Some game logs:
I started off with requiring City, Iw, Masq, Ctpur, and Tr. This gives me a way to get coppers in mid-turn, plenty of +action and strong engine potential.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/03/game-20121003-091921-24ef61c2.htmlAgiel goes for a thin money/witch deck. I pile out the cities & use Iw, Tr, City, Masq to setup the pin. On T14 I start springing the Pin. Agiel is left with 2 golds to play. On T15 the pin is almost complete and I leave Agiel with only a witch to play. T16 is a completed pin and the game is pretty much in the bag.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/03/game-20121003-095003-9abcd303.htmlMprage was planning “masq+city+money, hoping to slow you down with CP and beat you on the city/grand market race”. This was a colony board so the pin had lots of time develop. Mprage did use both of the key pin components against me, but on turn 16 I get the pin to hit fully leaving Mprage with a 0 card turn 17. The pin whiffs the next turn, but I’ve already loaded mprage up with lots of copper so he can only buy a Tr. The following turn I steal 4 cards and then the next turn I get the full pin and end the game.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/03/game-20121003-102255-2da95981.htmlHere I wanted to see if I could manage without city. I replaced city with Fishing Village and Lab. I think wharf has the potential to be too quick here, but thought I’d give a go anyways. It took until T14 for me to really start pinning (I take 3 of his cards, make him discard 2, and leave him with a copper in hand). Just prior to this my opponent buys his sixth province and chides me, “Ok, it's fun to play endless truns, but you should do something out of them....like buying green cards....”; clearly he doesn’t see the pin at all. T15 and T16 see the pin hit hard – I steal 4 and 5 cards respectively. On T16 I steal two provinces and am setup well to hit the full pin next turn as well (my opponent has no durations out now and I start next hand with 2 labs). I give it about 75% odds of winning from here on out – I just have to steal 2 more provinces and then my fiendishly strong engine let’s me 3 pile whenever I want – and buy a province or two on my final turn; my opponent cannot force game end any time soon.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/03/game-20121003-110343-4e8c18f7.htmlI asked for some high level players to test against, this one said he regularly beat such, but had no rankings. I set the pin on T14 (it is slightly broken by 2 havens & a fishing village out), but the opponent resigns immediately. Preset cards were City, Masq, Ctpur, Fv, and Iw.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201210/03/game-20121003-112011-5bf20bcf.htmlI get this one setup on T16. There isn’t much here, I play pretty badly (even trashing a city of a masq by accident)! But the opponent is demoralized and resigns.
Potential future testing:
A. Get rid of Iw. I’d like to see how things would play it with something like armory, count, or some less versatile card gainer (maybe even workshop?) to get the copper, but not the pin components.
B. No card gainers. I think it will be MUCH harder (and goko bot bashing looked that way) to just use +buy to have 5 coppers in deck. That went out to T18 to set up the pin and was less reliable. I think it could work well against unskilled opponents, unaware skilled opponents, and with very strong & reliable engines (e.g. alchemist)
C. Have opponents who know the pin try to counter it. So far, people just don’t see the pin, even with a name like “PinTesting”.
Lessons learned:
1. It is fiendishly hard to get folks to play non-random games on Iso, particularly high level players =P
2. Even against things that can counter this, like a quick Fv/Wharf deck, the pin is just a beast at wearing decks down.
3. Flubbed pin hands aren’t so bad. Because the copper is going into the deck, the odds of the other guy having a province buying hand keep going down with every flub. Between the copper spam, loss of intermediate to good cards, and the need to end the game ASAP, it seemed like there were few options to turn the game around once the pin started hitting.
4. It is really hard to get people to explain their thoughts, those opponents who would chat about it, didn’t see the pin and most just resigned and walked away.
5. Iw is a very strong replacement option for beggar, being able to quickly transition to the pin is very useful. Gaining the coppers in hand is less useful than you might think while having +coin from the Iw is very nice for picking up engine action/draw components (like city/Tr/Lab).
6. I’m not sure that any of these games really required me to go for the pin or if the pin was dominant. I know I could have done better playing a traditional strategy in a lot of these than my opponents managed. Still, even with competition for Masq & Cutpur the pin never hit later than turn 16.