Preliminary Considerations
Going into Stage3, I had 3 main considerations:
- How to beat Pit & Quoc
- How to beat Walls Spy
- How to beat Cryogen Relic brews
After Stage1 and Stage2 of the Liga, it became kind of evident that both Pit (Inside Out) and Quoc (Altar Tron) were up there for good reasons. I could somewhat count on them bringing their best again.
Next thing: After Paupergeddon Lucca, the big rising star is Walls Spy. Now, in our local Chemnitz meta for example that doesn’t stir up much, because we dont have any Spy fanatics there. But in Leipzig it was already known that several Spy pilots, and also several Wall pilots attempted the event in Stage1 and Stage2 with the old shells, they just mainly landed somewhere in the midfield. But now, all they needed to do was to switch to the walls shell - or the spy combo package respectively - and have one of the best decks of the format. Ergo Walls Spy was expected to be one of the more prevalent decks for Stage3.
Third, with the release of Edge of Eternity, a beautiful card named Cryogen Relic entered the format and it was to be expected that some people wanted to brew with that card. The price of Abjure already spiked tremendously during spoiler season, and the hype was big.
Deck Choices
Stage1 I entered with Elves, because that is one of the decks I know best and I know all the ins & outs. Seeing the results of Stage1, with some High Tide players dominating the top tables for quite a while, Tron and Inside Out being up there, a lot of Faeries and Terrors being played, I felt like Burn was drastically underplayed in Leipzig. On the one side, that was the reason why I could land a 4-1 result with Elves there. On the other side, it seemed to allow a lot of slower decks into the format. That was the main reason why I chose Synth Burn for Stage2, which worked fine. The reason why I write all of this is that I already planned to bring Ponza at Stage2. With fewer Burn in the format and more slower decks there, one could also argue the other way around and prey on the slower decks with Ponza, which itself primarely fears Burn. So for Stage2 I intensively practiced the Ponza-Burn matchup with one of my local players, shout-out to Jonas, who is a burn fanatic. We sat down and he beat my Ponza butt for a few hours straight. Out of ~10 postboard games I won a single one. This testing spooked me out of Ponza for Stage2, because I expected some more people to realize that Burn is a solid choice for Leipzig at Stage2. But now, with Walls Spy and Cryogen Relic overshadowing this, I felt like it was the right time to bring Ponza. I also knew 2 out of the 4 High Tide players wouldn’t be around, because they’re my friends and they were somewhere else.
Decklist Choices
First a shout-out to Majo, who 2nd placed the big Common Cause Event in Leipzig at May 17th: RG Ponza Common Cause List.
I personally am playing Ponza versions since 2018 when nobody even knew the deck. But during the time of Common Cause in 2025 I kind of felt like the deck was not in the perfect spot. I couldn’t pin point it, but it was missing something and I wasn’t happy with it. And that something was exactly what Majo brought to Common Cause in May: Stone Rains! I judged that event and watched the award ceremony, and my heart jumped when I saw Ponza 2nd placing! Congratulations! That was when I started to playtest Ponza again, and really get a feeling for LD spells number 9-12.
My aforementioned Burn testings gave me one important insight though: Nylea’s Disciple, Weather the Storm, Life Goes On, Feed the Clan - they’re all a trap against Burn imo. They keep us passive and that just leads to losing the game one turn later, with no chances of actually winning ourself. So I felt confident in throwing it all out: No lifegain anywhere, no WtS, no Nylea’s Disciple. It’s Ponza or bust. Either we get them to hurt with Ponza and then race, or we lose. We live and we die by the LD.
That opened up many important SB slots in my list. I ran 4x Deglamer and 3x Cast into the Fire for all the artifact based decks that run indestructible tapped lands. So I can change my LD suit and swap out 4x Thermokarst and 3x Stone Rain for them.
The Matchups
Pinger Burn (2-1)
The horror matchup. I lost the die roll and was somewhat expecting to fight my way through the loser bracket today. G1 they had a slow start without much gas, my LD throttled their pace and I somehow managed to race them and won G1 on 5 life with them having a Kessig Flamebreather in play. Incredible. G2 I mulliganed to 4 and got beaten quickly. G3 they mulliganed to 6 and kept a 1- or 2-lander. LD hit them hard and I won the match. During the match, we were discussing whether or not the LD helps here or is just bad. And after the match they told me they had Fireblast in G1 when I was on 5 and they had a Flamebreather out, but not enough lands anymore to sacc, so the LD really did have a great impact and I felt confirmed in my approach towards Burn eventhough I still needed an huge portion of luck here. We live and we die by the LD.
Grixis Affinity (2-0)
The expected Cryogen Relic brew. They’re slow, they’re clunky and they didn’t manage to assemble KCS + Toxin Analysis when they really needed to.
Altar Tron (2-0)
A gift from heaven, probably one of the most one-sided matchups in the format. They lost so many lands, I barely knew which version they are. In one game they managed to play an Altar right before they scooped, that was the only clue.
Altar Tron (2-0)
I got paired against Quoc at table1 (on camera). You can watch that game here.
Oddly enough, this was the first and last time I got nervous. I suppose that’s because something that I envisioned was happening exactly the way I envisioned it and I really, really din’t want to screw this one up. Game1 I mulliganed down to 4 and my hands were shaking harder with every mulligan, I even had slight trouble shuffling and did some breathing techniques to calm down.
Fortunately, this matchup really is as one-sided as it gets. As much as I felt the relief of it being over and me not screwing up, I felt bad for Quoc, foiling his great performances at these events.
Walls Spy (2-0)
Going into Match5, the other 4-0 decks at that point were High Tide, Synth Burn and Walls Spy. I got paired against Walls Spy which was probably the only doable matchup out of these 3. You can watch that game when the video comes out.
I still cannot tell whether this matchup is as good for us as it looked on camera, or I just got lucky. Going into this matchup, I felt like Walls Spy have chances of running away from LD, by establishing mana acceleration creatures quickly and then proceeding with their game plan even without many lands. Historcially, Elves for example is a really bad matchup for Ponza, and Quirion Ranger an archenemy of ours. But at least in these 2 games it looked like LD really got the upper hand and completely managed to cut them off of their resources.
Final Thoughts
First of all, I want to thank all the organiziers and their entire team, the judges, the awareness team, the artists and every single one who helped building this. This League is exactly what our region needed, Leipzig is perfect for this, the location is easily accessible and a great fit, and the league system is great.
Besides that, I’m super happy and relieved that a somewhat ballsy meta call turned out to work so smoothly. I was gifted with great matchups, and I still dont know how I won Game1 of the Burn matchup.