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[Morgrim7]

Obviously with Masq and some enabler like TR or KC, but isn't it a little slow? Shouldn't you only go for it if there is heavy trashing? Or is the KC-Masq enough?

[blueblimp]

My rule of thumb:
- If there is a true pin (actually leaves your opponent with 0-card hands), do it.
- If there isn't, don't.

This can obviously vary depending the board. Occasionally, maybe a true pin isn't worth it and there is something faster (e.g. KC-Bridge). Occasionally, maybe a semi-pin (usually just KC-Masq) is actually the best thing available. But hey, pins are rare enough already.

[hobo386]

When you're feeling like a jerk?  Most of the time there's a soft masq pin (no margrave/militia/Goons) on the board, I can beat it with plain Masq/BM.  And if there's KC and Goons on the board, it depends on the other cards out there. Quarry, watchtower, farming village, fishing village, hamlet, pawn?  The straight goons strategy will probably win.  Slower boards the pin will work, but will result in some pretty boring games.

[popsofctown]

To quote rrenaud, jerks win.

[hobo386]

Eh, tell that to the last few players that tried to Saboteur spam me.  The game took a few turns longer, but I still won.

On a relevant note, getting one or two masquerades of your own is enough screw up your opponent's masq pin.

The situations where a masq pin is relevant are so low that in over 1000 games, I've never had it successfully done against me.

[Thisisnotasmile]

How many of those 1000 games had the cards required for the pin available?

And for the record, playing the game by the rules does not make anybody a "jerk".

[blueblimp]

Eh, tell that to the last few players that tried to Saboteur spam me.  The game took a few turns longer, but I still won.

On a relevant note, getting one or two masquerades of your own is enough screw up your opponent's masq pin.

The situations where a masq pin is relevant are so low that in over 1000 games, I've never had it successfully done against me.

Saboteur spam is usually pretty weak, so I'm not surprised you won in that case. And yeah, a true pin is pretty rare. I've seen it maybe twice, and I've played around 4k games between my main account and alts.

By the way, I feel the frustration of being pinned is way overrated. Once you're pinned, the game is over, so it's no more frustrating than the game ending in some other way. Getting Torturer'd repeatedly, while you keep drawing your Villages dead, seems way more annoying.

[hobo386]

I'm going to guess that there have been around 10-20 games with KC and Masq, and 2 or three that had a goons, militia, or Margrave in them.


And if playing by the rules doesn't make you a jerk, then how do they win?  I'm being given conflicting definitions here.

(Also, the Saboteur thing was a response to "jerks win".  I was pointing out that relying on attacks that harm your opponent but don't benefit you isn't always a good way to win.)

And since I've never had a true pin happen to me, I can't say I'd know for sure, but I'd think the KC-Masq pin without goons would be more akin to the leading player spending 15 minutes hitting +$1->undo->+$1, than a Torturer spam.

[jonts26]

Why guess when you can use council room to tell you exactly?

EDIT: For reference, in 5854 games of isotropic dominion, I have gotten KC/Masq together 25 times. 3 of those had Goons, 1 had outpost, 1 had militia and none had margrave. And one of the goons games was Paralyzed so that was not random.

So in almost 6000 random games I've seen the full pin variety 4 times.

[hobo386]

I never fully got used to searching council room honestly.  Don't know what the proper search string would be.

[Cadence20]

In all the games I've played, I've only attempted the pin once, and it was successful. Needless to say on the turn I did the pin, the opponent left the game.

I always look out for the pin too but no luck - that being said, in my first 1000 games when I was a lot newer I probably could've missed it here and there.

[jomini]

If you want to be exhaustive about when the pin was possible, you need to look for masq/Kc/discard (militia, margrave, goons, cut purse, followers, arguably minion and b-crat); masq/Kc/Outpost; masq/outpost/Tr/discard; golem/masq/outpost/discarder (e.g. secret chamber, vault, etc.); golem/masq/discard/TR; golem/NV/outpost/discarder.

That said most of those are not going to work before the game ends.

On isotropic, I'd almost always go for the pin against folks who aren't extremely well informed players. Most people have no clue how it plays and even less about how to fight it. I would avoid it if there is an extremely quick megaturn option that can fire before I can win (e.g. KC/Bridge/support, HoP/big support).

Against well informed opponents (those who I think can do a decent job building a counter deck), I'd avoid the pin if there is good setup for a fast engine. I'd be more likely to go for the pin if there are cantrips out, particularly cheap cantrips.

[michaeljb]

And if playing by the rules doesn't make you a jerk, then how do they win?  I'm being given conflicting definitions here.

There was a quote (I think it was in someone's sig) where rrenaud's opponent said something like "Mountebank is for jerks," to which rrenaud responded "Jerks win."

I think it's clear he was really saying more about the power of Mountebank than being a jerk.

[michaeljb]

And since I've never had a true pin happen to me, I can't say I'd know for sure, but I'd think the KC-Masq pin without goons would be more akin to the leading player spending 15 minutes hitting +$1->undo->+$1, than a Torturer spam.

Only if you continue to buy Copper/Curse or do nothing with your turn instead of resigning. (Or is that bug still there, where you can't resign if you have 0 cards in hand at the start of your turn?)

[hobo386]

Whatever.  I just got sick when I logged into the forums and I see three threads on what I consider to be the most overrated strategy in all of Dominion, and I wanted to help people improve.

I'm out of this thread, but I'll leave you with two sample games where KC/Masq fails:
The first game, someone tries the pin on me, and I counter by using caravans to give me a failsafe in case he actually managed to use goons first, and by using my own masquerades to ruin his pin and leave him with nothing worthwhile.  Did I go for the pin? No.  Did I need to? No. Did I win? Yes.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120709-154558-b0a9da57.html
The second game is just an example that shows that Masq/BM beats KC/Masq if you know what you're doing.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/07/game-20120707-075635-d392e215.html

Have fun playing it against newbies, then have fun getting crushed when you try it against someone level 30+.

[blueblimp]

Whatever.  I just got sick when I logged into the forums and I see three threads on what I consider to be the most overrated strategy in all of Dominion, and I wanted to help people improve.

Not sure what's with the defensive tone here, but anyway...

I'm out of this thread, but I'll leave you with two sample games where KC/Masq fails:
The first game, someone tries the pin on me, and I counter by using caravans to give me a failsafe in case he actually managed to use goons first, and by using my own masquerades to ruin his pin and leave him with nothing worthwhile.  Did I go for the pin? No.  Did I need to? No. Did I win? Yes.
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120709-154558-b0a9da57.html

Your opponent here is level 15, and makes plays such as: opening Caravan/Masq when needing to get Goons and KC asap; buying Coppers with a single Goons in play (e.g. turns 8, 10, 11, ...); on turn 12, trashing a Caravan instead of a Silver, then not even using the buying power from the Silver that turn; and apparently trashing her only Goons on turn 14.

Have fun playing it against newbies, then have fun getting crushed when you try it against someone level 30+.

I've won with a pin against a level 30+.

[WanderingWinder]

I've lost to the pin.
In my bajillion games, CR says KC/Masq/discarder (Margrave, militia, Goons, Ghost ship, and it's not a discarder, but outpost) have come up 11 times. I'm pretty sure at least once, and I'd guess two or three times, black market has at least possibly enabled the thing.
Actually, most of these games, there was no pin. There was horse traders to block it in one. But my fave example is this: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120405-073937-1c34f61a.html wherein I pile out two things to make pin unviable, but then fail to secure my lead and/or end the game.

[jomini]

I've lost to the pin.
In my bajillion games, CR says KC/Masq/discarder (Margrave, militia, Goons, Ghost ship, and it's not a discarder, but outpost) have come up 11 times. I'm pretty sure at least once, and I'd guess two or three times, black market has at least possibly enabled the thing.
Actually, most of these games, there was no pin. There was horse traders to block it in one. But my fave example is this: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120405-073937-1c34f61a.html wherein I pile out two things to make pin unviable, but then fail to secure my lead and/or end the game.

With 25 random cards in the black market, I believe having a discard attack or outpost in the BM deck is an odds on bet. The chances of KC or masq being in the BM deck are smaller, but non-trivial. All told I my rule of thumb is that the combo is around 2.5 cards given the possible substitutions.

[Powerman]

I think the only time I've encountered KC-Masq Pin is in this game.  Needless to say, their pin was unsuccessful.

[arcee]

I think the only time I've encountered KC-Masq Pin is in this game.  Needless to say, their pin was unsuccessful.

With the hand of KC-KC-Goons-Chapel-Silver, rather than chapel{silver} one should KC{KC{Goons, Chapel{silver}}} and buy bazaar, then when goonsed one can easily keep kc-kc-bazaar and win.  Unless I'm missing something. (that was turn 11, there are certainly other oddities...)

[blueblimp]

I think the only time I've encountered KC-Masq Pin is in this game.  Needless to say, their pin was unsuccessful.

With the hand of KC-KC-Goons-Chapel-Silver, rather than chapel{silver} one should KC{KC{Goons, Chapel{silver}}} and buy bazaar, then when goonsed one can easily keep kc-kc-bazaar and win.  Unless I'm missing something. (that was turn 11, there are certainly other oddities...)

Maybe not too surprising, given that the player never achieved a positive (yes, greater than zero) level.

[cayvie]

Jonts would have beaten me with one here, but misclicks and kills his deck.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120507-142014-97d06130.html

[jonts26]

Jonts would have beaten me with one here, but misclicks and kills his deck.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120507-142014-97d06130.html

Oh God I remember that one. I sort of didn't have a plan and when I started falling behind I finally realized the pin was there. So I was slow setting it up, but I finally did with only 1 province left in the supply. And then I misclicked and sent him my KC more or less dooming me.

[Morgrim7]

Jonts would have beaten me with one here, but misclicks and kills his deck.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120507-142014-97d06130.html

Oh God I remember that one. I sort of didn't have a plan and when I started falling behind I finally realized the pin was there. So I was slow setting it up, but I finally did with only 1 province left in the supply. And then I misclicked and sent him my KC more or less dooming me.

Oh, so that was the misclick. At first I thought it was trashing the KC. Iso doesn't log Masq passes.