournament, with a relatively unknown meta, would you really play this over the other more powerful options available to you, assuming your only goal is to win.  A complete concession to rituals alone seems like a good enough reason not to play this.  Again I could be way off base, after all R/G beats has won major tournaments in recent memory, but I see this more as a flash in the pan, akin to something like worse that gro from a few years back, the izzet guildmage deck, or doomsday (probably better than those but you get my point) a fringe deck with a few strong results, but doomed to the outer edge of competitiveness.  I guess I'll have to actually set aside some time to test this.

So just to clarify, would you actually consider playing ELVES! in a larger tournament, say worlds or an scg p9?  While I must admit I have not tested this, so perhaps I am underestimating some aspect of the deck, it seems like there is really just no reason to play ELVES! beyond trying something different or having some fun.  This seems much weaker than virtually every other viable deck in vintage at the moment, yet somehow has two top 8's.  I am attributing most if not all of the decks success to player skill and opponent's who are unfamiliar with the deck, however if you feel there is a legitimate competitive reason to play this I would be interested in hearing it.

Hellkite Overlord seems insane.  I would unquestionably run this, although the only deck I play that uses oath is quite different than the icbm list, which I feel is extremely underrated at the moment.  I don't believe that the choice is either running tyrant or overlord, it seems fine to run both, even more so if people are running three targets post restrictions, although I am not sure if this ever caught on.  In my experience, sometimes you just need to kill your opponent, and tyrant cannot always get the job done.  Hellkite seems to fit this role perfectly, often killing your opponent in 2 swings by itself with a little help from orchard.  I am personally in love with this card, and although my experience with traditional oath variants in very limited, it would be very difficult for me to see not running this.  I would be interested in hearing the carp brothers, or another oath experts opinion on overlord's destiny in future versions of oath. 


Just one more thing to consider.  By the time tyrant has attacked for 5 damage, overlord has hit for at the very least 16, most of the time 18 (assuming you used orchard to play oath), and rarely 20 or more.  I understand that overlord cannot command the same dominance of the board that tyrant does, but this vastly increased kill speed more than makes up for that fact in my opinion.  I feel the exact opposite of the above poster in that I believe overlord to be the cat's meow and only seems to get better the more I think about it.

So goblins took it down... really?

Just kidding, congratulations to all of the top 8, with special congratulations to Shun on the win and Chris for representing the team.  It should also be noted that John Harduvel is a deck naming genius, bravo sir, bravo.  I wish I could have made it, as it seems like an interesting and healthy metagame.  A little heavy on the aggro and light on the rituals for my taste, but I'll be there next time to change that.  Southern California owes a deep debt of gratitude to Justin, for not only hosting these tournaments but basically keeping the vintage scene alive down here, keep up the good work man, we all appreciate it.  I would also like to thank everyone that traveled out to support these tournaments, and all the new comers, we need all the support we can get.  See you all at the next one! 

Regarding a transformation from GAT to Tyrant Oath, is there any reason to play GAT over Oath right now?  The only match-up that I could imagine GAT having a clear advantage in is combo (both Flash and Gush/Tendrils variants), while against any workshop deck, any form of aggro, and any version of GAT, I would much rather be on the Tyrant Oath side of the table.  I would imagine that Ichorid is a horrible match-up for both decks, but if you are playing Oath to begin with, you have more open slots in your side to handle the hungry hungry horrors.  Unless your meta is heavily skewed toward combo, and more traditional control decks (of which there seem to be very few these days), I see no reason to butcher your side just to play a weaker version of the deck you should have been playing in the first place.  All that being said, I have little experience with either deck, so I could be completely off base.  Any experienced GAT or Oath players feel free to chime in.   

Hey Shawn, this is John Hodge.  First off, don't ever feel like you need to apoligize for the closing of the shop, or any actions leading up to that point.  I can safely say that none of us have had to deal with that much shit on our plate at the same time, and the fact that you kept it to together as well as you did is a testament to your character.  At least all of the Type 1 guys, and I'm sure almost everyone else that frequented the store understood that you had much more important things going on in your life that took priority over magic, as they should have.

Thankfully, you guys were and still are some of the greatest people I've had the pleasure of knowing, I had more support and concern from you than a man may honestly expect.
   
DMF was my baby, I loved that store and the people who played there were more than customers, they were friends.

The feeling is more than mutual man, that's why we were all so down when you announced you were going to be getting out for a while.  It wasn't because we thought we would get less support for Type 1, or that we woulden't have a place to play, it was because you were one of the guys.  I drove all the way down from Hollywood every weekend to hang out and play cards with you the same way I did for Gio, Chris, Josh and Rob.  I remember the first time I came to the shop, I got there about 2 hours before the tournament started, I was the only one there, and you sat there and listened to me drone on about the power of mono black dragon.  Then after everyone got there you went way out of your way to ask everyone that came in if they had the elvish spirit guides and dance of the deads I needed to get under the proxy limit, and you had known me for about an hour.  Or the time you fronted me money so I could go to comic-con, or when you lent me your power so I could play at gen-con so cal, or the innumerable random pimp black cards you hunted down for me just because I thought they were cool, even though I'm sure it was a pain in the ass.  It was things like this that made DMF the greatest gaming store I have ever played in, it wasn't the store itself, but the atmosphere you created.  No matter who owns the store, DMF will always be your baby, we all still find ourselves refering to the store as "Shawn's," and while you left the store in good hands, your not an easy guy to replace.

I hope your mother-in-law is at least comfortable, and I am glad to hear that life seems to be finally dealing you a better hand.  So get your ass back down here sometime, we are usually here every saturday (although a bunch of us are gonna be in vegas this weekend), and sometimes come down on thursdays.  Just don't bring Unstacked, I've been doing pretty well at the tournamnets and I don't know if I can handle losing every game to that deck again  .
 

Hello, my name is John.  I have been playing vintage/ type 1 since Weatherlight.  I quit after Prophecy, and came back right after Mirrodin was realeased.  I am primarily a combo player, I began with Dragon, then Deathlong/ Meandeath, and have played some variation of 5 color Grimlong since the legalization of portal, with no intention of stopping in the near future.  On occasion you might catch me playing Ichorid, but I can never go for too long without my rituals.  I am one of the founding (and only) members of Team Spearmint Rhino (along with mutedequilibrium) in southern california.  I have lurked the drain for years now, and decided that it was finally time to post and get some support for the southern california Vintage metagame.