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[Geronimoo]

In a 2-player game Geronimoo has built a very strong deck and is now able to buy a Province every turn (100% certain he'll get 4 Provinces in a row, although it's very likely he'll get more consecutive Province buys). However, Geronimoo decides to improve his deck a little more before buying his first Province, but misclicks and buys the wrong card. This completely destroys his chance of buying a Province next turn despite perfect play and perfect shuffle luck.

At the time he buys the fatal card, his discard is empty. The fatal buy doesn't empty a third pile and isn't a Colony. Geronimoo's opponent is only buying Silvers, Golds and Provinces and there are still 8 Provinces left in the supply and plenty Golds and Silvers.

What was that fatal buy? And what was Geronimoo's strategy?

There are probably several solutions to this puzzle, but mine is actually likely to happen in a real game and doesn't involve Mint

[DJ]

First thing that came to mind is that he accidentally bought a Mint and trashed his best/all money

Not sure what his strategy was though...

[Personman]

Given your last note, I believe the one you have in mind must be Mint instead of Mine. The reason this destroys your chances, and the reason that your chances were 100% for the next three turns, is because your deck consisted of only 3 Gold. Though why you would want to buy a Mine in that situation is beyond me, so there must be something a bit more complex going on..

[Geronimoo]

Little mistake: Geronimoo will be able to buy 4 Provinces in a row without perfect shuffle.

[def]

At first, i thought about buying a nine times embargoed card, but with perfect shuffle luck, he would still be able to buy a province. Mint is excluded, so he can't alter his next hand directly. But what if his opponent can now?
Maybe he bought a masquerade. His opponent has, a smugglers, a watchtower, a goons and three king's courts (6 cards, so maybe a caravan was played last turn), and let's say just copper and estates on his draw pile so his opponent couldn't have done anything to stop him otherwise.
By buying the masquerade, his opponent can play KC KC KC smugglers (gaining one masquerade, revealing the watchtower to put it on top of the deck) watchtower (drawing the masquerade), and then the famous goons masquerade pin kicks in. Or, I don't know what kind of deck he has, take out goons and just pass him three estates that have been drawn, so only two cards of his initial hand remain.

Edit: Screw that, see the following post. Sorry for totally ignoring this condition.

[Geronimoo]

@def: Geronimoo's opponent only has Golds, Silvers, Estates and Coppers in his deck...

[Anon79]

Okay, this is probably far from realistic, but:
After a reshuffle one draws a hand of 4 Mining Villages and 1 Embargo; playing and trashing the 4 Mining Villages, drawing 1 Embargo each time. One then plays all 5 Embargos, embargoing the curses (say), and accidentally bought a Contraband. In the clean-up phase, no cards are in hand or in the play area, and the Contraband goes to the discard pile.
What's left in the draw deck? One Estate and 8 Ventures.
On the next hand, one has no chance of getting to $8 without activating the Contraband; opponent will now name Province. On future turns, if one picks up the Contraband in hand, one may still purchase Provinces since the Ventures will now not locate the Contraband.
Okay, I did say it was unrealistic.

[DG]

It's probably possible to have a deck of 6 different action cards that are certain to draw the deck, plus a horn of plenty, plus a mint. Each turn you could mint a new horn of plenty and then use one to gain a province. If you at any stage you lose all the horns by gaining victory cards then the deck fails. It's interesting but not a solution since Geronimo specified he was buying the provinces and not gaining them.

[ycz6]

Anon: I think that works. It's a cleverer version of something I was considering; my strategy failed to buy the Contraband while ensuring that Geronimoo wouldn't draw it in hand on his next turn. I'm not sure it actually satisfies the conditions of the puzzle, though; the first post implies that Geronimoo's deck is able to buy a Province with 100% certainty next turn regardless of the shuffle as long as he does nothing, whereas your solution requires that his deck be in a particular order on his next turn. It also requires the additional assumption that his opponent names Province, which isn't a stated part of the problem.

This puzzle is hard...

[guided]

At the beginning of the turn your entire deck was Salvager/Province. You accidentally bought... anything other than a Province!


(Yes, this is a joke, even though it's technically an answer to the puzzle )

[ycz6]

How does that stop you from buying a Province next turn?

 

[rod-]

How does that stop you from buying a Province next turn?

 

Unless "Anything that's not a province" is a peddler, your deck now contains salvager and a card that costs less than 8.

[Geronimoo]

At the beginning of the turn your entire deck was Salvager/Province. You accidentally bought... anything other than a Province!


(Yes, this is a joke, even though it's technically an answer to the puzzle )

Good find! But not a very realistic game state

[nemryn]

I'm not sure it actually satisfies the conditions of the puzzle, though; the first post implies that Geronimoo's deck is able to buy a Province with 100% certainty next turn regardless of the shuffle as long as he does nothing, whereas your solution requires that his deck be in a particular order on his next turn. It also requires the additional assumption that his opponent names Province, which isn't a stated part of the problem.

I think it could still work if Geronimoo only has five Ventures, and buys a Contraband instead of a Gold.

[Personman]

Well, I almost have one. It's a bit tortured and abuses an oversight in the rules, and isn't actually guaranteed more than 2 provinces, but:

Your deck was 1x Golem, 2x Pirate Ship (3 tokens), Estate, Festival. The turn after the fatal buy, you drew those 5 cards, but now the Festival and the Estate are in your discard because of the Militia that you masqueraded to your opponent earlier and made terrible choices for last turn. (You totally Islanded the Masquerade later) Now if only you hadn't misclicked and bought that Remake, everything would still be fine!

[DStu]

I think it could still work if Geronimoo only has five Ventures, and buys a Contraband instead of a Gold.

Yeah, but he is able to buy the Province before, so he has $8 somehow in his deck. So with perfect shuffle luck, the Contraband might be in his hand in which case he doesn't need to play it and get's the Province by 5xVenture+Gold

[Geronimoo]

Here's what I had in mind (Anon had the same idea, but made it more complicated than needed):
Geronimoo opened Silver/Chapel, then went for a Venture-deck occasionally buying Mining Villages when he couldn't buy a Venture. His deck looks like this when he makes the fatal buy of Contraband instead of the last Venture (he's greedy and doesn't want his opponent to have any ):

3 Mining Village, 9 Venture, Chapel. This is clearly able to buy 4 Provinces in a row without perfect shuffle.

He draws his hand of 3 MV's and plays them all for trash. Now his hand is 5 Ventures and his deck has 4 Ventures and a Chapel. He doesn't play his treasures, buys the Contraband by mistake and draws the 4 Ventures and Chapel and is now unable to buy a Province because of the Contraband in his discard.