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[methods of rationality]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/04/game-20120604-104934-51e15f3c.html
In this game we both go for young witch and tournament using warehouses to help activate the tournaments. Why do I get completely clobbered?

[ftl]

Compare your end-of-game decks. Your opponent had 5 tournaments, 3 warehouses, and 2 upgrades - all cards which help province/tournament collide in some form or another. You had 2 warehouses and 1 tournament and just one upgrade.

Your opponent just went much harder on the province/tournament pairing than you did. They opened YW/Silver, and did not buy a single other treasure until turn 11, buying tournaments, warehouses, and upgrades, and using the upgrades to create a few more silvers. You, on the other hand, opened YW/Woodcutter, and then bought more treasure on turns 4,5,6,7. It's no wonder that you were slower at cycling through your deck, matching up province and tournament!

It's certainly a fine line. Yuma got basically just the amount of treasure they needed to buy provinces, while still spending most of their buys on tournaments and enablers. It's certainly just as easy to fall into the opposite trap and not buy any money, but, well, that line's the place you need to find, and in this game you fell too far on the "buy more treasure than you want, then be unable to connect province and tournament because you have a Big Money deck and not an engine" side.

Oh, and that woodcutter cost you an early gold/upgrade, because it collided with the YW, didn't it?

[ehunt]

Lots of bad luck here. The woodcutter never moats the young witch; you'd expect it to do that at least once. It also collides with your only other terminal; you'd expect that not to happen. Of course, between two unlikely bad things, it's reasonable for at least one to occur, but when both occur, it's not your strategy's fault, and you should move on.

Also, normally there's some chance to come back from early bad luck like this, but not in a tournament game, because the win condition changes from "have the most points at the end of the game" to "draw a province and a tournament at the same time first." My recommendation here is to play in veto mode and veto tournament.

[Fabian]

The win condition thing is definitely not true and is hugely overblown by Tournament haters. I'm not as big a fan as some other people (hi chwhite), but the game is not over when someone connects the first Tournament (unless it's already (close to) over for non-Tournament reasons, which does happen of course). My most significant recent game like that was last week in the decisive game in the (2 player) final of an IRL league I've been playing in for the last 4 months, where my opponent got Followers and then Trusty Steed before I hit with my Tournament (which I did once in the lategame, for a Duchy, as did he). I won that one.

[WanderingWinder]

I just want to come in, as someone who hates tournament, and agree with Fabian here (please don't paint all of us who hate it with a broad brush ). And back it up with a little, not so conclusive, but interesting stats. The top 25 iso games that come up in my search for my games with tournament, where followers was gained, excluding ties and multiplayer games (which really change tournament's dynamic):
17/25 won by player with followers.
8/25 won by player without followers.
This is actually with almost an even split between games I won and those I lost. Anyway, that LOOKS like it's a huge skew, but keep in mind that you'd expect it to be 50-50 if getting followers didn't matter at all. And we know that it certainly does help. But you also have to add in that the player who gets followers was more likely already winning without it than the other guy. So it's definitely not a game-over thing, though it does help a lot.

[gorgonstar]

I don't like opening woodcutter on this board.  It is the bane, but you don't need the +buy.  Plus there's the risk of terminal collision, which you ran into. 

Woodcutter is a defensive buy, but I think a better strategy might have been to play offensively.  Warehouse would let you cycle and play the young witch and tournaments more more.  Silver gives you a good shot at buying an upgrade.

[ehunt]

I was being tournament-grumpy and hyperbolic. I do stand by the basic point that early bad luck in a tournament game snowballs much worse than it does in a "typical" game.

As for the woodcutter decision, I am uncertain. Woodcutter is about as good of a bane as moat, which is to say, not very good. I would have bought it, expecting one of two bad things to happen (terminal collision, not having woodcutter any of the first few times opponent plays young witch), but not both of them.