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[NoMoreFun]

Playing masquerade with an empty hand allows you to trash an opponent's card, and combined with cards such as Goons and King's Court, can allow you to reduce your opponent's hand size to nothing. These combos are more of a curiosity than a strategy, but the challenge here is to see how quickly they can be set up. With perfect shuffle luck, what's the quickest you can set up a masquerade pin?

Rules:
You may use any combination of cards to set up the "pin" (defined as being able to reliably leave the opponent with an empty hand every turn)
You do not have to prove that you can win the game, only that you can pin the opponent
Normal Dominion rules apply

To get you started, a sample pin is your entire deck consisting of:
Village/Militia/King's Court/Masquerade

Or if you want to be a bit cleverer:
Minion/Throne Room/Throne Room/Outpost/Masquerade

[blueblimp]

Definitely it's possible to do better than this, but to get started, here's one that first hits on turn 8:

Open Quarry/Chapel.

Shuffle to HCEEE QCCCC CC (where H indicates Chapel).
T3: Trash CEEE.
T4: Buy King's Court.

Shuffle to CCHCC QKCC.
T5: Don't play Chapel; buy Bridge.

Shuffle to QKCCB HCCCC.
T6: KC your Bridge. Together with the Quarry, that's -$5 on actions, $6 to spend, and 4 buys. Buy KC, Margrave, Masquerade.
T7: Trash CCCC.

Shuffle to KKRHM QCCB. (R indicates Margrave. M indicates Masquerade.)
T8: KC KC Margrave, then Chapel to trash QCCB, then Masquerade to complete the pin.

[NoMoreFun]

Definitely it's possible to do better than this, but to get started, here's one that first hits on turn 8:

Open Quarry/Chapel.

Shuffle to HCEEE QCCCC CC (where H indicates Chapel).
T3: Trash CEEE.
T4: Buy King's Court.

Shuffle to CCHCC QKCC.
T5: Don't play Chapel; buy Bridge.

Shuffle to QKCCB HCCCC.
T6: KC your Bridge. Together with the Quarry, that's -$5 on actions, $6 to spend, and 4 buys. Buy KC, Margrave, Masquerade.
T7: Trash CCCC.

Shuffle to KKRHM QCCB. (R indicates Margrave. M indicates Masquerade.)
T8: KC KC Margrave, then Chapel to trash QCCB, then Masquerade to complete the pin.

So elegant, and actually quite robust too
Well done setting the standard

[zahlman]

Or if you want to be a bit cleverer:
Minion/Throne Room/Throne Room/Outpost/Masquerade

I don't think that actually works, though.

I assume the idea is: Minion, opponent is down to 4 cards. TR-TR-Outpost-Masquerade (A), pass nothing twice and trash the return. On outpost turn, MTTA, trash the remaining two cards in opponent's hand.

But what if you draw TTA on the Outpost turn? Now however you play it, you'll draw the Minion with the Masquerade before you can actually play the Minion, and thus you'll be compelled to pass it.

If it did work, though, I think you could do something like this:


Open Quarry/Woodcutter. Shuffle to QWCCC / CCCEE / CE.
QWCCC, buy Minion and Outpost.
CCCEE, buy Chapel (H). Draw CE and reshuffle to HEE / OCCCC + QWC / CM.
CEHEE, trash CEEE.
OCCCC, play Outpost, buy Throne Room. Outpost turn, QWC, buy TR and Masquerade (A). Draw CM and reshuffle to TTO / HQWC / ACC / CC.
CMTTO. Play TTOM, attack and draw HQWC, trash QWC. Outpost turn, ACC, Masquerade draws CC, pass C and trash return. Reshuffle to HCCCC / MATTO.
HCCCC, trash CCCC.
MATTO, with just H in discard and empty deck. Opponent will have a 1-card turn this turn (being gifted the Chapel) and will be pinned from then on.

[Captain_Frisk]

Or if you want to be a bit cleverer:
Minion/Throne Room/Throne Room/Outpost/Masquerade

I don't think that actually works, though.

I assume the idea is: Minion, opponent is down to 4 cards. TR-TR-Outpost-Masquerade (A), pass nothing twice and trash the return. On outpost turn, MTTA, trash the remaining two cards in opponent's hand.

But what if you draw TTA on the Outpost turn? Now however you play it, you'll draw the Minion with the Masquerade before you can actually play the Minion, and thus you'll be compelled to pass it.

One of the throne rooms is pinned to the outpost.

[zahlman]

One of the throne rooms is pinned to the outpost.

Ah, OK, I never can remember just how that works. See edit for my solution, then.

[qmech]

I think the rule is that every TR/KC that is used to play a Duration stays on the table.  In particular, you can minimise the number of TR/KC's you lose by playing your three Wharfs on the same KC.

[jomini]

Here is one in 7 turns (6 if we can specify that "perfect shuffle luck" means the opponent will not draw an attack or masq card on T6):
T1 – buy xroads
T2 – buy Cr; reshuffle
T3 – XCrEEE: X (+3 cards/actions) -> Cr; buy forge; reshuffle
T4 – XEEECr: X (+3 cards/actions) -> Cr -> F (E+E+CCCC to Militia); buy masq; reshuffle
T5 – XECrMqC: X (+1 card – F/+3 actions) -> Mq (+2 cards - CC, trash a C) -> F (Cr+E+CC to Kc); draw Mi; reshuffle
T6 – XMiKcMqF: X (+3 actions) -> Mi -> Kc -> Mq (pass F, trash 3 in bound cards); reshuffle
T7 – XMiKcMq: X (+3 actions) -> Mi -> Kc -> Mq (trash 3 in bound cards); reshuffle

[sffc]

There seems to be another pin possible involving Outpost and Throne Room: Fishing Village, Outpost, Minion, Throne Room, Masquerade.

How?
A. Normal Turn: Play Fishing Village.  Play Outpost.  Play Minion (for the attack).  Then Throne the Masquerade, passing nothing and trashing all that you receive.
B. Outpost Turn: Start with Outpost and Fishing Village in play as durations.  Play Minion (for the money).  Then Throne the Masquerade, passing nothing and trashing all that you receive.
C. Rinse and repeat.

Better yet, here's a way to achieve this deck by the end of turn 6, using only the cards involved in the pin.  The trick: use TR/Masq to trash your starting deck, and use Minion to cycle it so that you can play that combo every turn.  No KC madness!

Opening: Throne Room, Masquerade.
3. Draw Throne, Masq, Estate, Estate, Copper.  Throne the Masq, trashing 2 Estates and drawing 4 Coppers.  Buy a Minion.
4. Draw Copper, Copper, Estate, {reshuffle} Minion, Copper.  Play Minion for the attack; draw Throne, Masq, Copper, Copper.  Throne the Masq, first drawing 2 Coppers and trashing one, and then, after reshuffle, drawing a Copper and an Estate and trashing the Estate.  Buy a Fishing Village.
5. Draw Copper, Copper, {reshuffle} Fishing Village, Throne, Masq.  Play Fishing Village.  Throne the Masq, trashing 2 Coppers and drawing 4 Coppers.  Buy an Outpost, which you can afford thanks to Fishing Village's +$1.
6. Draw Minion, {reshuffle} Outpost, Throne, Masq, Copper.  Play Outpost.  Throne the Masq, drawing 3 Coppers and trashing 2 of them.
6.5. Draw Throne, Masq, Copper.  Throne the Masq, which will cycle your deck again, allowing you to trash the remaining two Coppers.
7. Violΰ!

[eHalcyon]

There seems to be another pin possible involving Outpost and Throne Room: Fishing Village, Outpost, Minion, Throne Room, Masquerade.

This was already known, and is actually mentioned in the OP, albeit they use another TR instead of a FV.

[sffc]

There seems to be another pin possible involving Outpost and Throne Room: Fishing Village, Outpost, Minion, Throne Room, Masquerade.

This was already known, and is actually mentioned in the OP, albeit they use another TR instead of a FV.

Indeed; hence, another pin involving Outpost and Throne Room, the first being the one in the OP.  A nice thing about swapping out TR for a FV is that FV gives you the money you need on turn 5 to buy the Outpost, which TR can't do by itself.  (Although, Minion could possibly be used for the extra money.)

[eHalcyon]

There seems to be another pin possible involving Outpost and Throne Room: Fishing Village, Outpost, Minion, Throne Room, Masquerade.

This was already known, and is actually mentioned in the OP, albeit they use another TR instead of a FV.

Indeed; hence, another pin involving Outpost and Throne Room, the first being the one in the OP.  A nice thing about swapping out TR for a FV is that FV gives you the money you need on turn 5 to buy the Outpost, which TR can't do by itself.  (Although, Minion could possibly be used for the extra money.)

The FV doesn't make it distinct though -- it's still TR-Minion-Outpost that is the core.  If you count FV as a distinct pin, will you count every other Village as distinct as well?  They all fulfill the same purpose.  Using double TR instead of a Village is a more practical way to consider the pin, because then it is a 3-card combo (the village is unnecessary).

[sffc]

It's TR-Minion-Outpost-Masquerade at the core, so it's a four-card combo.  And Fishing Village is unique from other villages in that it is a duration card, so it works with the 3-card Outpost turn.  Although, now to think of it, because of Minion's cycling ability, any village would technically work in the pin, because if you don't draw TR and Masquerade together on the outpost turn, you can play Minion for the attack and ensure that you do draw them together.  Depending on setup, having a village may be more convenient than two Throne Rooms in order tighten the deck, and additionally, choosing TR vs. FV vs. something else does make the mechanics of the pin slightly different.  So, we could generalize it to a pin "family" of ThroneRoom + Minion + Outpost + Masquerade + X, where X is any action-doubler (whether a village, Throne Room, or even King's Court).

[jomini]

I'm not sure why this is in spoilers; I've already listed all the current possible pin components before:
1. Masq
2. A way to play multiple dead Masqs (Tr, Kc, Golem*, Op)
3. A way to lower the size of the opponents' hands (Militia, Minion, Margrave, Followers, Ghost Ship, Goonrs, Cut Purse**, B-Crat **)
4. A way to chain the above together.

Component 3 can be skipped with either Kc/Masq/Op or some estoric Golem/Nv/Kc/Masq pins. Component 4 can be just about anything. All non-golem pins play basically the same way - play component 4, play component 3 (if present), play component 2 (if it differs from 4), play the masq. Using golems require that you discard masqs so you can draw them out of the discard (e.g. hamlet (discard masq x2) -> golem (masq, masq) can play two dead masqs).
* Native village can be combined with golem for multiple sequences of dead masqs; however I see no way to reliably build such a pin engine before the game is over in the vast majority of chances for it.
** Cutpurse and B-crat will work IFF, the opponent has enough of coppers/green in deck (and hand) that you can reliably pin them. B-crat also has to find a way to deal with a silver flood (e.g. Watchtower works well). Both of these are of limited use, but you can pull pins off with them if you get lucky.

[razorborne]

T1: CCCCE, Shanty Town (S) (5/11 cards)
T2: CCCEE, Chapel (H) (0/12, shuffle)
T3: EEECS, play S, draw CH, H, trash EEEC (5/8)
T4: CCCCC, militia (M) (0/9, shuffle)
T5: CCCCS, play S, draw CM, play M, King's Court (K) (2/10, shuffle)
T6: CCCCH, play H, trash CCCC (5/6)
T7: CCSMK, play K, use M, Masquerade (Q) (0/7, shuffle)
T8: SMKQC, play S, play M, play K, use Q, draw HC, pass HCC, trash all incoming (0/4, shuffle)
T9: pin.

not the fastest, just wanted to see how close I could get. now I'm gonna go read the faster ones.

[wuthefwasthat]

I'm not sure why this is in spoilers; I've already listed all the current possible pin components before:
1. Masq
2. A way to play multiple dead Masqs (Tr, Kc, Golem*, Op)
3. A way to lower the size of the opponents' hands (Militia, Minion, Margrave, Followers, Ghost Ship, Goonrs, Cut Purse**, B-Crat **)
4. A way to chain the above together.

Component 3 can be skipped with either Kc/Masq/Op or some estoric Golem/Nv/Kc/Masq pins. Component 4 can be just about anything. All non-golem pins play basically the same way - play component 4, play component 3 (if present), play component 2 (if it differs from 4), play the masq. Using golems require that you discard masqs so you can draw them out of the discard (e.g. hamlet (discard masq x2) -> golem (masq, masq) can play two dead masqs).
* Native village can be combined with golem for multiple sequences of dead masqs; however I see no way to reliably build such a pin engine before the game is over in the vast majority of chances for it.
** Cutpurse and B-crat will work IFF, the opponent has enough of coppers/green in deck (and hand) that you can reliably pin them. B-crat also has to find a way to deal with a silver flood (e.g. Watchtower works well). Both of these are of limited use, but you can pull pins off with them if you get lucky.

It's also now technically possible to pull off a pin with, say, (King's Court + Scheme + ) Fortune Teller + Governor/Council Room + Pillage + Graverobber, if your opponent has enough green in deck.

Edit: Also, I just happened to recently play a very fast (8th turn) pin in an actual game:  http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/12/game-20120812-230102-73dbc458.html

[WanderingWinder]

It's also possible to (sometimes) end the game whilst pinned now, with ruins being another pile you can buy out for free.

[jomini]

I'm not sure why this is in spoilers; I've already listed all the current possible pin components before:
1. Masq
2. A way to play multiple dead Masqs (Tr, Kc, Golem*, Op)
3. A way to lower the size of the opponents' hands (Militia, Minion, Margrave, Followers, Ghost Ship, Goonrs, Cut Purse**, B-Crat **)
4. A way to chain the above together.

Component 3 can be skipped with either Kc/Masq/Op or some estoric Golem/Nv/Kc/Masq pins. Component 4 can be just about anything. All non-golem pins play basically the same way - play component 4, play component 3 (if present), play component 2 (if it differs from 4), play the masq. Using golems require that you discard masqs so you can draw them out of the discard (e.g. hamlet (discard masq x2) -> golem (masq, masq) can play two dead masqs).
* Native village can be combined with golem for multiple sequences of dead masqs; however I see no way to reliably build such a pin engine before the game is over in the vast majority of chances for it.
** Cutpurse and B-crat will work IFF, the opponent has enough of coppers/green in deck (and hand) that you can reliably pin them. B-crat also has to find a way to deal with a silver flood (e.g. Watchtower works well). Both of these are of limited use, but you can pull pins off with them if you get lucky.

It's also now technically possible to pull off a pin with, say, (King's Court + Scheme + ) Fortune Teller + Governor/Council Room + Pillage + Graverobber, if your opponent has enough green in deck.

Edit: Also, I just happened to recently play a very fast (8th turn) pin in an actual game:  http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201208/12/game-20120812-230102-73dbc458.html

Not really. Pillage has several problems for the pin:
1. It gains 2 cards (spoils). These have to be trashed (e.g. watchtower) or played (black market) before you can play the masq.
2. Pillage can only ever leave the opponent with 4 cards. This is enough for a complex setup like Tr/Outpost or Kc/Golem, but it is not enough for a simple pin.

You mention trying to green load the opponent - fair enough. However this is self-defeating. Let's say you hit it perfectly every time and he has 4 greens/curses this hand. You discard his masq. He sends over his estates to be burned, keeps a province, and draws 5 new cards. His deck now contains 3 fewer green cards. Eventually, he will be able to slip the pin by playing his own masq (assuming he knows how to play against masq pins) or he will have 4 cards in deck and be able to end the game (e.g. IW).

So all told a pillage pin is somewhat viable with stronger more esoteric setups like Kc/Golem, but it really needs to do a LOT of things to make it work. With only Kc, I think it might be effectively a 5 or 6 card combo.

As a note, we normally refer to Kc/Masq (where you still get to play 2 cards) as a partial or pseudo-pins.

WW:
Dark ages has just been brutal to the pin. Foedum is a hard counter - I pass over a foedum and you either give it back to me, or trash it for 3 silvers and give me those. Squire, being non-optional means that any non-OP pin gets screwed in like manner as they must gain a militia (or whatever) to pass. I suspect that more of the on-trash-gain cards will exist and those will likewise make the pin less viable.

[zahlman]

Squire, being non-optional means that any non-OP pin gets screwed in like manner as they must gain a militia (or whatever) to pass.

Well... if Familiar is on board and the curses are out... (Or if there aren't any attacks, for that matter)

[jomini]

Zahlman:

Nope. Let's say I pass the squire. If you trash it the familiar shows up in your discard pile, not your hand. So you have to draw it (say with a masq) and then you have something to pass.

As the pin player, your best bet is to just play the squire on your one free Kc slot (assuming you have one, if you went village/militia/Kc/Masq you are screwed, if you already have a third action on a Kc/Kc/discard/Masq slot, you are also screwed). However that works only for the first squire, after that, you have to trash them and then you have a card in your discard to pass over.