My experience in the EUL and my path to European Magic Cup

The first time I got to know EUL was almost a year ago, when Jari, one of the people behind the project, invited me to Switzerland for the EUL kickoff. The trip itself was a trainwreck. I lost almost all my matches in the Breach metagame after making the suicidal decision to play UW Miracles, and I also underestimated how much a burger costs in Zurich. Still, I had a great time hanging out with Masaya (myra00), who eventually finished first on the leaderboard, and meeting the EUL crew. After spending two days talking and sharing time with them, it was clear the project had potential, and I was both interested in supporting it and curious to see where it would go.

I don’t enjoy playing FNMs, I don’t have a driver’s license, and the only points I earned came from big events where I performed well. This left me in a precarious position for most of the season, and I considered giving up on the leaderboard almost immediately. Months passed, formats changed, and I still wasn’t playing eight-plus-round events, yet I somehow hovered around the 145th position. Masaya DM’d me saying I still had a shot, so I looked up the only playable FNM that counted for the EUL circuit and went there. Luckily, my friend Alberto let me crash on his couch for the night. Otherwise, the plan was to sleep on a bench and take the first train in the morning.

The FNM went terribly. I played Boros and got paired against Amulet, which killed me on turn three both times. Then I faced a creature combo deck that took me out with a pile of draft uncommons. In round three, I matched against a mono-red draft deck and managed to win. Round four was against Samwise combo, and I luckily got there. I finished 2-2, which was just enough points to stay on the leaderboard, proudly sitting at 146th place.

After that, I took it easy for a couple of months. I knew Modern quite well, and I needed to test for RC Antwerp, so the EUL event felt like a good mental reset. I wasn’t particularly interested in winning. I would rather lose every match and learn something than do the opposite. At the time, I was undecided between Boros and Eldrazi. Jeskai Blink had just emerged as the new hot deck, and people believed it was good against Boros. Eldrazi, on the other hand, was weakened by Consign to Memory being everywhere in Jeskai, but it still crushed almost everything else.

My friend Stefano Spurio invited me to Senigallia for a full weekend of testing with our other friend, Frenzis, so I brought all my doubts with me. Over four days, the three of us played around a hundred Boros games, trying every possible piece of tech, from splashing blue for Strix Serenade to running six looters or three maindeck Blood Moons. Every fifteen minutes, we came up with a new idea that changed how we approached the deck. Eldrazi was quickly ruled out after I went 0-9 across three leagues and 0-2 in a Challenge. On top of that, switching decks would have required buying two hundred dollars’ worth of cards, since our usual seller friend, Mattia, was locked on it.

Stefano and I settled on slightly different lists with the same core tech choices. We ran zero maindeck Moons and two sideboard Path to Exile to improve the mirror and the Jeskai matchup. The night before the event, I asked Stefano if it was even worth attending instead of spending another day testing for the upcoming RC, but he convinced me to go and use the event as live testing, ideally dodging Storm and Amulet.

I don’t remember much about the event itself, except that it was pouring rain, half the room was on Boros, and I went 6-1 in the Swiss with a mix of luck, skill, and solid matchups. The Top 8 ended up being stacked with Boros decks, and since I had played the matchup an absurd number of times, I felt very confident going into it.

When the event was over and the realization slowly set in that I had secured my place at the European Magic Cup, the whole journey suddenly felt different. The awkward FNMs, the last-minute travel plans, and the endless mirror testing finally had a clear purpose. It did not feel like a dramatic breakthrough, but rather a quiet confirmation that the grind had been worth it.

Unfortunately, Stefano didn’t make the Top 8, so our original dream of forming a trio with Masaya and Stefano fell apart. I still planned to team up with Masaya, who qualified for the Pro Tour in the meantime, but the Championship dates overlapped with the Arena Championship, forcing me to look elsewhere. I already had a loose agreement with Gianluca, a player I have known and trusted for years, so teaming up felt like the most natural choice. Boncho was someone I met through the EUL Discord, and after talking and testing a bit, it quickly became clear that he would be a great fit for the team. Even though the trio came together in an unexpected way, the atmosphere was immediately comfortable.

I’ll spend most of my remaining time testing Pauper, which I think is a truly awful format, possibly even worse than Modern, but I’m confident I’ve played more of it than either of my teammates. I’ll also put time into Limited, which I’ve already started working on, knowing that Team Sealed plays much closer to Constructed than to regular Sealed.

Hopefully, I’ll have a good time, and maybe even a shot at winning the whole thing. I trust my teammates. Now let’s just hope to win die rolls and open busted mythic.

Looking back at the whole journey, it feels strange in a good way to now be playing in Bologna. I just hope to play well and make the most of the opportunity.

I honestly don’t know what my future in competitive Magic will look like, as I’m not a big fan of the direction WotC is taking with the organized play scene. Because of that, I feel I have to thank EUL for giving players, myself included, the chance to compete for the title of Italian Champion, while also creating a new circuit that genuinely brings people together. EUL has definitely made my friendship with Masaya and Stefano stronger, and I’m sure it wouldn’t feel the same without it being part of my journey.