Doomsdaying at the 4Seasons Spring Tournament 2023 Pt. 2

Hello everyone! Luca Fasoli here, aka Fuz65 on MTGO. I'm once again writing about my experience at the 4Seasons tournament in Bologna, where I predictably played Doomsday in all the events. The tournament was held on June 2nd, 3rd and 4th — which worked particularly well for me — as June 2nd is a national holiday in Italy, and it meant that I got to play the team event on Friday for the first time.

If you're interested in my report for the previous edition of the 4Seasons you can find it here.

Between the Seasons

After the top8 at the last 4Seasons main event I've had one of my best stretches in Magic results-wise. Everything was going my way. You know in basketball when a player is feeling particularly hot and starts jacking up shots from almost half court just to see how hot he actually is and just casually swishes them all? That was me on the morning of the Sunday after the 4Seasons. And my heat check was... Citadel Doomsday. I actually call it Citadel City both as a nod to Crash Team Racing and because Citadel Doomsday is way too understandable to be a Legacy deck name.

https://twitter.com/Fuz651/status/1635026635538960391

Fun fact: that Sunday we switched to Daylight Saving Time in Italy. I strolled into the Blue Dojo Discord chat and randomly asked if anyone was going to play the challenge. A few people answered positively and were just waiting for the tournament to start. I didn't feel much like playing but went like "Heh, screw it, I'll just play Citadel Doomsday and throw away 300 play points". The tournament starts and I make some comments about my matchup and the first turns of my game. Panic ensued. Apparently the others had forgotten about the time change and I hadn't exactly been clear about it. Oops. Well, that meant that I had a public and man, they were in for a treat. At some point my opponent had double Endurance and Veil. Normally it would be a tough spot to navigate, but Citadel with pact of negation backup into Tendrils for 40-something took care of it. Easy. I also got some of the nastiest Preordain I've ever gotten. Stuff like Dark ritual and Street Wraith in hand, Preordain into Thoughtseize plus Doomsday.

https://twitter.com/Fuz651/status/1635011684334206977

I eventually top8'd and lost in the first round, which was a great result considering that my idea at the start of the tournament was to incinerate 300 play points.

With a couple more results I was in a pretty good spot for the italian Player of the Year race, which awards an European Legacy Masters invite to the top3 players. I failed to qualify with two direct qualifier tournaments, losing in the top8 in one and getting destroyed in the other, but I felt pretty confident about my chances going into the 4Seasons weekend, I just needed some points between the Italian Legacy Invitational and the Legacy Main Event.

Choosing the Deck

I settled pretty early on Doomsday. Among the Doomsday builds I usually play it's the strongest one in terms of raw power, which comes in handy in a Legacy metagame that's fast and has a lot of strong early plays.

I had some doubts about a few sideboard slots, but nothing major. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse isn't as good now that it's a known quantity and I wanted to try a Pernicious Deed, so I made a few changes for some leagues and tried Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath over Sheoldred and the Deed. It went quite well, but not enough that I felt like changing the list without having a significant amount of testing.

In the end I submitted the same 75 that I registered at the previous 4Seasons for both Saturday and Sunday:

https://twitter.com/Fuz651/status/1665758688018157568

Link to the decklist

Getting to Bologna

Waking up early on Friday for the team event was a tragedy. I was coming from an extremely tough week at work and I'd have appreciated a few more hours of sleep. I left from Milan with three of my teammates: Matteo, Catta and the Doc. It didn't take long for us to get stuck in traffic. Maybe leaving on a national holiday wasn't a great idea after all. Luckily, though, the team event was delayed and we were able to get there in time.

The Team Event

I had the Vintage seat, while Francesco had Legacy and Matteo Modern. I'm not a huge fan of the current Vintage format, but among my teammates I was the one who had played it the most recently. I still like it better than Modern, so it was a fairly easy choice. Given that we decided to play the team event like three days earlier, I had no time to test. I settled for Doomsday, which was the deck I was mostly likely to play decently.

Too bad I did everything except for playing decently. I haven't played this badly in years. I didn't board in Steel Sabotage in round 2 and lost the game to Torpor Orb in a spot where I'd have won easily had steel sabotage been in the deck. We ended up losing the match because of that.

In the next match against Jeskai Tempo I started the game completely unfocused and started chaining mistake after mistake. At some point I was facing a known hand of Pyroblast, Flusterstorm and Force of Will. My hand was Dark Ritual, Duress, Sheoldred + others, 3 mana in play. I lead on Dark Ritual, which makes no sense whatsoever. Had that ritual been forced I might've lost the game for no reason. That's basic Storm sequencing and not something I expect myself to miss after more than a decade of casting Dark Rituals and Duresses. That wasn't even the lowest point of the match: I built a pile that didn't empty the library because I was afraid I'd die to Lightning Bolt (not true, I had checked the wrong life total) and when my opponent Swords to Plowshares'd my Oracle, I conceded to a Flusterstorm on Flusterstorm scenario that I could've paid with the mana I had floated with a Black Lotus. The worst part might be that I ended up winning that match. I kinda picked my play up in the end forcing a Time Walk in a spot that I don't think was obvious, but as a whole I played the match at an embarassing level and left the table annoyed at myself.

The rest of the tournament was rather uneventful except for a bad beats story that somehow put me in a better mood. I got paired against a friendly guy playing white Initiative in the dead for top8 bracket and got completely annihilated. In game 1 my opponent mulled to 4, revealed Chancellor of the Annex and went Lotus into White Plume Adventurer. He then untapped, scried an Ancient tomb on top and played Archon of Emeria. Gg

In game 2 I open the nuts: Ritual, Doomsday, Fetchland, Daze, Ancestral Recall, Street Wraith. Turn1 win with Daze backup. My opponent had other plans: he revealed double Chancellor, played a turn 1 uncounterable Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and I died without drawing another land. Oof. The whole thing was quite funny, as me and my opponent were joking about it as it was happening. A good thing about this kind of events is that they're usually pretty relaxed, and that's part of the fun.

I finished the tournament playing better than how I started, building a rather intricate pile in the last game to win with Force backup. I don't remember the exact pile, but it involved Brainstorming into Ancestral and drawing Thassa's Oracle, a pitch for Force of Will and a Mox Sapphire. It was pretty much the only non standard pile that I built for the whole tournament. Ancestral and Lotus being so good make pile building a little restricted and, frankly, boring.

Our team went 3-3 as a whole, but I still had a good time. Team events are the best, and I had missed playing in one. We had to wait for Catta to finish slinging Walls of Omen in 2023 Modern (his team top8'd!) , but then we met with Cena, another friend of ours, and went out to dinner! Nothing too fancy, but after a long day I was famished and I reaaally needed a good dinner.

Left to right: Matteo, Catta, Doc, Cena and Me

Saturday — Italian Legacy Invitational

The Italian Legacy Invitational is a yearly invite-only tournament that features some of the best players in the italian Legacy scene. I finished 9th last year, so I was looking forward to get a better result. First and firemost, though, I wanted to get back to playing well (compared to my standard, at least).

Round 1 — Nic Fit 2-0

Game 1

I open a very strong hand with Doomsday and Duress. I Duress to see an Elder Gargaroth and nothing that really interacts with me and win comfortably.

I think I only boarded in the Nihil Spellbomb, no need to do anything else.

Game 2

A quick Doomsday with Force of Will backup puts me ahead in the early stages of the game. I make sure that I don't die to Endurance and get the dub.

Record: 1-0

Round 2 — Andrea Mengucci on BUG Scam 1-2

Feature match against Andrea! Unfortunately the video doesn't look to be available anymore on twitch, it might get published somewhere else in the future.

Game 1

I get to set up in the first few turns and resolve a turn 3 Doomsday with Daze backup. I build a pile with Ponder first and Oracle 4th so that I don't die to Witherbloom Command, add a discard for Stifle and get there. As it turns out, Andrea wasn't actually playing Stifle, but the mainstream list had it, so I played as if he had it.

I went for a pretty heavy sideboarding here. I boarded in the Sheoldreds with Stifle in mind. It's kind of a double edged sword because of discard + Reanimate, but I think the reward outweighs the risk. Upgrading the Petals to Carpets is a no brainer (except for Leovold, Emissary of Trest but I don't expect to win most of the games where my opponent gets to stick a Leovold) and the same is true for Veil of Summer. I cut Daze on the draw and 2 of the Personal Tutors.

Game 2

I get dismantled easily by discard followed by Leovold.

Game 3

I go down to 2 Carpets in favor of a couple of Lotus Petals IIRC. I keep an interesting 7 with 2 Carpets, 2 Sheoldreds, Underground Sea, Fetch, Doomsday. Andrea deploys a pair of fetchlands and we play draw/go for a couple of turns. I resolve a Carpet on turn one, draw Veil on turn 2, draw a green source and play the second Carpet on turn three with Veil backup. I wasn't too sure about this play, but I ultimately did it thinking that my first Carpet might have gotten Commanded or I could've ended up under pressure on my mana in the form of Stifle/Wasteland. I get Grief'd, Veil in response, but Drown in the Loch takes care of my protection spell and takes a Doomsday. Sheoldred resolves and is close to going all the way, but Andrea Reeanimates my other Sheoldred and I'm forced to trade them. I don't think it's correct to keep them on the table when my opponent is the only one with the means to remove it. He was at 4 life, so Reanimate was out of the picture at that point. Andrea had a Uro in the graveyard but no second green source. He fetched down to three and played a Collector Ouphe, which I just ignore because with double Carpet it isn't doing anything. I draw Nihil Spellbomb and get pretty excited, considering that Andrea is empty handed and Uro could be his only real threat. I slam it, move to activate it... Oops. Collector Ouphe. Some turns later I draw a lethal Street Wraith, but my opponent finally finds the second green source for Uro and I lose quickly from there. It sucks to get a loss this early, but it was a very interesting game, a bunch of tough choices, lots of back and forth and I feel like we both had real chances at different points in the game.

Record: 1-1

Round 3 — Dragon Stompy 2-1

Game 1

Lose the die roll, Chalice of the Void on 1 followed by Blood Moon on turn 2.

Bring in the Force of Negation's and the Abrupt Decay's, cut Veil, Flusterstorm, Preordain.

Game 2

I play Underground Sea, cantrip, deploy a Lotus Petal. My opponent plays Chalice on 1, I resolve Doomsday with Edge of Autumn in hand and put a Force on top.

Game 3

I force a Blood Moon and go for a fast Doomsday.

Record: 2-1

Round 4 — Death and Taxes 2-1

Game 1

My opponent gets a game loss for incorrect decklist.

Game 2

I hit the Doomsday fail rate and die to Mother of Runes and Skyclave Apparition beats.

Game 3

I let a Deafening Silence through and win with a pass the turn pile with Abrupt Decay and a bunch of lands that keep me safe from denial and pesky Spirit of the Labyrinths

Record: 3-1

Round 5 — Gazzola on RUG Delver 1-2

A well known Canadian Threshold player, I'm not happy about the matchup but hopefully the Carpets can help.

Game 1

I keep a land-heavy hand and main phase fetch on my turn 1 to play around Stifle. My opponent wastelands me and plays a Tarmogoyf a couple of turns later. I win at the last possible turn with a Veil-protected Doomsday + Cycler.

Game 2

I try to play around Stifle, but never draw a second blue source and die without doing anything.

Game 3

My opponent does nothing for a couple of turns and I manage to establish a solid manabase. I play a Carpet of Flowers, which gets forced. My second Carpet resolves and I cast Doomsday, which gets forced. I try to resolve a Sheoldred on the following turn but that gets forced, too. I get beaten by a Goyf and a Brazen Borrower and lose before being able to recover from the counterspells.

Record: 3-2

Round 6 — Idk, but I won

Record: 4-2

Top16, which is not what I was looking for, but I think I played reasonably well, and I was feeling quite confident for the main event.

I jammed games with Matteo while the other guys were playing the last round of the side event and managed to play something like 8 Doomsday vs Delver matches in 40ish minutes. Basically the equivalent of speed chess for Magic. I got annihilated in g1's (0-4 with some bad mulligans), but 3-1'd the post board games (he mulliganed more, though).

Dinner Main Event

As always, Saturday dinner means Mulino Bruciato! We got our usual 20+ people table and I went for the usual Tagliata Fredda + Tagliata Sale e Rosmarino (cold marinated sliced steak + sliced steak w/ salt and rosemary). While I was devouring my steaks, my friends had gotten this pasta with fried zucchini on it and man, I love fried zucchini. When the waiter came back for my second steak and asked for the sides I had to throw in some fried zucchini's. We got potatoes and zucchinis for the whole table and I finally walked out of the restaurant feeling full and at peace with the world.

Sunday Main Event

312 players, which means 9 rounds once again! I kept the same list, although I seriously considered swapping the Sheoldred's with Uro's, but ultimately decided against it. My losses in the Invitational would've probably been avoided had I had Uro instead of Sheoldred, but I'm not a fan of results oriented thinking, so I just went with my standard list.

Round 1 — Erik on Cephalid Breakfast 2-1

Game 1

I lose the die roll and Erik plays a turn 1 Nomads en-Kor. I thoughtseize on my first turn and it gets forced, which can only mean he has the combo for his turn 2. As expected his next turn is land + Cephalid Illusionist, which I force. I slam a Doomsday shortly after. At this point I have to decide to either wait a turn or play Oracle without Cavern. I ultimately choose to ignore the Cavern to avoid giving my opponent too many draws and get there.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

I mulligan and face an early Urza's Saga, which both puts pressure on me and gets a Shuko, threatening me with the combo. I play a discard spell and see a bunch of permission, I'm sitting on Veil + Flusterstorm and decide that my only way to win is to try and get my opponent after he empties his deck. He had enough permission to shut my plan off, but he hadn't emptied his library anyway.

Sideboarding: bring the Daze back in

Game 3

I'm faced with a mulligan decision on a cantrip-heavy hand and ship it looking for a more explosive hand. My opponent doesn't have an aggressive hand and I ultimately manage to sneak in a Veil in response to a Flusterstorm. I have Underground Sea and Waterlogged Grove in play, Consider in hand, my opponent is tapped out with a bunch of cards in hand. I build LED/Cycler x3/ Thassa's Oracle to play around Surgical Extraction.

I consider into LED, crack LED for , crack the Grove and cycle until the Oracle. As it turns out, my opponent had Orim's Chant in hand, things would've been bleak had I let him untap.

Record: 1-0

Round 2 — Davide on 8-Cast 2-0

Game 1

Davide has a slow start and I have all the time in the world to play a Doomsday with Force backup with very little pressure on the board.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

My opening 7 is ridiculous and lets me Force of Will a Chalice on my opponent's turn 1, untap and jam Doomsday with Flusterstorm backup. I'll take the free win.

Record: 2-0

Round 3 — Tomas on WUBR Control 2-0

Game 1

I innocently play a fetchland and pass, my opponent leads on an Inquisition of Kozilek, which prompts me to fetch Tropical and cast Veil of Summer. Tomas swears under his breath (can't blame him tbh) and lets Veil resolve. He doesn't have much pressure and I take my time to resolve a Doomsday. I don't have a way to get through Dress Down at that point, as it's not easy to do against a deck with Hymn to Tourach + other discard spells, but he doesn't have it and I win with a Cavern + Oracle pile.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

Game 2 is a bit of a staring contest for the first three turns. On turn 4 I decided to start pushing and ritual out a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Tomas forces, I Veil, he Spell Pierces and I Fluster (3 on Pierce, 2 on FoW). He has Dress Down in his upkeep and manages to resolve 2 Ponders and a Teferi, which bounces my Sheoldred. I comfortably replay it with Carpet and bring him low on life. He eventually manages to bounce Sheoldred with Teferi and discard it. An instant speed Hymn to Tourach takes care of the rest of my hand, but I eventually draw a Street Wraith, who swampwalks to the win.

Record: 3-0

Round 4 — Leif on Mono Black Midrange 1-2

Leif is a friendly guy and good thing he is, since we get deck checked and have a bunch of time to kill. There's no chess board involved this time, but we theorize about what's wrong with my face that made me get deck checked for three tournaments in a row. Might be the beard, who knows.

Fortunately I made no mistakes in my decklist this time, and we're off to game 1.

Game 1

Leif leads on Grief and I immediately put him on reanimator. He then plays Dauthi Voidwalker and I'm fairly confused. I draw a Personal Tutor that fetches Doomsday, and I win comfortably without getting too disrupted.

Sidebarding:

I bring in the Leylines, Nihil Spellbomb and the Veils.

Game 2

Leif leads on Thoughtseize, turn 2 Grief, Ritual and Sheoldred. Ouch.

Sideboarding:

I cut the Leylines.

Game 3

I Duress on turn 1 and see double Grief, Dark Ritual, Bloodstained Mire, Wasteland, Tourach, Dread Cantor. I have Ponder, Consider and lands (on a mulligan to 6). I take the Ritual, my opponent draws Reanimate and Grief into Reanimate Grief wrecks my hand. I get pretty close to going off, but I'm too low on life for that to work.

Record: 3-1

Round 5 — Giulio on UB Shadow 2-0

Game 1

He doesn't do much, so I just take my time and sculpt a strong hand. I Duress and see a bunch of Reanimates, Push, Force + Daze. I take the Force, Doomsday and win with a pass the turn pile.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

Baleful Strix is Giulio's first play, and a Grief follows up to disrupt my hand a bit. That's not nearly threatening enough and I have all the time in the world to set up a Veil-protected same turn win.

Record: 4-1

Round 6 — Andrea on WR Initiative 2-1

Game 1

I don't know what he is on and keep a good hand with Doomsday and Force. Andrea goes Cavern into Anointed Peacekeeper and I draw Force + 3 more Doomsday's. Womp womp.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

I get a free win via turn 1 Doomsday.

Game 3

At this point I was feeling like I was close to the end of my tournament. I'm not too happy about the matchup on the draw. My hand was solid, though, with Force, pitch and a Thoughtseize.

I Force Chalice on 1, untap and Thoughtseize with Underground Sea. My opponent reveals double Archon of Emeria, double Simian Spirit Guide and Cavern. Archon is my pick, but that doesn't stop my opponent from jamming the other one on the next turn with Cavern. In my next turn I brainstorm to try to get something going, but I get brainstorm locked instead. I play a tapped Tropical Island and take the 2 damage from the Archon. I Tutor for a Ponder to clear the top of my library and my opponent plays a Simian Spirit Guide to join the Archon that's slowly chipping my life total. Ponder on my next turn shows me Misty Rainforest, Brainstorm and something useless. I take the Misty and leave the Brainstorm on top. My opponent doesn't do anything particularly relevant and I am faced with a tough decision: my hand is Petal, Wraith, Edge, Doomsday, Tropical Island, Misty and Underground Sea in play. I can fetch Underground Sea and have the triple black or I can try to go for a Decay. I choose to take the Brainstorm and fetch the Island. In my opponent's turn I cast a desperate Brainstorm and see Abrupt Decay! I Decay on the turn after, street Wraith to clean the top of my library, Brainstorm into Dark Ritual and win from there. I was lucky that my opponent didn't draw much after the first Archon, but I feel like I only had a few lines that gave me actual chances to win the game and managed to find one that was not obvious to me.

Record: 5-1

Getting a narrow win in a match that I think I played tightly was exactly what I needed to get in the zone for the rest of the tournament.

Round 7 — Francesco on Naya Depths 2-1

Game 1

I mulligan into a medium hand and get wastelanded into oblivion by a Elvish Reclaimer. I die with Doomsday with no way to crack into the pile. Just one turn too late.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

Turn 1 Doomsday. I have an excess fetchland that allows me to win with Cavern and Nihil Spellbomb to play around Endurance.

Game 3

This game was streamed, but it doesn't seem to be available anymore, sadly.

I have a turn 2 Doomsday with some excess lands in hand, which means I have a way to play around double Endurance + triple Wasteland + Pyrobast. My pile was the following:

Francesco wastes both my lands and I'm faced with a choice. If I play both Brainstorm and Edge I'm not going to have enough time to play everything and deal with double Endurance. I ultimately choose to Brainstorm and it eats a Red Elemental Blast. Nice. Now I get to sacrifice one of the lands to cycle Edge of Autumn. From there my opponent only has an Endurance in hand and I can win easily with Nihil Spellbomb in play.

Record: 6-1

Round 8 — Alexi on 8-Cast 2-0

Game 1

Alexi mulligans and gets a slow start. I ponder on turn one and Veil into a turn 2 kill.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

I ship an unplayable 7 and get an interesting 6: Petal, Doomsday, Force, Force, Personal Tutor and Thoughtseize. I genuinely think you're supposed to keep this 6 against 8-Cast on the draw. There aren't many 5 cards hands that can get there against a deck with 4 Chalices and 8 Forces. This hand has a lot of live draws: a blue card is decent, black land is fine, Dark Ritual is great. Urza's Saga would be a beating, but it's not like an average 5-card hand has a good chance against Saga + one piece of interaction. It's the kind of keep that makes you look like a fool if it doesn't work out, but I wasn't there to avoid looking like a fool, I wanted to give myself the best chances at winning the game. Keep.

Chalice on 1 is my opponent's first play, I Force pitching Personal Tutor. My first draw step gives me a blue card, I play a Petal and pass. Alexi plays a Seat of the Synod and passes. I draw... Dark Ritual! Ritual, Doomsday, my opponent forces and I force back. Doomsday resolves. I build Delta/Edge/Oracle/Cavern/Underground Sea. My opponent plays another land and passes, I play my Delta and ship the turn back to him. He plays Thought Monitor, I untap, fetch Underground Sea and Thoughtseize. Uncounterable Thassa's Oracle gets the W on the following turn.

Record: 7-1

Round 9 — Riccardo on TEG 2-1

Unfortunaly we can't ID into the top8, we have to play it out.

Game 1

Riccardo leads on Defense Grid and I force it. I have a reasonably fast Doomsday and take game 1 easily. I think the matchup is heavily favored because TEG doesn't have interaction, but they can get some nasty starts.

Sideboarding:

Game 2

I mulligan a no lander with Leyline and keep an insane 6 with Force and turn 1 Doomsday. Riccardo goes double Diamond, cracks them and reveals double Echo of Eons. Yikes. His turn one ends with a huge Galvanic Relay into a turn 2 win.

Game 3

I start the game with Leyline of the Void in play and a somewhat medium hand. Riccardo gets a relay for 6 on turn 1, but can't get the win on his second turn. I have a Doomsday without the triple black to cast it and a LED in my hand. I Ponder into Grove + Preordain and decide to keep it, as I'm most likely going to need at least two turns to win and Grove + LED is a win if I can get the triple black. I bottom a FoN to try and push before my opponent can assemble another kill and eventually draw Lotus Petal. Doomsday, crack LED and double cycle into Oracle for the win and for the top8!

Record: 8-1

Top8

I finished first in the swiss and got an European Legacy Masters invite! To think that I was worried about getting a top16/32 to get the invite with the at large slots of the Italian POTY and ended up getting it with the first place... I was pleasantly surprised!

This is my second top8 in a row at the 4Seasons tournaments and not something I realistically expected to do, but I got lucky in some matches where it needed it and I think played some tight magic in a few tricky spots. It was for sure a satisfying way to bounce back after Friday's poor performance.

Post-Event Thoughts

BUG Doomsday keeps on giving and it's my go-to choice every time I want to give myself the best chances of winning a tournament. The list is tailored to my playstyle and everything feels smooth. It helps that my draws have been above average, but even despite that it's solid and grinds extremely well with the green cards in the board.

Some thanks:

The 4Seasons organizers, the judges, the Blue Dojo community and the streaming team for providing a fun and well organized event. Thanks to Guidi, for organizing the Legacy Invitational and running the Italian Player of the Year.

The Italian Legacy community! I'd love to thank everyone individually, but my memory sucks for anything that's not a Doomsday pile or a Storm line, I'd forget someone for sure.

All the guys that I've talked to online and stopped by to say hi, from MTGO players to people from the Doomsday Discord.

The Cenacchi's, who always give us a place to stay for the weekend of the 4Seasons.

My teammates: going to tournaments without them wouldn't be nearly as fun.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings! If you want to reach me on social media you can find me on @Fuz651 or in the Doomsday Discord.

See you all around!

Luca

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