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[O]

I was behind the entire game.. Does Familiar actually beat masquerade? Did I buy too few masquerades (2)? I felt like he played pretty lousily otherwise, with bizarre bazaar (ha, ha) buys.

Luck didn't seem much in his favor either...

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/22/game-20120522-001727-7afb2a36.html

[Davio]

I have a feeling a lucky (t3 or 4) Familiar can beat Masquerade.

His Bazaars help cycling which allows him to play more Familiars.
It also allows him to play his Masquerade more often.
By the end of the game he has played his Masquerade 8 times, while you played your 2 Masquerades a total of 9 times.
So you see an extra Masquerade isn't really so helpful if you can just play the same one more often.
His Expand is really helpful and gets him to a Province twice and to a Duchy once.

Given all this I don't think he got lucky. I think he cycled better and made better use of the cards that were out there. You went for a money-based approach and he chose an engine. I think his engine was slightly better than your money deck.

[DG]

The masquerade barely countered the hand size expansion of your opponent's familiar. This left you with 8 copper at the game end, pretty much what you started with. Your opponent had a trimmed down deck, so trimmed down it even choked on green cards at the end. The other kingdom cards were also little help to a masquerade + treasure deck.

[DStu]

BM-Masq crushes BM-Familiar in the sims (85:15). Taking a Masq yourself helps a bit but it still loses (75:25).

Here we have a quite slim deck with as good as no money, Merchant Ship works probably quite well with the Bazaars, the small deck helps the Expand, so probably there is some more potential in this deck than straight in BM-Familiar. Expand got 3 Provinces (by trashing 1), I think that played a role here.

[Davio]

I would like to add that this is an interesting example of the limitations of the simulator.

While BM-Masq crushes BM-Familiar, this is in no way a BM kingdom. Your opponent made very good use of the entire kingdom while you stuck with your trusty Masquerade.

An important lesson is to look at the kingdom as a whole. Don't look at Familiar and Masquerade and conclude that you can just play BM-Masq and win.

[DStu]

An important lesson is to look at the kingdom as a whole. Don't look at Familiar and Masquerade and conclude that you can just play BM-Masq and win.

reminds me a bit of this game where I opened for Familiar on a Hunting Party/Ambassador board without real buys, and really thought after some turns I'll be really dead against these two, until I discovered that Universities for Schemes and Hunting Parties (and a Smithy) give a really good mix.

[Geronimoo]

Yes, always going with simulator results is a bad idea, but drawing a lot of conclusions out of this one game is even worse. I'd suggest to replay this board a few times and see what comes out on top. I bet Masquerade BM is going to still shine (just because of $2P and other ugly things that can happen to the Familiar strategy).

[WanderingWinder]

Here, I'd expect masquerade into some merchant ships, maybe some bazaars if things fall right/wrong, to be best here. Though if your opponent goes for familiar, maybe just double masq (get the second one either first or second reshuffle...)

[DG]

I quite like the simulator for this one actually. If you just take 2 x masquerade vs masquerade + familiar then the masquerades look good. As you add each other card in the kingdom, the familiars strategy improves although not up to 50/50. The simulator probably won't trash the potion or familiars at the right time though so maybe it is pretty even. Taking bazaars (and not merchant ships) will improve the double masquerade deck.

[O]

I get the feeling that his Expand helped a bit, but largely that I guess it was the 25% in the 75-25 (I thought it was crushed more than that tbh). I bought a merchant ship to his 2 (really not that much of a difference given I had more gold), and his bazaars really make next to no difference.

[RisingJaguar]

I'm not quite sure how the simulator's buy/play rules are like, but it is important to note he builds more of an engine than transitioning into BM.  It is pretty evident with him only having a copper left. 

Expand is the shining card in his 'engine' deck.  Without it, the purchases of bazaars/merchant ships aren't as smart, but with it, there are expand-ing possibilities to exploit instead of going BM.  He intentionally buys a merchant ship on T16 for the purpose of expanding i presume (granted it should have been a duchy but meh) and ditches his early gold to go this other route. 

The importance of this is more significant than normal I think.  Ie. if he purchases gold instead of bazaars, his deck does not cycle as fast to play masq/familiar/expand.  (Edit: think of the importance of cantrips to ambassadors, then slice it in half)

With that said, he does get off to the perfect start for his strategy.  So I'm not trying to say this strategy wins more often than not, but I assume the simulators are not playing his strategy precisely and he does it quite well. 

[ddubois]

Hard to win when he goes t3 Familiar t4 Bazaar, and you buy t3 $3, t4 $3.

Turn 5 you already have two terminal card drawers in deck, but buy a merchant ship over a bazaar.  I'm surprised that didn't bite you in the ass.  In any case, I want to cycle back to my Masq faster, so I'd get the bazaar.

I'm not sure how behind you were on turn 15, but I'd be inclined to break PPR there, for a few reasons:
1) he had just played his Expand and didn't re-shuffle
2) he's already trashed his only gold
3) he has no $2 from ship on deck
I think you have a good shot at getting both Provs before he finds Expand again.  I mean, you didn't, but, your only shot at winning is to get the 5-3 anyway, isn't it?