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Ouch, you did that to Emeric? I think he doesn't resign on principle.
I wonder what would've happened if there wasn't an easy way to guarantee a win, with the NV there
Well in general you can have any number of Canttips to go along with the required 5 cards. So at some point, you're just starting a new game, except you start with Masq and 4 RC and some number of Cantrips, while your opponent starts with nothing. So yes, you both have to start buying Copper again, but as soon as you can afford a single action that provides money, you explode into lots of money while your opponent is still buying Silvers.
But if you don't draw royal carraige *4 and masq last then you can't keep pinning them.
Oh, right. Well not just cantrips in general then. But if you use a bunch of lab-type things; then you're fine unless you happen to draw exactly RC*4 and Masq in your initial hand. But even without any thing other than those 5 cards; the rest of what I said stands. Given starting decks of no cards vs those 5 cards; I'm pretty sure it's not possible to win.
More importantly, if you draw Rc x4/Masq you can just
wait a turn. So your opponent buys a second copper and has a two card deck? Who cares (outside of Poor house)? You can kill them both the next turn after you mat all the Rc. This is a very forgiving Masq pin.
In general, you are quite right, you burn their deck to the ground and secure a win through end game control.
Then you have a lot of control of end game. With a single pile gone, you can buy a curse, give it to them (say in exchange for a copper) and then kill whatever they buy. You play Masq 2x and ensure they end the turn with a curse every turn and
slowly burn off the curse & copper piles for a -1 to 0 win. Remember once you have killed their entire deck (maybe 8-9 turns, tops as you kill 5 cards a go here), you do not need to play the full pin, just enough Masqs to leave them with a curse (e.g. they hold CurC, you play Masq x4 - pass a C, gain a Cur, pass a Cur, gain a C, trash a C, pass nothing, gain a Cur, pass Cur, gain a C, trash a C, buy a C).
With two piles empty they might rarely be able to empty the curses before you trash deck and then you have some trouble ending on a win, but again for
this pin, you kill cards very quickly and they will have a hard time getting all the curses gone quickly enough. They also do not get to save VP cards until the end. Instead if you can kill off the deck entirely before the penultimate curse, you buy a curse, wait a turn, give it to them, and then play 4 Masqs to kill off the copper for a win as above.
With no piles empty you need economy to buy something so you can end the game. For this you kill off the curses (buy em, pass em, and trash em). Then trash away copper until there are 3 left in deck. Buy the antepenultimate copper. They buy or do not buy a copper. You buy the (pen)ultimate copper. You buy an estate. You play Masq, pass an E, gain a C and buy the last copper if needed. They now have 1 VP and no
possible source of cash. You have $3. You can buy Silver and build back up.
End game is much trickier with Kc Pins, but there is virtually always a way to win after pinning a deck fully that does not have an easy out (e.g. Alms).