An interview with Gunnar Óttarsson, winner of the 330-player 4 Seasons Spring Legacy Main Event

When I first met Gunnar at Eternal Weekend Prague two years ago, he was just beginning to explore Legacy Dredge. Like many players discovering the archetype, he showed up with a sideboard guide in hand and plenty of questions.

Gunnar at a side event during Eternal Weekend Prague 2024, absolutely crushing it

Fast forward to 2026, and Gunnar has just won the 330-player 4 Seasons Spring Legacy Main Event in Europe with Turbo Dredge.

Gunnar (center) during the Trios event

What makes the achievement particularly interesting to me is that Gunnar never talks about Magic the way many competitive players do. Rather than chasing every new deck or spending endless hours testing, he seems more interested in finding archetypes he genuinely enjoys and learning them deeply. This season, that deck was Dredge.

In this interview, Gunnar talks about his history with several Legacy archetypes, why Dredge became his deck of choice for this season, and how that decision led to one of his biggest wins as a Magic player.

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Find Gunnar on X/Twitter here: @gunni_mtg

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Before we get into Dredge, tell us a little about your Magic journey. How did you get started, and how did you end up becoming a regular on the European Legacy circuit?

Hey! Yeah, let's get started.

I started playing Magic when I was gifted a Fallen Empires booster and later an Ice Age starter deck as a kid. I played very casually until Invasion and then took a break for 16 years, coming back around Oath of the Gatewatch.

Since coming back, I have played Vintage and Legacy at the kitchen table with proxies.

On the tryhard side, after my long break, I played Standard for a while and probably reached my peak skill level around that time. No huge achievements with it, but I did play at the Icelandic Nationals.

I then switched to Modern sometime after that, travelling to my first real tournaments with local players to shuffle cards at RCs and MagicCons.

We managed to get a bit of proxy-friendly Legacy gaming going some years ago in Iceland, and after spending more time with that, there was no turning back for me. I gave up Modern and now focus on Legacy, Vintage, and cEDH.

More recently, I moved to Berlin and have been enjoying the ELMQs every other week across the country, which offer a relaxed contrast to my other weekends spent at Berghain or Tresor.

I have a lot of love for many Legacy archetypes, but the ones I have stuck with and tried to remain competent with are Lands, Forge, and Dredge.

Ultimately, as I've gotten older and found less and less time I'm willing to dedicate to Magic, I'm trying to stick to decks that I believe I can both currently pilot—and continue to pilot competently—within the constraints of the 50-minute tournament clock.

You've played several Legacy archetypes over the years, including Lands and Forge. What was it about Dredge that kept pulling you back, eventually making it your deck of choice this season?

Some of what I love about the deck is the feeling of power, splashing your whole deck onto the table to create an unstoppable horde.

Certain aspects of it also remind me a lot of playing Storm, especially the pivotal decision of whether to go for it this turn or next turn.

Also, while you may not make many decisions during the course of a game, similarly to Vintage, the ones you do make are absolutely crucial.

You really do feel the weight of your choices in terms of sequencing, card choice, and more.

You've mentioned that Dredge wasn't exactly a new discovery for you. What made you decide that this was finally the season to bring the deck to the biggest Legacy events?

I've had love for the Dredge deck for some amount of time now, grabbing it for FNMs or side events whenever I'm in the mood.

With the Entomb ban last year, it felt like this would be its time to shine... and boy, was it.

You're someone who has played and tuned a lot of different decks over the years. When it came to Dredge, did you end up making any changes of your own, or did you stick with the stock list?

I've always enjoyed tweaking a card here or there once I get comfortable with a deck.

Despite that, notably, that is something I have never done since starting to bring Dredge to tournaments. For the time being, I put all my faith in TheDredgeGuy. 🙏

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Every time Dredge does well, someone says, "Sure, but what if everybody starts packing graveyard hate?" What would you say to that?

Personally, I would have a pretty bad time if I went to a tournament and faced Leyline of the Void every match for nine rounds, so to be frank, it is certainly something that could cause me to take a break from the deck.

However, that simply isn't the reality of the Legacy being played in paper these days, so make hay while the sun is shining!

Let's say someone reads this interview and decides to pick up Dredge tomorrow. What's the most important advice you'd give them?

Mulligan aggressively!

To get the hang of it, take advantage of the YouTube content available and, when starting out, consider skipping through a few videos quickly just to watch the mulligan decisions.

Also, make sure to practice the deck thoroughly in paper before showing up to a tournament.

The deck isn't rocket science, but it's quite hard to simply pick up and pilot successfully with no experience.

There are a lot of triggers to keep track of, as well as the challenge of finding a layout that works for you when spreading out your graveyard and tracking relevant cards.

I have a feeling I already know the answer, but how did you react when Undercity Informer got banned?

Hell yeah, party at Liliana's.

Was there a particular draw, dredge, or sequence during the tournament that made you think, "The zombies are taking me all the way today"?

I definitely felt a bit of wind in my sails after Round 5, but the real confidence came when my Otherworldly Gaze in Game 2 of Round 9 showed me the Breakthrough and Golgari Grave-Troll I needed to unleash the zombie horde!

Let's imagine there's a Legacy player reading this interview who has never sleeved up a Golgari Grave-Troll. Why should they give Dredge a shot?

It's so fun and unique. It's definitely an experience everybody should try at least once.

For my personal tastes, it's much more engaging and exciting than Vintage Dredge, even though playing with Bazaar of Baghdad is an experience in and of itself.

What part of playing against Dredge do you think opponents tend to overthink the most?

I have a feeling many of my opponents have been quite surprised to see how resilient we are to Wasteland mana denial when we fetch accordingly.

Most players also agonize over where to point their Faerie Macabres and Surgicals.

Surely one of the perks of playing a "fringe" deck.

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From Side Events to Champion

What I enjoyed most about this conversation is that Gunnar's story isn't the one people usually expect from a successful competitive Magic player.

He isn't trying to master every deck in the format. He isn't spending every free hour testing the latest innovation. In fact, as he openly admits, he's dedicating less and less time to Magic these days.

Instead, he found a deck he genuinely enjoys, learned it deeply, trusted it when the metagame looked right, and was rewarded with one of the biggest wins of his Magic career.

One thing Gunnar specifically asked me to emphasize is that his strong results playing Dredge—including a 66.06% match win percentage across tracked Legacy events since late 2024—should not be interpreted as those of a professional player at the peak of his game. If anything, his story points in the opposite direction: deep familiarity with an archetype can still go a very long way in Legacy.

Two years ago, I met Gunnar while he was learning Dredge and asking questions about the deck. Today, he's the champion of a 330-player Legacy tournament and describes his deck as "a masterpiece."

Perhaps the real surprise isn't that Gunnar won. It's that people are still surprised when Dredge does. For years, Dredge has been one of the most underestimated decks in Legacy.

The zombies keep coming!