I would love to hear how some of the top-ranked players would've played this one. I clearly made some mistakes, with a bishop buy that never really did me any good (I was hoping to trash some golds late for extra vp), and I got so caught up in the governor rush early that I didn't get a tournament, and being able to snag an early prize would been huge.
This set is clearly too complex to "solve". A lot depends on how things develop during the game. I'll just add my 52 cents of intuition.
first thoughts on the set: WHOWA
1) I see minions supported by tournaments, pawns, shanty towns, markets
2) I see governors with militia, also with tournaments and markets.
plan 2) is stronger then 1) and the combination is a bit awkward. So my plan is to get lots of governors and skip the minions.
* I'd open silver/masquerade. That's what I almost always do when I see masq, and I think it's good here as well. I like the way I can slowly start trashing and have the safe route to money in the process to get good cards.
* The next round almost always includes destroying an estate and buying for 4 & 5. That will be governor - militia. If I hit 3/6 it'll be shanty town - governor. If opponent militia blocks that I'll get some tournaments. No way I'm buying any money the rest of the game.
From this point on a lot depends on shuffle luck and what my opponent does. I want to load up on governors, but the real focus is on getting rid of the bad cards.
I want to go "governors - shanty town - militia - more stuff" asap. This "more stuff" after the discard will get more and more important as the game builds up. It will be problematic for my opponent, because he needs to keep cards to 1) profit from my remodelling after militia 2) give me something bad in case of a masq 3) start up his own turn. 4) profit from a possible bishop 5) keep a province to block my tournaments. Thats a lot with 3 cards!
Off course winning the tournaments can have a huge impact. followers is not as strong as usual, because you already have the militia and the curse is not that much worse then the estate. At that point you should be drawing your deck or at least close to, and masq destroys a curse for the same price it destroys an estate. Princess feels important, and trusty steed is also very nice of course. Bag of gold combines nicely with bishop.
Soooo many options... it just hurts. But if you get to the point that you remodel with a governor and your opponent doesn't have the cards to join in, I think you're winning. Don't dive into greening too soon, because an engine around bishop can *really* start scoring after a while. If you try to go for a long game, make sure not to get more then one province, or it just becomes too easy for him to end on provinces before your engine really kicks in. This is only important if he tries to ignore the engine potential of this set, not very likely.