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[Schneau]

What is the theoretical maximum number of cards you can have in your hand before playing a card during your turn? You can assume any number of players up to 6 who are working together, and perfect shuffle luck. Here are some cards I can think of that you or your opponents can play to increase your handsize before you play a card:

Wharf
Caravan
Haven
Tactician (plus Laboratory and Golem to play 9 of them)
Band of Misfits
Torturer (opponent gives you Curses in hand)
Council Room
Governor
Soothsayer (may not be useful if opponents use Torturer to give you all the Curses)
Horse Traders (reaction to attack)
Masquerade (if you have no cards in your hand, after, say, reacting with all your Horse Traders, a Masq can pass you a card)

Am I missing any cards? It would be tricky to figure out the exact number you can have, since you have to work out piles emptying and what to King's Court, etc.

[Awaclus]

You can trash Cultists, Rats, an Overgrown Estate and Fortresses to put more cards in your hand.

EDIT: With Rogue, Watchtower and Ambassador, you can trash, gain and pass the same Cultist a very large number of times. Not sure if it is worth the kingdom slots, though.

EDIT 2: It is, isn't it? Watchtower can be in the Black Market deck to put in some other extra cards that you couldn't fit in the kingdom, and you get +3 cards per two actions so it's more efficient from the KC point of view than those cards that just give +1 card per action as long as you can king something to draw everything you need in between the Rogue and Ambassador buys, which should be possible.

[Marcory]

Kingdom:

KC
TR
BoM
Wharf
Golem
Tactician
Haven
Rats
Swindler
Governor

My solution:

6 player game
5 initial cards                                      +5
9 Tacticians played last turn                +45
9 KC-d Wharfs                                   +54
9 BoM-As-Caravan                               +9
9 Caravan                                          +9
9 Havens                                           +9
8 Opponent's Governor                         +8
1 Opponent TR-Governor                      +2
you played 9 HT drawn by Governor       +18
Your opponent plays 8xTR-Swindler
           -hitting 16 Rats                       +16
Your opponent plays KC-Swindler
           -hitting 3 Rats                         +3

Total                                                170
                                                       
Swindler could hit OE instead of Rats but the effect would be the same

There's not enough room in the Kingdom for Torturer/Fortress/CR/Masquerade, all of which yield a net 1 card just like Governor and so have identical effects.

[Schneau]

You can trash Cultists, Rats, an Overgrown Estate and Fortresses to put more cards in your hand.

EDIT: With Rogue, Watchtower and Ambassador, you can trash, gain and pass the same Cultist a very large number of times. Not sure if it is worth the kingdom slots, though.

EDIT 2: It is, isn't it? Watchtower can be in the Black Market deck to put in some other extra cards that you couldn't fit in the kingdom, and you get +3 cards per two actions so it's more efficient from the KC point of view than those cards that just give +1 card per action as long as you can king something to draw everything you need in between the Rogue and Ambassador buys, which should be possible.

Good call on those. I think your opponent needs Swindler to be able to trash Overgrown Estate (since it can't be passed with Ambassador), but the rest of those would work with Ambassador+Watchtower or Saboteur as well.

[2.71828.....]

My solution:

6 player game
5 initial cards                                      +5
9 Tacticians played last turn                +45
9 KC-d Wharfs                                   +54
9 BoM-As-Caravan                               +9
9 Caravan                                          +9
9 Havens                                           +9
9 Opponent's TR-Council Room              +18
9 Opponent's Soothsayer                      +9
8 Opponent's Governor                         +8
1 Opponent TR-Governor                      +2
9 Opponent's Torturer                          +9
you played 9 HT drawn by CR               +18
Your opponent plays 8xTR-Swindler
           -hitting 16 Rats                       +16
Your opponent plays KC-Swindler
           -hitting 3 Rats                         +3

Total                                                214
                                                       
Swindler could hit OE instead of Rats but the effect would be the same

This doesn't quite work.  You use the following cards: Tactician, Golem, Laboratory, KC, Wharf, BoM, Caravan, haven, Council Room, Soothsayer, Governor, Torturer, Rats, Swindler.  Which means you have a kingdom including 14 cards, which is impossible. 

So my question: Does this puzzle allow for any number of cards in the supply, or there be a restriction to 10 cards in the supply? (still being able to use Black market, but if you do you are only allowed to draw one card out of the BM deck)  I think it would be interesting to attempt to find solutions to both 10 cards in the supply, and a game with any number of cards in the supply.

[Marcory]

I edited it above down to 10--though I'm not sure if it actually works, since without Lab I'm not sure if you can actually do 9 Tacticians.

So you may need to take out another card that gives +1 card (like Haven) to get it down to 10 in the Kingdom.

[navical]

How are you playing more than one Tactician in a turn?

[silverspawn]

How are you playing more than one Tactician in a turn?

I know of two ways, there might be more. One is with Golem; Reveal Tactician and some kind of +draw, draw another Tactician, Play the other tactician. The other one is with herald; throne herald, reveal tactician, play herald again, reveal another tactician (you drew a card first, so both activate).

Theoretically, you should be able to play 10 in one turn.

[Awaclus]

My first attempt:

Kingdom: Black Market, King's Court, Throne Room, Ambassador, Cultist, Rogue, Governor, Tactician, Golem, Doctor

Black Market deck contains: Watchtower, Hermit, Caravan, Rats, Fortress, Haven, Candlestick Maker, Wharf, Torturer, Council Room, Soothsayer, Horse Traders, Masquerade, Lighthouse, 10 Lab variants (being able to draw a Golem and whichever other card is good enough)

Use Shelters, no Colonies.

6 players. (EDIT: Doesn't actually need 6 players, 3 should be enough)

Player 1 buys a Black Market and gains the Hermit. Later, he also buys 9 Rogue and uses those to gain all the Madmen (just because I'm too lazy to make sure that he actually has enough +cards and +actions to pull everything off without them). He also buys 9 King's Courts, 8 Throne Rooms, 3 Cultists, 10 Ambassadors and 9 Governors.

Player 2 buys a Black Market and gains the Lighthouse, the Masquerade, the Torturer, the Council Room and the Soothsayer. He also buys 1 Throne Room and 1 King's Court.

Meanwhile, Player 3 buys a Black Market and gains the Watchtower, the Candlestick Maker, the 10 Lab variants, the Wharf, the Caravan, the Horse Traders, the Fortress and the Rats. He also buys a Potion and buys all of the Tacticians and 9 Golems and 6 Cultists. He also plays the CSM over and over, gaining 5478547694869 coin tokens, and buying as many basic cards as is needed without ending the game.

Then, the following turns happen:

Player 3:
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which draws a Golem and a random card.
Play Golem, finding Tac and a Lab variant, play Tac first, then the Lab variant, which happens to be Scrying Pool that draws a Tac, a Necropolis, a Wharf, a Caravan and a Haven,
Play Caravan, Haven, Necropolis, Wharf and Tac.

Player 1:
Play 10 Hermits.
Throne -> KC -> KC -> Ambassador (reveal and return 1 Cultist every time, Player 2 is protected by the Lighthouse, Player 3 reveals Watchtower to draw +9 cards) -> Rogue (gain the three Cultists) -> KC -> Governor (draw the Cultists, P3 draws +3 cards) -> Ambassador -> KC -> Rogue -> Governor -> KC -> Ambassador -> Rogue -> KC -> Governor -> Ambassador -> KC -> Rogue -> Governor -> KC -> Ambassador -> Rogue -> KC -> Governor -> Ambassador -> Rogue -> Governor -> Ambassador

Throne -> Throne -> Rogue -> Throne -> Governor -> Throne -> Ambassador (return 1 Cultist every time) -> Throne -> Rogue -> Throne -> Governor -> Ambassador

Rogue
Governor
Throne -> Ambassador (Player 3 reveals Horse Traders now)

Discard everything, shuffle, draw at least 3 KC and something else

Player 2:
Necropolis

KC -> Masquerade, pass whatever cards, receive 1 KC and 2 Governor from player 1

Throne -> KC -> Council Room -> Soothsayer -> Governor -> Governor -> Torturer

Player 3:
Don't play a card, just spend your tokens and overpay for a Doctor, trashing 6 Cultists, 1 Rats, 1 Fortress and 1 Overgrown Estate.

If I'm correct, now Player 3 should have

5 (original hand) + 5*10 (Tacticians) + 7*3*3 (KC'd Ambassadors) + 3*2*3 (Throne'd Ambassadors) + 8*3 (KC'd Governors) + 2*2 (Throne'd Governors) + 1 (regular Governor) + 3 (KC'd CR) + 3 (KC'd Soothsayer) + 3 (KC'd Torturer) + 1 (HT) + 6*3 (trashed Cultists) + 1 (trashed Rats) + 1 (trashed Fortress) + 1 (trashed OGE) = 196


I'm not sure if you can draw more cards if you just give P2's Throne and KC to P1, and there might be other room for improvement too.

EDIT: Removed the thing with Swindler since it literally just made things more confusing.

[soulnet]

Swindler can make you gain Cultist/Rats/Fortress so you can double the draw from swindling. Also, Procession/Highway tricks to reuse KCs for all players may be used. However, there have to be enough cards in the deck to actually draw them despite all the shenanigans. They could be given with Ambassador and drawn with the Durations, but it has to be done and that puts a upper limit and one more thing to consider besides just drawing the cards.

[jomini]

I think Possession will let us safely clear 3000.

P1 has previously gained 10 Madmen off one Hermit from the Bm deck. He uses half of them to draw his deck. He plays Tr -> Kc x10 -> Possession x10 (20 Possession plays of P2 on tap) -> Outpost (from Bm deck)

P1 outpost turn: Same as above, if needed he can use some Smithy-like cards with 5 hermits to draw deck. Again he plays Tr -> Kc x10 -> Possession x 10, this time he follows it with Lighthouse (another 20 Possession turns on tap).


P2's deck is nothing but actions in deck with a Scrying pool and Scheme (both from Black Market).

P2's deck begins by drawing everything with the pool.

P2 then plays all whole bunch of villages from the Bm deck.

P2's (first turn only) plays Tr x8 -> Gov x6 (P1 & P3 + 10 cards) -> Masq x9 (pass junk, gain 10 Kc, 1 Tr).

Tr -> Kc x10 - 20 triple plays used as follows:  Amb x3 (reveal & send 9 Cultists to P3 who trashes them with Wt from Bm) -> Graverobber x3(gain 9 Cultists) -> Gov (draw 9 Cultists) -> Amb x3 -> Grvr x3 -> Gov -> Amb x3 -> Grvr x3 [27 Cultists are passed, trashed, and regenerated for +81 cards, 6 cards are drawn with Gov by P3 for a net so far of +96 cards]

Gov -> Cr x9 [+106 cards]

The next 40 turns (including P2's own turn):
Tr -> Kc x10 -> Amb x3 -> Grvr x3 -> Gov -> Amb x3 -> Grvr x3 -> Gov -> Amb x3 -> Grvr x3 [+86 cards]
Tr x8 -> Cr x9 -> Gov x7 [+24 cards]

This then gives us 40 * 110 + 106 as a safe lower bound.



This kingdom then consists of:
1. Kc
2. Tr
3. Amb (bane)
4. Bm (contains Young Witch)
5. Graverobber
6.
7. Masq
8. Cultist
9. Cr
10.
11. Possession

4511 is surely a lower bound as we can through in a bunch of one-offs out of the Bm deck (I believe there are +13 possible from the OP's list not being used here). It is late, and I'm sure somewhere in here is a suboptimization and likely some errors. The big takeaway is that Possession is idiotically good with a reliable regenerating deck. Masq is needed to both get 20 Possession turns and for each of those Possession turns to generate mass cards. You can easily get that up to 4541 by giving out 30 curses with Soothesayer/Torturer from the Bm deck (hence why P1 plays Lighthouse). You can likely go higher still by using Rogue/Procession in slots 6 & 10 to play more Gov/Cr. Alternatively, you maybe could use a mix of Rogue/Graverobber/Ambassador/Jester/Masq (with Vault from Bm so your opponent can discard a Masqed Cultist) to regenerate Cultists for P3 to trash. Of course there also the +13 or so one-offs from the BM deck that are trivial for P3 to play like Tac, Wharf, Haven, etc.

So I'm to tired to optimize further, but I think 4554 is a nice palindrome and my bid at the moment.

Edit: light bulb moment just as I posted. Up the player count, set up a chain whereby each player as we move left is possessed idiotic numbers of times and uses a few of those to steal all the good cards (Kc, Gov, Cr, Possession, Tr, Pool, etc.) from the guy before/pass them on to the guy to the left. Off the cuff, but with six players we might be able to break 24,000,000 cards (P1 get 40 Possession turns of P2. While playing P2, he uses say 5 of those to steal all the good cards from his own deck, then he uses the next 30 to generate 20 Possessions per turn and then uses 5 to pass cards on to P3. P2 takes over and uses 5 turns to move good cards into P3's deck. Then he uses 690 turns to generate 20 possessions each for P3 of P4. P3 and P4 then do likewise and P5 plays A LOT of turns of Pool -> Scheme -> Tr - KC x10 -> Gov -> Cr.

So my conservative bid is around 20 million cards if I'm able to do Possession edge cases up correctly in my head at this hour.

[soulnet]

So my conservative bid is around 20 million cards if I'm able to do Possession edge cases up correctly in my head at this hour.

You are using almost every kingdom card for the other players, so the deck of the last player can at most contain the treasures, Curses, Ruins and VP cards (possibly including Potion). That is not so many. Next step is try to give him/her the already used KCs, Govs, Cultists', etc, to draw later.

[florrat]

Too bad that a deck can consist of at most 650 cards, because there cannot be more cards in a single game (with 4 players, it's somewhat more with 5 or 6 players).

[Davio]

Didn't read anything, but did we account for Swindled Cultists?

Those give +3 cards each time an opponent Swindles one.
OE and Rats give you as much as Governor & CR do.

[Awaclus]

Didn't read anything, but did we account for Swindled Cultists?

No, but we did account for Ambassadored Cultists that are then trashed with Watchtower, gained with Rogue and Ambassadored again.

[jomini]

You are using almost every kingdom card for the other players, so the deck of the last player can at most contain the treasures, Curses, Ruins and VP cards (possibly including Potion). That is not so many. Next step is try to give him/her the already used KCs, Govs, Cultists', etc, to draw later.

I thought the money supply was arbitrarily large (but finite).


You can actually have P6 draw everything but a Masq, a Gov, and 1 each from every pile. 

Remember we have an exponentially increasing number of turns for the 4 and 6 player version. P1 can triple play 10 Possession twice (outpost). That gives us 61 plays of P2's deck. At most, three turns will be needed to Masq over everything. On the 61st turn for P2's deck, P2 will not play Possession Kc'ed, but instead will pass over 1 Masq, 1 Kc and 19 other useful cards. All other 57 turns are used to mass possess P3 - 57 x 30 = 1710 turns on P3's deck. Again P3's deck can Masq over all the cards in under three turns (Tr -> Kc -> Masq -> Kc -> Masq will move 27 cards between decks and only the first three cards even need be in deck to start). Again just one turn is needed to setup P4 to Masq in the good cards. This leaves 1707 turns to do nothing but play possession. So we have 68,276 turns on P4's deck. Again just 4 are needed for overhead. That let's us play P5's deck 2,048,280 times.


You can do a lot with 2 million turns.

To start with P5 can easily play a few thousand Masqs so everyone has exactly the cards you want them to have (you made them draw everything already). P6, let's say has all the coppers. 

P5 plays Militia.  P5 plays Cutpurse x3. P6 discards all their coppers - leaving them with no hand. Now P5 plays Masq. P6 passes nothing, and P1-4 each pass something with P5 deciding what to give P6. Net result P6 +1 card, P1 to P4 -1 card. Now P5 plays Gov x3 -> Militia -> Cutpurse x3. This leaves us again with P6 having nothing in hand so we can iterate. Tunnel can be a problem, but you can just use Pillage (later recovered with Graverobber) to discard it. So after a thousand turns we can reach the point where only P5 and P6 have cards.

And we can keep going. With perfect shuffle luck we can periodically have P6 draw his entire deck and then discard it. So what are the minimum cards needed to do the iteration? 1. Militia. 2. Cutpurse 3. Masq. 4. Gov. That's it. With perfect shuffle luck we can just toss hands till we reshuffle (though Chancellor makes it a lot faster). Figure 9 minimum per card to hand it over and a safe upper bound being 200. So let's say you have 1000 cards all told to make the transfer. Well, that is only 200,000 turns, less than a tenth of what P5 has to work with. So we finally get down to these 4 cards. 

P6 has an empty hand. P5 plays Masq and passes Militia. P5 plays Gov. P6 draws Secret Chamber. P5 plays Cutpurse; P6 revels Secret Chamber, buries the Militia and and the Secret Chamber after drawing copper. P5 plays Cutpurse twice. P5 plays Masq (passing Cutpurse, receiving nothing). It is only another thousand turns to play Gov enough times to have P6 draw his entire discard (that is, everything in the game barring 1 Masq, 1 Gov, and 1 from each pile in the supply).

Now assuming that each card play takes around second for the players to execute and with say an average of 5 cards to play per hand. This would only take around 57 days of non-stop playing to execute =)

[soulnet]

KC -> Torturer seems an easier way to ensure P6 has an empty hand. Otherwise you need to ensure he has 3 Coppers to begin with. Also, you probably want Rats in the kingdom and Hermit, Urchin, Tournament, some Looter and some Spoils giving card in the BM, to have more cards around. It seems like P6 can start with all cards in the game but a few regardless of the exact kingdom (you only really need KC/Torturer/Masq/Possession?)

[jomini]

KC -> Torturer seems an easier way to ensure P6 has an empty hand. Otherwise you need to ensure he has 3 Coppers to begin with. Also, you probably want Rats in the kingdom and Hermit, Urchin, Tournament, some Looter and some Spoils giving card in the BM, to have more cards around. It seems like P6 can start with all cards in the game but a few regardless of the exact kingdom (you only really need KC/Torturer/Masq/Possession?)

Kc-> Torturer  works, but then you need to keep either Possession or Kc non-empty to avoid game end as P1-P4 need to take curses until they run out to avoid discarding. This should be doable, as I think you can still play 30 Possession per hand and still Masq over all the cards with only 9 Kc's in the mix.

Torturer need not be in supply. Playing Militia -> Vault -> Torturer let's you get a discard to 0 cards in hand for P6 while leaving P1-P4 with 3 cards (once the curses are gone).

Your efficiency will take a big dip if you move Tr, Cr, and Gov out of the kingdom. With Cr/Gov out of the kingdom, when you want to Masq over cards you can get 11 the first time and only 6 thereafter. Given that we want to transfer a lot of cards (9 Kc, 10 Possession, Gov, Cr, 9 Masq, Scheme, Pool) that means each player will burn at least one additional turn and maybe two on overhead. Likewise, without Tr you face more of tension to setup the next guy's deck against mass playing possession. Even if we are just 2 turns slower at setting up the transfer, that means we lose at least a half-million turns. Now I tried to be very, very conservative with my initial estimates, but you would need a fairly optimized transfer setup to get enough turns to do all the end magic of sending the entire deck to P6.


With that being said, then the max is likely something a Kingdom of:
1. Kc
2. Masq (bane)
3. Possession
4. Rats
5. Bm (contains Looters, Hermit, Tournament, Young Witch, etc.)
6 - 11. Green cards (12 per pile instead of 10).

[soulnet]

Kc-> Torturer  works, but then you need to keep either Possession or Kc non-empty to avoid game end as P1-P4 need to take curses until they run out to avoid discarding. This should be doable, as I think you can still play 30 Possession per hand and still Masq over all the cards with only 9 Kc's in the mix.

Why would they need not to discard? I was thinking that they should all discard everything. Moreover, maybe it is easier to have the current player just hold all the cards not in the supply and with enough turns he can play more Possessions than what were played before, gain some cards, and pass all the cards to his upcoming neighbor with Masq. This is repeated until all but one card per pile are in the communal deck. I would start by Ambassadoring all cards out of decks and stealing Ambassadors with Masq to unify in a single deck without trashing anything (to avoid the need to gain from the trash), then start building towards multiplying Possessions. With perfect shuffle luck, a single Scrying Pool, Village and Chancellor (to take those pesky Treasures, Curses and Green cards out of the draw pile at the end of the turn and start fresh next turn) are enough to start with all your Actions in hand every turn.

With all empty decks, you need just to alternate Masq and Torturer plays (not KCed) to give the entire deck to the player to your right. Play SP, draw all actions, play three villages that draw, play Masq, give away a drawn non-Masq non-Torturer non-Possession, play torturer (everyone discards), play KC-Possession. Next turn, do the same without playing mask and buy/gain something (possibly through drawing with Lab variants lots of Treasure including a Potion and playing the BM or Tournament). Those two turns give away a single card and multiplies the number of turns the next player plays by 3/2. Then you need some turns to pass the actual valuable cards (KC/Possession/Torturer/Masq/SP/villages). You can use Amb to return them and have two copies of each, but only one copy is better to be able to have all kingdom piles be Rats, BM or Green. It seems plenty doable, but I am lazy to work out details beyond this point.

So, my bet on the answer is that a player may start his/her turn by drawing every card in the game except one per pile + 2 empty piles, including a maximum possible number of cards in the game and a full Black Market.

[jomini]

Your solution is inferior. When you play Masq, you cannot pass the Masq itself. Thus at the end of every player's set of turns they will still hold a Masq in hand. The only way to get this Masq out of their hands without giving them a replacement card is to Torturer them, trash the Masq (say via a Knight) and then to Steal the Masq from the trash. The problem with this is that these are Possession turns.

Say you have P1 doing what you propose. On the last turn before we start playing P2, he Masqs his last card (barring Masq). He ends that turn, draws his Masq. P2 plays Torturer (P1 discards Masq). P2 plays Dame Josephine (Masq is trashed). P2 plays Rogue, the Masq is gained ... by P1. Possession turns play hell with card gaining. If you have everyone else with empty decks, then only way to pass cards is with Masq -> Torturer (so they don't pass them onward) -> Cr/Gov (to actually give them hands). The problem with that is without big numbers of cards, it is very hard to not have dross kicking around.

A far simpler setup is to just have one player by the Nv from the Bm deck. Use alternating empty Masqs (he has no cards in hand/deck) and Nv plays (maybe with discard/top decking) to empty every other players decks. Then he can place everything in the game (minus stuff to end game) on the mat and pull off when has 10 million turns or so, pass them to the next guy (via Masq/Torturer), and then after he passes the Torturer, play Gov until the player draws everything.

With limited money piles (say the normal Goko setup), that means our limiting factor is the number cards used setting up the game. Obviously we will have 11 kingdom piles, one of which is Bm, another is Rats. We want as many green piles as possible (more cards in 3er and up). Masq also has to be a kingdom card. Amb can't move cards that aren't in the kingdom. With only one Masq, you cannot pass the deck to another player. Now comes the fun question - what else needs to be a Kingdom card to get the exponential increase in turns?

Well without any other kingdom cards you can get 7 turns for the next guy with Nv -> Kc -> Possession -> Outpost -> Nv -> Kc -> Outpost. So P1 plays that. P2 has mass villages (13), Masq x10, Torturer, Cr, Gov, Tr, and Pool. All players but P1 have masses of useless actions (everything in the Bm deck not otherwise used, all but one Ruins, all Madmen, all prizes, all mercenaries, all but one Nobles, Islands, Black markets, and Great Halls).

#1: Pool -> Villages -> Tr -> Gov -> Cr -> Masq x10 (send actions off, gain all 7 cards from P1's deck) -> Kc -> Possession
#2: Pool -> Villages -> Tr -> Kc -> Possession -> Gov -> Cr -> Masq x 5 (send Torturer, Masq x4)
#3: Pool -> Villages (9)  -> Tr -> Kc -> Gov ->  Cr-> Possession -> Masq x4 (send Masq x2 , village x2)
#4: Pool -> Village  (5) -> Tr -> Kc -> Gov ->  Cr -> Possession -> Masq x4 (send villages x4)
#5: Pool -> Village -> Tr -> Kc -> Gov -> Cr -> Possession -> Masq x4 (villages x4)
#6: Pool -> Village -> Tr -> Kc -> Possession -> Gov -> Cr -> Masq x2 (Masq)
#7: Pool -> Village -> Kc -> Masq (Gov, Cr, Masq) -> Possession

This leaves us then with P2 holding Village/Kc/Masq/Possession/Pool. P3 can acquire those in one turn. There are 13 additional turns he can take. He can pass all his cards on in six turns (like P2 did). This leaves him with 7 turns to play Possession 3 times. If we go around the circle a few times, we can up the turn count to something insanely high. Then we finally have enough turns, P1 can play the Nv, and draw everything out of the Nv mat. He then plays Militia -> Vault -> Torturer so P2 has no cards and everyone else has one. P1 then Masqs a card to P2. He plays Kc -> Gov -> Militia -> Vault -> Torturer so again P3-P6 have 1 card each and P2 has none.

Eventually he can pass everything put one Masq and one Gov.

This means that we have 9 Kingdom slots for Rats + Green. Everything else to make the potential deck size larger is in (Hermit, Looters, Spoils, etc.) is in the Bm deck. This allows one player to have all cards in the game save two in his hand before his turn starts, I do not see a way to move down from two and there is no way to avoid Masq being a Kingdom card.

[soulnet]

I did not get why you cant do it with just one Masq. Is it because you cannot pass the Masq itself? It seems to me that stealing the single Masq can be done via Rogue because it is not in the Possessed player's deck, so it gets trashed as normal.

Since you can simply have more and more turns, you can use a single Masq several times in different turns (alternating Torturer). And you do not need Militia and Vault for the same reason, just use Torturer to discard everything (I am trying to simplify, of course any discard works).

[jomini]

Let's say P1 plays Masq. It stays in his deck. P2 needs the Masq. He plays Torturer -> Knight -> Rogue. Where does the Masq go? Back into P1's deck.

The player to your left takes an extra turn after this one, in which you can see all cards he can and make all decisions for him. Any cards he would gain on that turn, you gain instead

So when P1 plays Possession, he will in turn Possess P2's deck. When the Rogue tries to gain the Masq it doesn't end up in P2's deck - it goes to the controller's deck - that is P1. It is only the last turn in sequence that (e.g. the seventh of seven) where Rogue gains to P2's deck.

On the last turn you can play Masq thrice (you could do it 5 times, but then you have to move the 3 support cards and Masq on the last turn leaving no room for others). So what do you need to move with Masq? Sab/Knight/Swindler and Rogue/Graverobber ... oh yeah and Possession/Tr (otherwise you don't get exponential growth in turn count). To beat my count (with Masq in the Kingdom, 6er setup), you have to have nothing but Rats and Green in the kingdom. So that means you have 4 cards you need to move now, but you can only pass three. And you can only pass three for one player, the next player has to make do with two (you could do 4 with Procession, but that traps Masq and the only two trash divers in one deck). No liftoff to exponential growth.


What about Amb? Only works on cards in the kingdom. Again I'm already at a solution that has just Bm and one other 10 card kingdom pile. There just aren't enough cards that move things between decks to get by with only cards from the Bm deck.


Your best bet is to take forever setting this up socking away all the non-useful cards on one player's Nv mat (P1). Then P1 kicks it off by Possessing P2 six times (if I understand the Possession/Outpost "errata" correctly only P1 can get an extra turn this way). P2 steals Possession (playing it with some village help) and passing something (e.g. a village) onto P3. P2 then gets Kc and plays Kc -> Possession. This process can repeat itself for P3. He can play village -> Masq (passing a village) -> Possession (just gained): village -> Masq (passing a village) -> Kc (just gained) -> Possession.

Thus every turn but the first gives threefold growth: 7 -> 20 -> 59 -> 176, etc.; roughly 6*3^n. You can keep going until the number of turns in a row is high enough. Then, when somebody has 10 million or whatever turns on P1's deck, P1 uses Nv to bring everything back into hand. He then, slowly, moves all the cards to P2's deck (Masq when P2 has no hand, done by Miltia -> Vault -> Torturer followed by Gov -> Cr -> Vault -> Torturer). He uses Scheme/Chancellor/Pool and the mother of all draw luck to keep hitting the cards he needs turn after turn. Eventually, virtually all the cards are in P2's discard. Then P1 can alternate Masq -> Torturer and send over everything but Masq, Torturer, and Gov. Lastly he sends over Torturer and then plays Gov for cards a thousand times or so.

This is as good as it gets. Masq is in the kingdom. Bm is a freebie kingdom card. Every other Kingdom slot is Rats or Green. You can't move Masq between 6 players (for maximum curses in the Kingdom) with just Bm cards. Using anything else in the Kingdom decreases the card count.

[soulnet]

I see the Masq problem now, thanks. So basically you draw everything that can be in a deck without finishing the game except from a single Masq and the Governor or CR?

[jomini]

Six player game end state:
P1's hand: Gov/Masq
P2's hand: Everything else in the game that won't end the game.
P3-P6's hand: nothing

Nobody has draw decks or discards.

Also, because we are playing 6er, Greens in the kingdom mean those are 12 cards piles. As such, we have 11 kingdom piles:
1. Masq
2. Bm (contains everything like Looters, Young Witch, Hermit, etc. to maximize piles "in play")
3. Rats
4 - 11. Green (e.g. Nobles, Island, Great Hall, Tunnel, Silk Road, Duke, Fairgrounds, Gardens)

This is a colony setup. Shelters or estates are equivalent. As near as I can tell this is the maximum number of cards possibly in play unless we allow arbitrarily large piles of treasure. P2 draws everything possible, except 2 cards.

[sudgy]

To try to get an actual number:

11 * 12 Victory cards = 132
Rats = 19
Black Market = 9
Masquerade = 9
Copper = 59
Silver = 39
Gold = 29
Platinum = 11
Spoils = 15
Madmen = 10
Mercenary = 10
Ruins = 49
Potions = 15
3 * 6 Shelters = 18
Curses = 49
Black Market Cards = 205 - 11 in kingdom = 194
Prizes = 5

Add two for two piles that can be gone, but subtract two for P1's Gov/Masq

132 + 19 + 9 + 9 + 59 + 39 + 29 + 11 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 49 + 15 + 18 + 49 + 194 + 5 = 672