Here's AI's attempt: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20130527/log.5101a6c4e4b02b7235c3860f.1369678253597.txt
Lest anyone read that game and conclude that the Apprentice-Market Square combo is only marginal, here are
13 other games with it.
Apprentice-MS is incredibly strong -- nearly as strong as Hermit-MS. If you're not being attacked, you can expect to fire it off around turn 11-13. In our game above, Apprentice enables Davio to play his Followers 4 times in 6 turns, which kept me from running App-MS the way I want to. Even so, the combo is ready on turn 16, just one turn too late for the win. I don't think I'd try to just ignore Tourney again, but I'll still go Apprentice-MS on almost any non-Tourney board.
Here's how I try to play it:
1. Spend the first 6-8 turns gaining Apprentices, Squares, and Gold and cleaning up your deck.
2. Stop cleaning and switch to trashing (and regaining) Gold when you have 3-4 Apprentices (or enough to draw your deck). Gain only as much Gold as you can spend immediately and keep buying Apprentices.
3. When you opponent has gained 3-4 Provinces or is threatening to end the game on piles, take 1-2 mega-turns in which you gain all the Gold you can and either empty Provinces or take an insurmountable VP lead.
You want a bunch of Apprentices, but only as many Squares as you'll need for buys (4-5 is plenty). There's also no need to fill up on Gold early... you're going to gain Gold like crazy during your mega-turn, and for most of the game you'd much prefer to draw App/Gold/Copper rather than Gold/Gold/Gold.
On your mega-turn, after drawing your deck, you'll have some Gold, some Squares, and a bunch of Apprentices in hand. To maximize the Gold you can gain, discard just 3 Squares when you trash a Gold. You'll redraw those Squares plus the 3 new Gold and repeat. On your last apprentice, discard all your Squares and draw the resulting Gold by playing the Squares you redraw. This is why you don't need all that many Squares... having 3 Squares means $6 in hand per Apprentice, but extra Squares add $3 each or less.
An early trasher helps a lot, both for thinning and for adding a few early Gold. Salvager is nearly ideal, as in the OP's game, but Forager and Trade Route are almost as good. Cheap cantrip sifters and draw cards can be valuable too. Curses hurt bad, which is a big weakness compared to Hermit-MS. The $5 price of Apprentice also introduces more variance, since it's easy to catch a streak of $4 hands. I'd actually probably open Salvager/Silver in the OP's game... I want to start buying apprentices
now, not after I gain a Gold and shuffle it back in.
Things are a little different in the mirror, as Gold is likely to run out. You can't just blindly load up on Apprentices and expect the Gold and Provinces to take care of themselves. I suspect it's better to gain Gold earlier and buy Provinces over the course of 3-4 turns instead of 1-2, but I haven't played a lot of mirrors, since few of my opponents have known the strength of the combo. I suppose that will change shortly.
