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[gamesou]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120705-134207-eb8d3fb8.html

cards in supply: Counting House, Courtyard, Gardens, King's Court, Masquerade, Mining Village, Nobles, Remake, Scheme, and Stash

With no good target for KC, I decide to go for a Masquerade BM strategy enabled by a Remake.

I was really surprised how efficient is the KC/Masquerade pin, which my opponent could set up. Somehow I didn't really realize I got pinned, a big mistake. He destroyed all my cards and we both started buying coppers to recover, and this time I could pin him !!! However he Remade his 3 KC into the last 3 provinces to get the win, congratulations to him !

Now I have remarks and questions about that pin.

* First, once you destroy your opponent's deck, you have won for sure (I think). Kill coppers one by one until there are 4 remaining. Both players get 2, and the pinner car plays his masquerade to pass his KC and receive a copper. The pinned guy will not be able to buy any card.

* Question 1: does the KC/Masquerade pin beats Masquerade BM ? I would say no, but I'm not sure. The Masquerade player has to empty the Provinces very quick (no time for 3-piling). Note that the correct play is counterintuitive: the card you should pass to the pinner with highest priority is Province !

* Question 2: assuming the anwser to Q1 is yes, how do you play this game ? Who wins a pin war ? My intuition is that there is a kind of zugzwang here, but I'm not sure ...

[Morgrim7]

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120705-134207-eb8d3fb8.html

cards in supply: Counting House, Courtyard, Gardens, King's Court, Masquerade, Mining Village, Nobles, Remake, Scheme, and Stash

With no good target for KC, I decide to go for a Masquerade BM strategy enabled by a Remake.

I was really surprised how efficient is the KC/Masquerade pin, which my opponent could set up. Somehow I didn't really realize I got pinned, a big mistake. He destroyed all my cards and we both started buying coppers to recover, and this time I could pin him !!! However he Remade his 3 KC into the last 3 provinces to get the win, congratulations to him !

Now I have remarks and questions about that pin.

* First, once you destroy your opponent's deck, you have won for sure (I think). Kill coppers one by one until there are 4 remaining. Both players get 2, and the pinner car plays his masquerade to pass his KC and receive a copper. The pinned guy will not be able to buy any card.

* Question 1: does the KC/Masquerade pin beats Masquerade BM ? I would say no, but I'm not sure. The Masquerade player has to empty the Provinces very quick (no time for 3-piling). Note that the correct play is counterintuitive: the card you should pass to the pinner with highest priority is Province !

* Question 2: assuming the anwser to Q1 is yes, how do you play this game ? Who wins a pin war ? My intuition is that there is a kind of zugzwang here, but I'm not sure ...

Q1: If you know how to set up the KC-Masq pin, it is all a matter of shuffle luck; because once you set up the pin, that is gg.
Q2: How do you play this game? Probably the masq pin, just like you did. Who wins? The first player to set up the pin.

[gamesou]

Q1: If you know how to set up the KC-Masq pin, it is all a matter of shuffle luck; because once you set up the pin, that is gg.
Q2: How do you play this game? Probably the masq pin, just like you did. Who wins? The first player to set up the pin.

I don't agree. Your comments are valid for the hard version of the pin (KC/KC/discard attack/Masquerade). With the soft version (KC/Masquerade), it's not clearly gg when you set it up, and the opponent may also set up his own pin.

An option here is to go for Masquerade/BM, and possibly switch into the pin by buying a KC if things start to turn badly.

[Morgrim7]

Q1: If you know how to set up the KC-Masq pin, it is all a matter of shuffle luck; because once you set up the pin, that is gg.
Q2: How do you play this game? Probably the masq pin, just like you did. Who wins? The first player to set up the pin.

I don't agree. Your comments are valid for the hard version of the pin (KC/KC/discard attack/Masquerade). With the soft version (KC/Masquerade), it's not clearly gg when you set it up, and the opponent may also set up his own pin.

Oh, yeah, oops. But still, as long as you KC the masq last, you are trashing three of their cards each turn. So a 2 card hand, which probably consists of the VP's they didn't want to trash, and some other useful cards. if you keep this up, their 2 card hands will eventually turn into a 2 card deck.

[gamesou]

Oh, yeah, oops. But still, as long as you KC the masq last, you are trashing three of their cards each turn. So a 2 card hand, which probably consists of the VP's they didn't want to trash, and some other useful cards. if you keep this up, their 2 card hands will eventually turn into a 2 card deck.

Right. But if this 2-card deck is KC/Masquerade, they win !

[Morgrim7]

Oh, yeah, oops. But still, as long as you KC the masq last, you are trashing three of their cards each turn. So a 2 card hand, which probably consists of the VP's they didn't want to trash, and some other useful cards. if you keep this up, their 2 card hands will eventually turn into a 2 card deck.

Right. But if this 2-card deck is KC/Masquerade, they win !

No, a) It doesn't have to be 2 cards, you can add a KC and 2 other cards, like maybe Monument. b) If you are reducing them down to a 2 card deck, and giving them turns consisting of only 2 cards (that are most likely the cards they want to save, i.e. Provinces), I don't think they will be able to do much. And you can keep going with the pin until they promise to resign next turn.

[qmech]

The suggestion was that if the pinnee is reduced to a 2 card deck of KC/Masquerade then they can use that to wreck your pin.  I'm still not sure that's true because they shouldn't reduce your deck below KC/Masquerade on the next turn, and then you can trash their last two cards on your next turn.

[blueblimp]

My experience with the semi-pin is that it's usually bad, because the victim can generally 3-pile before losing his deck entirely. Here though, with no gainers or +buys, and with good conditions for setting up KC-Masq quickly, it might be the strongest thing here.

Note though that by turn 20, he's (correctly) so afraid of Masq that he's actually buying a Copper each turn, reducing him to only trashing 2 of your cards per turn. So this is pretty slow.

I wonder how you would have fared by having a more focused BM+X gameplan, like just going BM+Courtyard or BM+Masquerade, instead of doing a Remake/Masq opening.

[gamesou]

Ah, thanks for your comments ! I missed a point: if the pinner plays action cards (eg cantrips) before KC/Masquerade, these extra cards act as a shield against counter-pin. So if there is a pin war, maybe the player with the most cantrips win ?

Re my first question, it seems that plain Masquerade BM can actually defeat the pin (I tried it on a sample game), but the pinnee should pass provinces to the pinner. There are plenty of unlcear decisions: should the pinnee trash coppers with his masquerade ? trash provinces ? Should the pinner buy a second masquerade ? a third masquerade ?

The pinner has to keep an extra card to defense against the pinnee's masquerade, but with good deck-tracking he may do it only when necessary.

log: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/07/game-20120707-075635-d392e215.html