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[antony]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201202/06/game-20120206-021951-7154220e.html
1/ What is your opening choice on 4/3 with: Caravan, Chancellor, Chapel, Coppersmith, Duchess, Embargo, Fool's Gold, Lookout, Minion, and Noble Brigand.
2/ panda goes for NB, then Minions, aren't these two slightly contradictory?
3/ Anyways, I decide to avoid having to mirror the minion rush by embargoing them... then take a 3-1 lead in Provinces, at the cost of horribly slowing down my deck.  Now my opp embargoes NB () so I have an easy endgame by embargoing Provinces.

[DStu]

I think in principle one might think about NB for the Minion to pollute a Minion-engine with Copper, but probably not that early. But the longer I think about it the worse the idea gets.

The two interesting cards here a Fool's Gold and Minion, both supported by trashing and threatend by the Embargo. There is no +buy, which would really let me go for the FG. There's also no Village, so Lookout has the advantage that you can play it before cycling with the Minion, and that probably your start is a little bit faster than with Chapel, which  might help with the Minion-split. But I'm not sure with that.
So for some the sake of unconventionalness, I would maybe start Embargo/Lookout. Embargoing FG (or maybe Silver when the oponent trashes heavily, and I get an early Minion, in which case we need another Embargo for FG)

edit: Of course with the Embargo around, going for Minion is also dangerous. But next to FG and Minion the board is soooo booooring, and BM is threatend by the NB and Minion and FG. Probably best is really playing Caravan/BM, ambargoing NB and keeping a tactical Embargo in the deck to embargo Minion or Fool's Gold if someone wants to go for them (in the case it is not already done). So actually not boring at all, from this point of view..

[ackack]

If you're going for any sort of Big Money you really need to embargo both FG and Minion. Chapel + either will be quite strong, even without +buy. Chapel/Minion is probably more robust against a single Embargo - once you've thinned and have mostly Minions, it will be pretty easy to end each turn with Chapel and Curse in hand. But the flipside of that is that Chapel/FG is quicker to get going, so if your opponent does not lay down the Embargo on that as early as possible you can probably get pretty strong quickly.

So basically this seems like a set where what your opponent does is crucial to making the right decision. I'd say Chapel/Minion is the correct plan against an Embargoing opponent, but if your opponent has missed the Embargo idea Chapel/FG is better.

[RisingJaguar]

Ditto the Chapel/minion being strong against embargoed Minions.  If he plays that properly (only minions, I'm thinking it disrupts you enough to beat out.  Also, minion player has to opportunity to embargo Gold so that could severely hinder you as well. 

Why Coppersmith?

[Jorbles]

If someone is willing to buy through the Embargoed Minions to get their engine going, as the majority of people seem to be suggesting is worth it with the Chapel, wouldn't you just Embargo the Minions again? A Noble Brigand can disrupt this strategy even further as it can be used to push Coppers into their deck further weakening Minions. A Lookout could help with this, but it's risky. In a slimmed deck drawing Minion/Minion/Minion with your Lookout becomes a likely painful possibility.

A single Embargo would probably be enough to shutdown the FGs. I think DStu is probably right and that the strongest strategy is actually to play a BMU variant, though this too is vulnerable to an Embargo on the Golds, though getting a Gold would probably be worth the Curse if your opponent was looking at getting Embargoed, and then Double-Embargoed Minions.

[ackack]

If someone is willing to buy through the Embargoed Minions to get their engine going, as the majority of people seem to be suggesting is worth it with the Chapel, wouldn't you just Embargo the Minions again?

What you're hoping to achieve with Embargoing the Minions is slowing them down at the beginning. As such, yeah, if you can get 2 Embargoes up relatively quickly, it's worth a shot. But once they've thinned and have multiple Minions it's really not likely to be that big of a difference. A deck of a few Minions, Chapel and 2 Curses should be able to get $5 and trash 2 Curses quite reliably while keeping you at 4 cards a hand every turn.

added: Similarly, while Noble Brigand will slowly pump Coppers into the Minion deck, that's unlikely to be a big deal unless the opponent has pursued something like a Chapel/Noble Brigand strategy. Otherwise I'd imagine the penalty for having a +$1 terminal as a major component of your deck more than makes up for the attack.