Yesterday I had one of the greatest 2 player games I've had. Unfortunately it's one of those blasted "Internal Error" games, so I can't reload it.
I remember all the cards except one:
Tunnel, Bard, Vineyard, Golem, City Quarter, Catapult, Secret Passage, Cursed Village, Apprentice
Battlefield, Pilgrimage
There were several things that made it great:
* Two completely different strategies.
* Both strats influenced the other: He opened Tunnels as a response to my Catapult, I couldn't touch the Provinces because of his continuing lead.
* Both strats had support but also challenges from the kingdom. (Tunnel great with Battlefield, but no voluntary discarding, only from opponent's Catapult. Vineyard great with Pilgrimage, but no +buy except through Bard.)
* Ending the game by buying a Curse.
* The only time I've played where someone used a Fate card to get specific Boons often.
* Final score was 51 to 50 VP. He started with a big lead, which got bigger, then I gradually gained on him, winning with 1 VP.
His strat was to buy all the Tunnels he could straight away! He got all 12 VP from Battlefield, plus I think all the Tunnels - 16 VP. Then he pretty much always had at least one Tunnel to discard to my Catapulting, giving him something like 15 Golds after a while. He also got the "discard 3 for a Gold" Boon from Bard, with 2 Tunnels in hand, giving him 3 Golds at once. With all the Tunnels and the Curses from me, his deck was still not great, but he managed to buy, I guess, 5 Provinces by the time the game ended. He had a Bard and also a few Cursed Villages which sometimes let him draw up after my discard-attack.
I went for Vineyards, gaining Action cards through Pilgrimage, and trashing with Catapult and Apprentice. City Quarter was of course my engine. After a while I was unnecessarily making around $8 to $10 each turn (but of course could absolutely not buy a Province), and the problem is that if you buy Pilgrimage, you can't buy Vineyard. Therefore I was cycling through 4 Bards each turn, getting +1 Buy three or four times in the game, and also picking up 4 Wisps in the end. I also had to slow him down through Cursing, so I had to gain cards for Catapult, I gained Silver and even Gold from Boons just to trash them, but I also had to trash some of the Catapults I was gaining.
He denied me the last Vineyard, so then I Catapulted the Potion, giving him the 9th Curse. I was up to 7 VP per Vineyard and 52 VP, and bought the last Curse.
I don't think a big money approach could have won here against me, because I would discard-attack and curse you pretty good. Big money against him I'm not so sure about. You would have to refrain from discard-attacking and let him drown in his Tunnels, but it's still a 28 VP initial lead to overcome, and you're not really trashing down efficiently to get to your Silvers and Golds.