Played this game yesterday. Kingdom:
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/e/ed/Butcher.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Butcher) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/c/c2/Junk_Dealer.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Junk Dealer) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/a/af/Merchant_Guild.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Merchant Guild) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/4/47/Minion.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Minion) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/e/ea/Farmland.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Farmland)
(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/1/11/Loan.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Loan) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/8/88/Steward.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Steward) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/4/4d/Bureaucrat.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Bureaucrat) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/5/50/Death_Cart.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Death Cart) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/4/42/Pirate_Ship.jpg) (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Pirate Ship)
Loan, Steward, Bureaucrat, Death Cart, Pirate Ship, Butcher, Junk Dealer, Merchant Guild, Minion, Farmland
http://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20151104/log.0.1446681362855.txt
I open silver/steward and then hit 2C3E on turn 3. Turn 4 I have SCCCC. I'm reasonably sure that buying a gold here is bad, and that I should have bought a Junk Dealer.
Turns 5&7, I again decline to buy Junk Dealer, and instead buy Minion. It occurs to me now that if my plan was to buy a ton of Minions, I should have bought one on turn 4 as well. Anyway, I'm reasonably sure on turn 8 I throw the game for sure: With 6 coins and an estate, I buy a Farmland to ditch my estate, but I have to gain a 4: which I don't want. I choose Death Cart, and proceed to lose the game pretty handily.
So my question here is which mistake cost my chances of winning this game more: the turn 4 Gold, or the turn 8 nonsense given the turn 4 mistake?
Also, my opponent here is apparently a stronger player than the average opponent in MF random match, lol.