http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201205/25/game-20120525-123723-9e184b6b.htmlPlayed this game with Marin. We both dipped into the Black Market. I got Tournament (which is of course one of the best cards to get from the Black Market for obvious reasons), Governor, and Apprentice. He got Forge and Crossroads.
Hamlet was the only other village in the BM deck. The other key action cards in the regular supply were Wharf, Goons, Stables, Cartographer.
Given what we drew, it forced different strategies. The +actions from Crossroads were huge. It meant he could trash down and produced an engine that could draw most of his deck most turns - but which was short on cash. My only +actions were from Trusty Steed. That, the lack of trashing, and the desire to get Provinces to start picking up prizes, meant I started investing in Provinces.
I was hoping to regularly play Governor and then force a discard with Followers or Goons. But it quickly became clear to me that the dearth of actions meant I really had limited options. If I wanted to use the Wharves to prevent routine dead hands, I couldn't afford to spend other actions very often.
Definite mistakes I made: 1) not getting Bank earlier, to bump up my purchasing power. 2) not taking Hamlet when I drew it from the BM deck on turn 12. I didn't even realize I had missed it until I went back to look at the log. In retrospect, that's a huge error and would have really secured things for me. Problem of being on autopilot.
Possible mistakes I made: 1) not taking Followers in my first couple prizes. Marin was convinced that this was a big error, but I'm not really sure. The lack of actions meant I wouldn't be able to play it easily. And, since he was regularly drawing everything, he could probably overcome the hand-size reduction and then trash the Curse all on the next turn. Meanwhile, playing Followers would often mean NOT playing Wharf, which was more important for me, I think. Or Goons, which is probably better than Followers - since it gives VPs and the Estates were more likely to clog me up than the Curses were him. 2) Not using Apprentice more aggressively earlier? Should I have killed a Province or two in the effort to end the game quicker? I'm not really sure WHERE I would have done this, though. I was generally oscillating between complete dead hands and drawing most of my deck.
Marin felt like he played as well as he possibly could. Do people agree? I thought he did a great job of putting things together given his own action limitations, but are there places he could have maximized more? It seemed to me like there were a few places where he used Forge rather than playing his second Goons that might have been wrong. Turn 17 in particular? I'm not sure, but it seems like maybe getting more VPs there is the key thing - and it might set him up to Forge/buy the last few Provinces on the next turn.
