4Seasons Winter 2023 – Legacy Main Event

There aren’t many Legacy tournaments where I live but luckily there is 4Seasons in Bologna that let me play one of my favorite formats at least four times per year.
I missed last year’s Fall Edition because I still had an uncompleted deck but for this winter one I was ready!

The deck I decided to bring is 8Cast. The choice for this deck is mostly because I love many of the cards played in it. It was my very first tournament with it and I was a bit anxious as, due to various problems, I wasn’t also able to test with it beforehand.
You can click here to see the list that I played.

We were 374 players and so it was the biggest tournament I ever got to join. We started playing after the announcement that the tournament was composed of 9 Swiss Rounds plus the top 8.

Match 1 vs Mono-Red Prison
Game 1
He does basically nothing on his first turn while I’m able to drop various artifacts from my hand. He casts Blood Moon on his second turn but I’m still able to cast a Kappa Cannoneer. He decided to concede right after seeing it.
Game 2
In: 4 Force of Negation
Out: 4 Chalice of the Void
Feeling strong of how the first game went, I decide to keep a hand without counters while he mulligans down to five. I get immediately punished by a turn 1 Trinisphere. My hands become immediately unplayable and so I instantly decide to concede and go to game 3.
Game 3
I mulligan down to five to have a Force in hand and I use it to counter his Turn 1 Trinisphere. I’m able to set up a race with an Urza’s Saga‘s Construct equipped with a Shadowspear. I’m ready with two more Force in hand for any artifact hate but he doesn’t seem to be able to find one and I win the game.

1 win – 0 losses

Match 2 vs Cephalid Breakfast
Game 1
I’m able to cast my Kappa Cannoneer on turn 2 but he immediately combos off and I lose.
Game 2
In: 4 Force of Negation, 2 Tormod’s Crypt
Out: 3 Kappa Cannoneer, 1 Urza’s Bauble, 1 Shadowspear, 1 Aether Spellbomb
I immediately start with a Chalice of the Void on 1 and this helps me slowing him down enough to be able to safely grab a Tormod’s Crypt with the third steps of Urza’s Saga. He is able to bounce the Chalice back to my hand with Brazen Borrower and then makes me discard it, together with the second one I had in hand with Cabal Therapy. I crack two Baubles and in the three cards draw I’m able to find another Chalice that this time I play at two as he already has a Shuko on the field and I wanted to slow down his combo by not letting him play the Cephalid. I play Sai and I start filling the board with Thopters that I use to attack for the win.
Game 3
He isn’t able to go off on his first turn and so I’m able to get ahead by playing a Tormod’s Crypt right at the beginning and I have Urza’s Saga get me a second one soon after. I draw a lot thanks to three Thought Monitor and I start closing the board with Sai and his Thopters.
He tried to set up his combo and used Cabal Therapy, calling for Force of Negation to try emptying my hands from counters. I actually have Force of Negation in hand but I also have a Force of Will, with a third blue card to be able to cast it for free. After seeing it he decides to concede as I would have been able to win with Sai’s thopters soon after.

2 wins – 0 losses

Match 3 vs Grixis Tempo
Game 1
I recognized my opponent to be BocciaKrios from the Wooded Team and this actually made me nervous. I’m able to cast my Kappa Cannoneer on Turn 2 but he immediately makes me sacrifice it with Sheoldred’s Edict. He starts grinding me off my resources and I find myself not able to answer his plays.
Game 2
In: 3 Dismember
Out: 3 Kappa Cannoneer
I have a start that is too slow as he is able to kill both the Emry I have in hand. He starts again the grind game and wins like nothing.

2 wins – 1 loss

Match 4 vs Blue Zenith
Game 1
He starts quickly by generating a lot of mana and casting Natural Order on his Dryad Arbor, bringing Progenitus to the field. I don’t have answers for it and I decide to go to game 2.
Game 2
In: 4 Force of Negation
Out: 4 Chalice of the Void
I didn’t saw much of my opponent’s deck in the first game and with my poor knowledge of the meta I was a bit confused. I decided to side in the Force to be able to counter cards like Natural’s Order and I removed the Chalice because I didn’t see a pattern of CMC to be able to fully abuse them. I have two Force in my starting hand with enough blue cards to use both but my opponent has three Show and Tell in his. I’m able to counter the first two but the third one resolves and he puts Atraxa, Grand Unifier on the field that refills his hand. I try to resist with Sai and use the thopters as chump blockers but he bounces all of them in my hand with Echoing Truth and wins the game.

2 wins – 2 losses

Match 5 vs Echo Combo
Game 1
I mulligan down to five but luckily I have the perfect hand to counter his first turn where he drops everything on the field making a lot of mana and tries to cast Echo of Eons… luckily I counter it leaving him empty handed. Unluckily I get stuck drawing to many lands while he is able to play an Urza’s Saga and create two of its Constructs. I’m not able to put down a decent board and he wins with the two constructs.
Game 2
In: 2 Brazen Borrower
Out: 2 Chalice of the Void
I’m able to cast my Kappa Cannoneer and I start pumping it up by playing my small artifacts. He is able to enter in combo with Hullbreacher and Echo and despite him drawing seven and getting seven treasures from me not drawing he isn’t able to stop my Kappa and I win the game.
Game 3
He starts with double Urza’s Saga’s tokens but I’m able to counter-race with a Kappa equipped with Shadowspear and one Construct token. I’m able to arrive to the point where I would be able to close him by dishing in another attack with the Kappa but he has Narset on the field and shows me that he grabbed a Force of Negation with it. I have Emry and a Lotus Petal on the field and I’m lucky enough to draw one of the Baubles. I cast the Bauble and he counters it and so I sacrifice the Lotus Petal to recast it from the graveyard with Emry. It resolves and by entering it makes my Kappa’s unblockable and lets me hit for the win.

3 wins – 2 losses

Match 6 vs Elves
Game 1
I have a fast start with Urza’s Saga, followed by Ancient Tomb and another Saga. This quickly gives me four big Construct Tokens, one of them equipped with a Shadowspear that forces him to lose a lot of his pieces to chump block. He isn’t able to assemble his win fast enough and I win the game.
Game 2
In: 1 Engineered Explosives
Out: 1 Force of Will
He starts off with Allosaurus Shepherd on turn 1 and Gaea’s Cradle that let him finish me before I’m even able to set up some kind of resistance.
Game 3
I start with a turn 1 Chalice of the Void on 1 and he luckily doesn’t have the Shepherd in hand and this slows him down a lot. In the meantime I cast Kappa and I start hitting him, getting also a Shadowspear on the field that helps me go out from a sudden Shepard. He is able to remove the Chalice with Boseiju but I recast it right after with Chalice. I play a few more artifacts and I go lethal with the unblockable Kappa.

4 wins – 2 losses

Match 7 vs UR Delver
Game 1
I use Saga plus Ancient Tomb to make two Constructs and equip one of them with a Shadowspear to set up my race. I’m able to bring him low enough before he is able to cast two Murktides. Still I’m able to take the game home by attacking with both the Construct and Channeling Otawara on the Murktide blocking the one with the Shadowspear to go lethal.
Game 2
In: 3 Dismembers
Out: 2 Chalice of the Void, 1 Emry
I start like the first game and I set up my race with my two constructs. He tries to play a Murktide but I counter it with a Force of Will. He concedes.

5 wins – 2 losses

Match 8 vs Reanimator
Game 1
He makes me discard my Kappa but then brings it back to the field, together with his Griselbrand with Exhume. I bounce Griselbrand back to his hand with the Spellbomb and I start to hit with the Kappa until he is able to reanimate Archon of Cruelty that locks me out of the game.
Game 2
In: 4 Force of Negation, 2 Brazen Borrower, 2 Tormod’s Crypt
Out: 4 Chalice of the Void, 1 Kappa Cannoneer, 2 Urza’s Bauble, 1 Thought Monitor.
Don’t ask me what I had in mind when I decided to side out the Chalices against a deck that has the vast majority of its enablers and wincon at a CMC of 1. I got scolded by my friends all the way back to our houses for this as it was a match up that should have been relatively easy and I ended up losing it for a really big mistake like this.
I wasn’t able to do basically nothing as he knocked me out of the game by locking me with a turn 1 Archon after making me discard my Spellbomb. I feel ashamed to have thrown away my run like this.

5 wins – 3 losses

After the 8th game, I decided to drop and not play the last one, preferring to go home a bit early. With a 7-2 I would have been able to place between 11th and 30th, depending on ratings, but with my third loss I was completely out of the prize zone. In the end, with this result and despite the drop I arrived 82nd of the 374 players, I would say not bad for a first time with the deck if it wasn’t for that last game.

Surely I didn’t managed well and important part of long tournaments: food and drinks; I was able to keep hydrated thanks to some bottle of waters that I had in my backpack but I wasn’t able to eat at all because I thought I could buy something there but the queue at the stall was always too long. If it wasn’t for my kind opponent from match 5 that offered me some Polish sweets, I would have made the whole day on an empty stomach and with only the breakfast that I had at 6am before leaving for the tournament.
Surely this was an experience that taught me that I need to manage my food and that next time I should bring some from home to these really long tournaments… and that I should keep Chalices glued to the main deck against Reanimator.