I rarely play bmu; if I did I imagine my win rate would be better, but honestly the reason I play this game is because of the infinite combos to explore. That being said, there are elements represented by functionally similar but different cards. When sizing up a KC deck, for example, I do not look for a specific draw card; most of them will work with varying success. I require a good linchpin and like to see some trashing or cycling. All of these elements were present in this kingdom.
To break down this specific game we played I would point out that when you coupled your treasure maps on turn five I though the game was effectively over. I chose not to change gears, sticking to a plan that had an element of risk to begin with and had indeed become dire once you exploded your economy so early. I will walk you through the thought process behind this deck:
I wanted to KC/KC Pirate Ship you. My early setup involved creating an Apothecary/Warehouse combo with a Steward for light trashing. I chose the Steward mainly for the draw ability, but all three of his abilities got used in this game. I was uninterested in trashing coppers, so once he ate two estates his role became $/cards.
As for the Apothecary/Warehouse, I personally like this interaction but it is not game breaking. Basically, it cycles the deck fairly well while creating the opportunity to proactively set up good combos. This combo sometimes falls flat on its face and can often be too slow in tempo, but in this case it worked out okay. I was banking on the hope that when this deck finally did fire I would be able to effectively cripple your economy.
I bought an Herbalist at an opportune time because I knew I would need the +buy. Herbalist is not one of my go-to buy sources but had there not been any source of buy I would never have attempted this deck.
Library, believe it or not, is actually a great draw card for KC/KC, especially in conjunction with Apothecary. With light green in my deck and some of the coppers out of the way, I was able to pick and choose which actions to keep.
The final element was the linchpin of this deck, the Pirate Ship. It could have been Bridge, Possession, Saboteur, Mountebank or anything like that; all that mattered was that the linchpin played three or six times at once could radically alter the landscape of the game.
As I wrote above, I fully expected to lose this game when you got that WH/TM off so early, but I stuck with my plan and got a win for it. I do not think you played a bad game at all. My deck had a higher risk to benefit ratio and with careful VP management barely pulled out a win.
