I had a game this morning which went... absurdly well. Most of it was just shuffle luck on my part, but the big difference was that on a board with Sea Hag and Masquerade (and no other absurdly good $4 or $3 cards, and with both of us opening 4/3), he opened Sea Hag/Masquerade, while I opened Masquerade/Silver.
Was that the correct play? My thought was, any time he Sea Hags with my Masquerade in hand, I'm guaranteed to be able to return the curse to him, and, obviously, the Curses I miss immediately are fairly likely to eventually be returnable. Meanwhile, he has a deck with no buying power besides his opening 7 Copper, and only the effective +1 card of Masquerade to draw that, plus of course collisions and hands with Sea Hag lowering his buying power.
In the game as it turned out, on turn 3, I was able to Mint away 5 Coppers and rapidly bootstrap into Golds and Platinums. It was totally one-sided, but I got to wondering how it would have gone without the lucky 5 Copper hand on turn 3, or without Mint in the supply.
Anyone have any opinions?