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[Wolphmaniac]

I've seen stuff about the glitch/death engine of King's Court/King's Court/Goons/Masquerade which forces your opponent to hand over his entire deck...but I've never heard anything about this next engine that I just stumbled into, and it did the same thing.  (And' it's easier to assemble.) 

The engine is: King's Court/Masquerade/Farming Village/Bishop.

First you play the FV.  (Having more than one is OK, just play them all to get them out of the way.)  Next, if you have anything else that has come into the hand from FV, trash it with Bishop.  (This is how you hone in on completing the engine...Bishop just keeps trashing whatever you have that isn't part of the engine.)  Finally, you are left with just KC/Masq in your hand, forcing the opponent to hand over three cards.  Trash the first two so you aren't giving any cards back.  On his third card, keep the card so you can play Bishop next turn and have something to trash that isn't your KC or Masq.  (And you get some bonus VP tokens to boot.)

I am pretty sure this engine leaves the opponent absolutely no outs.  Even if he can gain at least 3 cards per turn for a while, he eventually will not be able to.  You will obliterate his entire deck.

Thoughts?  And is this new or has someone found this before?  I haven't seen it anywhere but I certainly haven't read everything there is to read.     

Game log:
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201203/01/game-20120301-205427-9d79223e.html

(P.S. Chalkdust Torturer is my other handle.)

[Wolphmaniac]

It's not quiiiite as effective as KC/KC/Goons/Masq because your opponent still has a 2-card turn to play...but he's going to have to reduce his deck by three cards every turn.  So unless he can end the game on those 2-card turns, he has no outs.

[dondon151]

Generally anything involving KC-Masq is a partial pin, even without forcing the opponent to discard any cards prior to Masq being played.

[blueblimp]

Having played KC-Masq without support once (and I lost) and having it played against me once (and I won), I'm 100% sure that plain KC-Masq is really not very scary. It does force the other player to hurry up and either end the game or break the combo, but breaking the combo is really pretty easy: just hold on to a Masquerade and play that.

[Wolphmaniac]

breaking the combo is really pretty easy: just hold on to a Masquerade and play that.

That defense is not quite so easy against this engine because this engine can add extra Farming Villages that are both unnecessary to the engine AND don't hurt the engine at the same time.  So even if my opponent did the play-a-Masquerade defense I could just keep passing him my extraneous Farming Villages while I am breaking him down. Right?

[ftl]

Thing is, youre still leaving him with a 2 card hand. That's enough for KC-something. KC lab, or governor, or scrying pool, or hunting party, or maybe golem, let him play on completely normally. KC any cantrip gives you enough cards to start up an engine, at least. KC any gainer or plus buy restores the same number of cards which got destroyed, and might end the game on cheap piles pretty quick. And you're trashing bad cards for him.

 I bet the opponent can set up a counter pin AFTER being pinned himself. And you have obligingly trashed all the filler from your deck, so a single hit on you destroys your pin and your whole deck. Unless you keep around not just one, but many extra villages. Or even then.

I'm sure this can be a good strategy, but it's not as unstoppable as a pin that leaves you at a zero card hand. You have to either catch the opponent off guard, or go over the rest of the kingdom carefully to make sure that it's appropriate and doesn't provide a convenient escape via kc.

[Wolphmaniac]

Well-put ftl.  That all makes sense.  The conditions were right in that game I attached, but the ultimate success of the engine as a pin are definitely condition-reliant.  It CAN be a full pin, but if the opponent sees it coming or if other kingdom conditions apply, then it could also be a partial pin or it could even fail completely.  Best-case scenario is assembling the engine before the opponent gains a King's Court...you're most likely in good shape at that point...but even then, depending on the kingdom, there could be myriad ways that the opponent could play strongly through his 2-card hands.  In a kingdom with no +card action cards available, this engine would probably be a very strong strategy.  Thanks for the feedback!