third at a small local power tournament with venguer

ok, I placed third. but only twelve people showed up. I lost two matches all day, one to landstill when i didn't name disk on meddling mage, dumbass, and another when I forgot to flip a dreadnaught in response to mindslaver. I'm an idiot. unfortuantely those were in the 3-0 bracket and the semifinals against mud.

here's what I played

combo
4x Illusionary mask
4x Phyrexian dreadnought
4x Volrath's Shapeshifter

utility
2x Meddling mage
1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
1x Giggapede
1x Phage the untouchable

answers
4x force of will
2x swords to plowshares
1x tradewind rider

draw/search
4x survival of the fittest
4x brainstorm
1x ancestral recall
1x time walk
1x enlightened tutor

mana creatures
4x birds of paradise
2x wall of roots

mana
1x mox pearl
1x mox emerald
1x mox sapphire
1x black lotus
1x windswept heath
4x wooded foothills
2x forest
4x tropical island
4x savannah

sideboard
1x bottle gnomes
1x maze of ith
1x chill
1x balance
2x propaganda
2x Naturalize
2x stifle
2x sacred ground
3x xantid swarm

This deck ran very smoothly for me, the only real problems I had were the play errors I mentioned before.

round 1 random kid, wierd affinity
game one
he played some typical type two affinity things asside from cloudposts which I'm not sure if that plays. unfortunately for him they came into play tapped and i went comboish on him and discarded phage on turn 3 for the win.

game 2
he hard cast eater of days on turn three and I looked at the 3 dreadnoughts, mask, and time walk in my hand and giggled in delight. by the second of my three turns in a row he was facing 2 attacking dreadnoughts and was forced to block with the eater. a third dreadnought joined the party but it was alread over.

Round two. another random kid play MBC
game one
I get survival early, he hits me with hand destruction but i have squee and fetch a shapeshifter. he scoops when he casts Hymn to taurach against my two card hand which contained Phage.

Game two
I play the control for a while playing meddling mage on phryexian negator, which he didn't have, then I go for the masks and the dreadnoughts and turn fat men sidways.

round three, Justin Suicide Black w/ chalices
Justin's a good guy, and a friend. we've faced off a few times in local tournaments with nothing on the line recently. since long died I've been basically playing a new deck every time I show up. mostly some locks, but some TnT too. our matches generally are pretty good, hard fought, lots of fun. this week he didn't quite have it but I expect to see him in the later rounds in the future.

game one.
I don't really remember much about this game. I comboed him out by giving a shapeshifter flying with survival and tradewind rider. when I fetched phage he scooped.

game two.
this game looked interesting at the begining. he went first and dropped lotus petal, strip mine, null rod. then he didn't hit land before I dropped a shapeshifter and a tradewinder rider. which caused him to scoop. strip mine is a good card, just not when it's your only land and is about to get bounced.

round 4. bob, Landstill
Bob and I are both into the top four. i went to get food between rounds two and three and ate between rounds three and four, assuming I'd ID in when bob mentions he want's to go to subway, bob and I usually play in a late bracket and ID, but today he want's to play so we shuffle and go for it.

game one.
He's playing landstill, the game is boreing, I lose, all my land gets destroyed, all my birds die horrible deaths. not that much to it.

game two.
a lot like game one except containing play errors on my part. I play two meddling mages and name standstill both times instead of Disk, I never get a chance as two disks clear the board and allow him to kill me.

Semifinals, Jim, wMUD
Jim usually plays trix, I actually built my sideboard assuming jim would play trix and bob would play GAT so the maze of ith and the bottle gnomes should have been ground seals, oops. my bad.

game one.
I get a mask early and drop a dreadnought after forcing a smokestack. then jim mindslavers and I forget to flip the dreadaught. it gets pinged by a triskelion, the dreadnought in my hand gets hard cast, costing me my board, then jim plays platinum angel. I'm able to get another dreadnought and put him at negative life but I never draw the swords and die shortly there after.

game two.
Jim goes turn one mox, welder, workshop, trinisphere. that's a kidk in the nuts. I never come back and he wins going away.

Consolation, Jeff, R/G/w beats
Jeff and I are both kinda bummed about loosing our semifinal rounds. Jeff played landstill though so I have some simpathy for him. is there anything more boring?

game one
I win the die roll, and play first, land, mox, timewalk, land, mask, birds face down. I never see a dreadnought or a tutor and jim kills me as I draw 8 mana sources.

game two.

I play first and have phage and a shapeshifter. I combo jeff out early.

game three.

this game was actually fairly long as jeff got a swords on a stick early and I didn't side in my naturalizes to deal with it. it rapidly becomes a great game and people gather around to watch. I balance away his 2 or 3 creatures and a birds early discarding my whole hand except for a fetch land. we both go into topdeck mode. unfortunately for jeff i get survival and gigapede. then I top deck squee. we spend a long time waiting for me to draw mana, then I play the gigpede while jeff draws only land and some birds. jeff makes a mistake by playing and activating tormond's crypt while squee is in my hand. it sucks for him, but it was late, and we've all done it. he finally gets a rancor, but it's too late. he's eventually attempts to shock a shapeshifter and is then forced to swords it when it becomes a dreadnought, giving me 12 life. the rancored birds kill the gigapede but it comes back from the dead to make the kill. a great aggro on hybrid matchup, and one of the better games I've played recently.

Props
terry, for running a power tourny with only 12 guys
people who played, for showing up
the deli/pub across the street, great burgers
bob and jim, for splitting the finals and selling the ancestral back so we can play for it again next month

slops
me, for forgetting to post the tourny on TMD, sorry guys, my bad.

I think that's it, all in all an ok day. I wasn't too happy with my build going in, even up to the night before I was considering going all out combo and playing draw7.dec instead but I actually really enjoyed the total hybrid of venguer masque. the aggro-combo-control feel was kinda wierd at first but once I got used to it it was a lot of fun and ran really smoothly.