tl;dr this top8 means very little format wise, reasons at the bottom
A brief premise about the format and this event that's now been held for the 3rd time.
It'd require a longer discussion, but while Legacy is still popular, EU Vintage is not doing that well at all.
MKM series dropped us and Europe has now only 4 "eternal" events with Vintage in it: two now laughable Ovinos, Nebraska's War and Eternal Weekend. Due to WotC EU/Italy (willingly?) ignoring official statement on proxy play and outdated and narrowminded preconcepts none of these is allowed to be with proxies. Old School here is not the nostalgia format, but it's the P9 format that vendors and vendor TOs are trying to push at the expense of Vintage.
Shouldn't be a surprise that EW EU it's a half-assed disappointment and it might not be entirely TO's fault tbh. First one had video coverage then it's been cut. First place gets the choice between painting (which WotC hands out for free) OR store credit. Play area is secluded and you can't spectate even if you're an enrolled player, due to TO history of theft. Attendance raised at first to then plummet this year, Legacy had less than Nebraska's War (that's now The de-facto Eternal Tournament). Being in Paris it's a huge detractor, really expensive. Advertisement could be miles better, it's always announced really late, especially prizes and who in his right mind other than a saboteur would schedule it the very weekend before the ONLY ONE Legacy GP in EU after 1y hiatus? For example none of our Italian Legacy big names even ever considered making it, most didn't even know it existed! One final funny detail, top8 was played with 90 min rounds and SUDDEN DEATH after. Don't get me wrong though in the end it was a decent event to partecipate to.
Regarding the metagame, long are gone the days when we in EU were innovating with TPS to battle 4Trinisfere MUD, now the majority are playing outdated or suboptimal stuff, close to no one is willing to change archetype. Low percentage of Shops is not due the price of the cards (no one is buying into Vintage anyway or into another archetype), but to the fact that there simply are few MUD players left, for example most of the old times players were Stacks aficionados that don't like the aggro approach. Low win % and top8 presence is explained by "the lack of a big overlap between good Shops specialists and people on up to date lists" and the good blue players know and exploit this, by respecting the MU less.
Top8 was: JAA Lopez was on Grixis Control, Zarzoso on UWR Mentorpyro, Henrik Storm on Eldrazi MUD, Cob, on a multi Combo deck, Nieto on Dredge, AR Villardell on my same deck, FRANCESCO GIANI leaguemate of mine from Italy and yours truly on @chubbyrain deck.
