Weekly update – 14/10/2022

Welcome back to our weekly update! Hunting season for ELM slots has kicked into high gear, as multiple nations had their first qualifier events last weekend, and players gathered to take their shot at that coveted prey. Today we’ll go over some qualifier results from Denmark and the UK, and recap the exciting news we got from Spain, both regarding this year’s delegation and the ELM qualifying structure for next year. Plenty of ground to cover, so let’s get straight to business.

Danish Dynamite

The Danish qualification scheme for ELM is pretty straightforward. The nation’s undisputed top Legacy player, Hans Jacob Goddik, was invited directly by the regional representative. In contrast, the remaining three invites are given out to the winners of the weekly Faraos Cigarer events happening in Copenhagen during the month of October. The Faraos Cigarer game store has been the nexus of the Danish Legacy community for years and hosts the yearly Danish Legacy Masters. Admittedly, the community isn’t very active online, so not many details regarding the qualifiers made it to us, but we do know which players earned their invites for the European Legacy Masters. The first of whom is actually… a Brit?

Well, technically. While Theo Andresier is a UK native, he has been working and living in Copenhagen for years, and a regular sight in the top 8s of his local Legacy scene. The former writer for TheEpicStorm.com enjoys playing combo decks, but his real love is Veteran Explorer – or maybe it’s the Cabal that use her as sacrificial fodder during their Therapy sessions. Regardless of his allegiances, Theo will go down as the first player in ELM history to earn an invitation in a “foreign” country, but as a Danish resident, we are sure that his community will cheer him on as one of their own, and not some pirate scroundel that invaded their Kingdom.

The second qualifier at Faraos Cigarer saw 22 players attending, and was won by Daniel Peretz. An expert on all things Marit Lage, Daniel has been on a hot run with Lands lately, winning the 129-player Tier1Con in Malmö in early July. With his invite for ELM secured, his competitors in Bologna will need to figure out how to cool this man down, before he melts the ice caps and unleashes unspoken horrors upon his foes.

London Calling

After last week’s qualifier at Mox in the Hole Edinburgh, the English Legacy scene set its sights on the capital, where the second ELM invitation was offered to the winner of October’s London Legacy Monthly. Founded by Callum Smith, the LLM is a staple in the British Legacy scene, with about 40 players slugging it out each month at Rogue’s Quarters Board Game Cafe. This month’s edition reached full capacity, which meant that 44 players had to battle through 6 rounds of swiss before the top 8 playoffs would determine a winner.

Remember when we mentioned pirates, earlier in the article? Amongst the players battling it out in London were three unexpected visitors from abroad, all from the notorious Wooded Team. Spearheaded by GP Bologna 2019 Top 8 competitor Lorenzo Tassone, the Italians had made their way to London with one clear goal in mind: to conquer one of the English ELM slots for La Bella Italia.

When the dust settled after the swiss, only Lorenzo (@tassoraptus) found himself still on track to achieve that lofty goal, with only three opponents left in his path. Giuseppe Sorrenti fell in the quarters, in a close Delver mirror. Lewis Hawthorn’s Phyrexian agents were up next in the semis, but they couldn’t stop the Italian either. In the finals, however, Lorenzo found himself sitting across fellow GP Bologna Top 8 competitor Matt Brown, armed with Lands. A tough opponent, in an even tougher matchup.

Top 8 is go! Congrats everyone

Standings after swiss
Lewis Hawthorn – Infect@FrancisCowper – Landstill@MattBrown_MTG – Lands
Giuseppe – UR Delver@tassoraptus – UR Delver
Massimo Masiero – 4c Control@ykaleung – UR Delver
Zach Meekcoms – 4c Control pic.twitter.com/yqpvGxviz9

— Callum Smith (@callumsmithmtg) October 8, 2022

Luckily for Lorenzo, fortune favours the brave. Despite the matchup being a nightmare on paper, he managed to navigate Matt’s treacherous lands meticulously, send his Delvers and Dragons soaring, and claim his seat at the European Legacy Masters.

An Italian, representing Spain in the ELM committee, claiming his slot at an English qualifier event – stories like this are what we do this for, and we hope you are as excited as we are to see the rest of the ELM qualifier season unfold.

Meanwhile, in Spain

Until recently, things have remained fairly quiet regarding the Spanish invitations for the European Legacy Masters. That changed last week, however, as after returning from his conquest at the London Legacy Monthly, Lorenzo Tassone hosted a stream together with Impact Returns, to reveal the Spanish players that are receiving a direct invitation to ELM. They also shared details regarding the last ELM Qualifier, as well as the structure through which Spanish players will be able to qualify in the future.

Here are the highlights from the announcement:

• 3 players have been invited directly to ELM 2022.
• An open ELM qualifier will take place in Barcelona on November 15th, to determine the fourth Spanish invitee.
• Next year, a new Spanish Legacy Nationals tournament will be created, which players can qualify for through their local leagues. ELM invitations will be awarded to the top finishers at Nationals, as well as to the winners of a few large independent events, such as Impact Returns.

More details regarding next year’s ELM will be revealed later, but for now, let’s take a look at the three Spanish players that have been directly invited to the 2022 European Legacy Masters.

Headlining the Spanish delegation is 2018 Magic World Champion, Javier Dominguez. Javier has been at the absolute pinnacle of competitive Magic for years now, with top finishes in all formats, but even before his Pro Tour successes, the GP Paris 2014 winner has always been a huge fan of Legacy. In the early days of the format, he invented the Cephalid Breakfast deck, featuring the Nomads-en-Kor + Cephalid Illusionist combo to mill over the entire deck. Back then, he would follow this up by reanimating a Sutured Ghoul, exiling Krosan Cloudscraper, and swinging for 13 hasty damage thanks to Dragon Breath. Combo really hit different, back in 2004.

Nowadays, Thassa’s Oracle makes killing your opponent a lot easier, and “Thalai” can again be found crushing MTGO Challenges and 4Seasons events with his new and improved breakfast of champions. But whether he registers his pet deck or decides on a more conventional choice, what’s certain is that Javier will be among the most feared players competing at the European Legacy Masters.

The second Spanish player to be invited is Guillem Salvador Arnal. The GP Chiba 2019 winner and Willy Bizarre store owner from Valencia has been a familiar face at most of the major Legacy events during the past decade, with a plethora of top finishes at various independent tournaments, as well as two Eternal Weekend top 8s among his many achievements. As both a community leader in his local area and a top-level competitor himself, you’ll find few people as dedicated to Legacy as Guillem.

So, what’s better than two Legacy GP Champions on one team? Surely, they couldn’t send three, could they!? Enter Rodrigo Togores. Rodrigo made a name for himself grinding the MKM series in the mid-2010s, scoring a whopping seven Top 8s in the process, but the crowning achievement of his career so far was winning GP Prague 2016 with Ad Nauseam Tendrils. Although he is primarily known as a Legacy Storm specialist, Rodrigo is also known for enjoying Modern and Vintage and has a ton of results in those respective formats as well.

Whoever ends up winning the ELM Qualifier in Barcelona, will surely find themselves in great company when representing their nation at the European Legacy Masters. We can’t wait to watch all these amazing players at work in December, and see how they stack up against Europe’s finest.

Upcoming Events

The tail end of October is jam-packed with events, including a 4-slot qualifier in Dublin, and the first of 3 recently announced qualifiers in Switzerland. In the UK, The Gathering Birmingham is coming up soon, which promises to be one of the largest European Eternal events of the year. Each of the MEGA Legacy events on Saturday and Sunday will give away an invite to ELM, so let’s see if the English can defend their spots this time around.

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We wish you all the best of luck as you go out and join the hunt for those precious invites to the European Legacy Masters. Next week, we will shine our community spotlight on the often-overlooked nation of Bulgaria, which recently awarded its first ELM invites during the Duel for Horizons event in Sofia.

Until then, keep playing the greatest format of them all, and keep being awesome!