Milan 🇮🇹 | Milano Eternal Debrief

Last weekend my friends and I travelled to Italy to participate in the newly created Milano Eternal tournament organized by JK Entertainment from Frankfurt. Even though nobody really knows why Jens decided to hold the tournament in Milano, it’s always just a rather short 5h drive for us Munich guys, so we were happy to make the transit across the Alpes on a quest for treasure, riches and power — something that even over 2.000 years later never gets old.

Our Team:
Anton “Enton” Karlinski – Miracles
Christian Reuschel – Deathblade
Vincent “Waldmensch” Vega – Dredge/Merfolk
Tomáš Már — BURG aka 4c Delver
Me — Sultai Elves

The list I played was heavily influenced by the Magic Online metagame that is currently being overrun by all flavours of Grixis as well as OmniTell as the dominant Show and Tell based combo deck. With that in mind I decided to #YOLOSWAG (“field”) four copies of Choke along with the full playset of Flusterstorms over any discard. Flusterstorm is much better against OmniTell as it still forces them to make a mana commitment, effectively buying you another turn. It also has good applications against decks like Burn and Infect.

This is the list I played for both Legacy events in Milan:

Creatures (28) 4 Deathrite Shaman 4 Quirion Ranger 4 Nettle Sentinel 4 Elvish Visionary 4 Wirewood Symbiote 3 Heritage Druid 2 Birchlore Rangers 2 Craterhoof Behemoth 1 Reclamation Sage Spells (12) 4 Glimpse of Nature 4 Green Sun’s Zenith 4 Natural Order

Lands (20) 4 Gaea’s Cradle 4 Windswept Heath 4 Wooded Foothills 2 Bayou 2 Dryad Arbor 1 Pendelhaven 1 Tropical Island 1 Forest 1 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard: (15) 4 Flusterstorm 4 Choke 3 Abrupt Decay 1 Pithing Needle 1 Null Rod 1 Sylvan Library 1 Progenitus

Day 1 — Big Legacy Trial

Round 1 | 4c Delver | 2:0 Win
Round 2 | Miracles | 2:1 Win
Round 3 | UWr MentorBlade, |2:0 Win
Round 4 | BUG Delver | 2:1 Win
Round 5 | ID
Round 6 | ID
Quarterfinals: 4c Punishing Maverick, 2:1 Win
Semifinals: At this point it’s clear that my two friends and I would make up the Top3 because the 4th guy in the semis was the 7th seed after Swiss. We decide to split and just play it out for the Byes. I lose 0-2 vs Frank Baier’s TES; Frank moves on to defeat Anton Karlisnki’s Miracles in a finals that only lasted three turns altogether.

During the tournament I followed my recent style of siding out all 4 Natural Order in favor of 4 Choke against most blue decks (with rare exceptions such as Merfolk); it worked out great even though I didn’t play against a lot of blue midrange such as UWr variants and the recently arrived Grixis lists. In the Quarterfinals, I made it pretty obvious to my opponent that I was on the hardcast Behemoth plan in game3 by playing Gaea’s Cradle on turn2, putting 4 creatures on the battlefield and setting a Pithing Needle on Wasteland; I passed the turn with a single card in hand. Fortunately, when he tapped out for Slaughter Games he ended up naming Natural Order. His mistake cost him the match and was completly avoidable had he accounted for the fact that I already had access to 4 mana (but not 8) on my previous turn, which should have led him to rule out Natural Order.

Day 2 — Legacy Main Event

Round 1 | Jund | 2:1 Win
Round 2 | Dragon Stompy | 2:0 Win
Round 3 | Burn | 2:1 Win
Round 4 | BUG Delver | 1:2 Loss
Round 5 | SneakShow | 2:0 Win
Round 6 | SneakShow | 1:2 Loss
Round 7 | Infect | 2:1 Win
Round 8 | Dredge | 2:1 Win including decking him in g1 :-)))

6-2 was not the result I was chasing but in the end, two slight mistakes in both G3s against BUG Delver and Sneak Attack ended up costing me the match. Overall, Flusterstorm performed incredibly well, allowing me to steal close games vs Burn and Infect on top of helping out a lot in the Sneak Show matchup. I would also like to note that during my 2:0 victory in Round 5 I was attacked by Emrakul on turn3 in both games and still ended up winning both games.

In the last round against Dredge, I was able to deck him after establishing the dreadful Deathrite Shaman + Quirion Ranger + Pendelhaven combo. I have played the matchup countless times on Magic Online and if you get this combo online before Dredge builds an unbeatable board, you can safely deck them. With him only getting me down to ~10 life with 3 Zombies on the table, I rode home a safe victory. At some point in game 2 he just put a card to the table, said “Dread Return??” and gazed at me. I confirmed that it was indeed a Dread Return. Apparently, he didn’t actually know how to announce a spell, including paying costs and announcing targets. After a couple more “Dread Return???”  I called over a judge and told him that it looks as if my opponent needed some help. The judge helped him put the spell on the stack and eventually kill me.

In the final game, he made it very obvious that he was holding Firestorm by just playing a land and passing for the first 3 turns. My plan was to put several Elves to the table, then Flusterstorm his Firestorm. Unfortunately, he played Lion’s Eye Diamond on his third turn, which meant that he would get a small window to actually resolve a Firestorm until the first couple of Elves had resolved. He ended up pulling the trigger in the perfect spot. Seeking my only chance, I still cast the Flusterstorm and told him that I was going to counter his Firestorm. He shrugged and put it into his graveyard….even though he could have paid for it with his LED. With my Elves still alive, I played Cradle and Natural Ordered for the win!

Christian and Tomáš ended up Top8’ing, with the rest of the Top8 sporting strong players such as Stefan Czolk (Infect) and Angelo Cadei (Miracles). The later ended up winning the finals over Reuschel despite suffering from severe alcohol intoxication.

Overall, our car took home some 2.000 € in prices. The tournament was run very well with little downtime between the rounds. I feel the need to point this out since tounraments in Milan have not always been this way. I had a great time and also got to meet a lot of loyal viewers and friends from around Europe which made my trip even better than it already was. I’m really looking forward to returning for Ovino Spring from 1st – 3rd May!

Arrivederci!
– Julian