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[chester]

But that still fails to moat.

How about Scrying Pool drawing your whole deck which includes plenty of King's Courts and Throne rooms/Villages.  Then 10 Masquerade plays to strip out all opponents hands, 10 Witch plays, and a zillion Saboteurs. 

The opponents can clean out the estates from the Saboteurs, but you can buy the last province to win.

[O]

But that still fails to moat.

How about Scrying Pool drawing your whole deck which includes plenty of King's Courts and Throne rooms/Villages.  Then 10 Masquerade plays to strip out all opponents hands, 10 Witch plays, and a zillion Saboteurs. 

The opponents can clean out the estates from the Saboteurs, but you can buy the last province to win.

If you have any cards in your hand the masquerade plays will just cycle one card through their decks

[WanderingWinder]

Right. Like I said on page one, the only way to strip so many cards from there hand is something like golem into KC and NV, with cards on NV mat and nothing in your deck, nothing in your hand except a Masq. And that's really hard to orchestrate.

[GendoIkari]

So is there an answer to "hard mode"?

[jomini]

Yes.

[GendoIkari]

Since those better at these than I seem to have given up... hint?

[jomini]

Hmm well:
One solution is listed below.

Hint:
Bob actually only cares about drawing one card into his hand from his deck: scrying pool.

Solution:
Bob’s deck consists of:
SP, Scheme, Festival x4, Cellar x3, NV x6,  KC x2, masq x3, outpost
Bob plays SP and draws his entire deck. He plays it as follows:
Scheme (to top deck SP at the end of this turn) ->
Festival x4 (to buy the last province on the last turn, also gives more actions) ->
Outpost ->
Cellar (discard KC, golem, cellar, masq, masq) ->
NV x5 (place KC, golem, cellar, masq, masq onto mat) ->
Cellar (discard KC & NV) ->
Golem (hits KC & NV) ->
KC -> masq (burn 3 cards) ->
NV (draw from mat) ->
Cellar (discard KC & masq)
Golem (hits KC & masq) ->
KC -> masq (burn 3 cards) ->
masq (burn a card).
Net result – 1st player downstream has no cards. 2nd player has 3 cards
Clean up – return SP to deck top
Outpost turn is played as the regular turn. Net result is the burning of 14 cards (with the use of some discard -> KC -> NV/Golem ->KC(masq) -> NV iteration, Bob’s deck could easily be built out to a masq pin against 4 opponents by burning 10 cards per turn and another 10 per outpost turn).

[eHalcyon]

Sorry, I'm having a bit of trouble following.  Since you've drawn your whole deck, doesn't Cellar just cause you to redraw what you discarded?  I think I'm misreading something!

[WanderingWinder]

Sorry, I'm having a bit of trouble following.  Since you've drawn your whole deck, doesn't Cellar just cause you to redraw what you discarded?  I think I'm misreading something!

Yup. I guess you can still do it with Horse Traders or young witch, but you're going to need more actions maybe?

Also nice to see that I was on the right track, though I'm not sure this is really all that foolproof.... I mean, if the curse and copper piles are sufficiently low and/or they have large enough decks... you will run out of time...

[Grujah]

You can do it with Warehouse instead of Cellar, as it draws nothing.

[WanderingWinder]

You can do it with Warehouse instead of Cellar, as it draws nothing.

But it discards 3, and it's imperative that you discard 2 rather than 3 for this to work

[Mic Qsenoch]

You can do it with Warehouse instead of Cellar, as it draws nothing.

Warehouse only lets you discard three, at one point he needs to discard five. Probably Vault would be a good replacement.

Also, when you KC - masqerade the second time, don't you have another masquerade in hand? So you would have to pass that, and this would decrease the number of cards you burn and make it an incomplete pin.

[Mic Qsenoch]

And what if your opponents are playing Double Tactician decks?

edit: Never mind, you specified play areas are empty.

[dghunter79]

Sorry, I'm having a bit of trouble following.  Since you've drawn your whole deck, doesn't Cellar just cause you to redraw what you discarded?  I think I'm misreading something!

Yup. I guess you can still do it with Horse Traders or young witch, but you're going to need more actions maybe?

From the Festivals?

Also, when you KC - masqerade the second time, don't you have another masquerade in hand? So you would have to pass that, and this would decrease the number of cards you burn and make it an incomplete pin.

No, the second Masquerade is not in hand -- it's in limbo, cued up by the Golem, ready to be played after the Masquerade wreaks its havoc.  Just as the Native Village is in limbo during the first Masquerading.  Pretty neat!

[jomini]

Thanks for spotting the error.

Revised Solution:

Bob’s deck consists of:
SP, Scheme, Festival x4, Secret Chamber x3, NV x6,  KC x2, masq x3, outpost
Bob plays SP and draws his entire deck. He plays it as follows:
Scheme (to top deck SP at the end of this turn) ->
Festival x4 (to buy the last province on the last turn & allow play of terminals) ->
Outpost ->
SC (discard KC, golem, SC, masq, masq) ->
NV x5 (place KC, golem, SC, masq, masq onto mat) ->
SC (discard KC & NV) ->
Golem (hits KC & NV) ->
KC -> masq (burn 3 cards) ->
NV (draw from mat) ->
SC (discard KC & masq)
Golem (hits KC & masq) ->
KC -> masq (burn 3 cards) ->
masq (burn a card).

Clean up – return SP to deck top

Repeat turn during outpost turn.



There are a large number of cards that can be used to either discard or to top deck. There are enough ways to make actions float around, that Bob could get rid of the festivals by playing a NV or using an extra KC on the scheme to balance actions. Likewise instead of Secret Chamber Bob could use anything that discards or top decks without drawing like: vault, horse traders, young witch, hamlet, mandarin, etc.. You can always add cantrips to balance out the number of cards to discard/top deck & then place on the NV mat.

WW:Yeah, in theory, you could give the other two opponent's decks sufficiently large that they could pile out the coppers & curses before the game ends. You are completely right. I didn't want to specify that precisely in the opening post because I didn't want to make it too obvious that this was a masq-pin puzzle. I was hoping to see some creative thinking, which I did.

Open question: So I've seen several was to increase the number of dead masqs you can play in a turn. KC and TR can allow for 3 and 2 dead masq plays a go, golem can do 2 by itself and up to 4 with a KC/masq/masq setup like here, discard -> NV -> discard -> golem can allow for nested play and outpost can double everything you can come up with provided you have a sufficiently reliable deck (e.g. SP/scheme, KC/Wharf, double haven/double draw, etc.) ... is there any other way to play multiple dead masqs a turn?

[WanderingWinder]

I KNEW there was a hole!
Horse traders reacts off of scrying pool. Bam!

[jomini]

Ahh, thanks for catching that.

Revised, revised solution:


Bob’s hand consists of KC/KC/Smithy/Smithy/Scheme
Bob plays them in order and draws up to 27 cards, his entire deck:

Scheme, Festival x4, Secret Chamber x3, NV x6,  KC x3, masq x3, outpost

KC -> Scheme (with this and the other scheme, Bob can top deck 6 cards: KC/KC/Smithy/Smithy/Scheme/Scheme) ->
Festival x4 (to buy the last province on the last turn & allow play of terminals) ->
Outpost ->
SC (discard KC, golem, SC, masq, masq) ->
NV x5 (place KC, golem, SC, masq, masq onto mat) ->
SC (discard KC & NV) ->
Golem (hits KC & NV) ->
KC -> masq (burn 3 cards) ->
NV (draw from mat) ->
SC (discard KC & masq)
Golem (hits KC & masq) ->
KC -> masq (burn 3 cards) ->
masq (burn a card).

Clean up – return KC/KC/smithy/smithy/scheme/scheme to top deck

Repeat turn during outpost turn.

[heron]

No, Bob can only top deck 4 cards— the second scheme isn't KC'd.

[jomini]

Heron:

No. The second scheme is played after the entire draw deck is hand. There are 3 KC's in the draw deck; two are used to triple play masq; one is used to triple play the scheme.

During the outpost turn, KC/KC/Smithy (draw cards) Smithy/Scheme will draw the entire deck again allowing for the triple play of scheme to set up the starting hand again.

In any event, KC/KC/Smithy/Smithy will still draw everything and then allow you to play KC (from the second KC in hand) -> scheme -> scheme.

[heron]

Oh, duh.
Thanks.