Here's a game in which many notable things occured. To start, we will note the kingdom cards in play, as is how most game reports begin:
cards in supply: Farming Village, Fishing Village, Hamlet, Island, Minion, Pearl Diver, Quarry, Rabble, Treasury, and WorkshopNow, I looked at this and thought "Fishing Village, Treasury, Minion. That's my strategy sorted". I decided that if I was going for a Minion engine, I'd need some light trashing so I decided to hammer the Islands early to get as many starting cards as I could out of my deck before putting my engine together. I opened Fishing Village/Farming Village (double-village opening, what?) in order to have the actions to play my Islands. On reflection I probably should have opened Fishing Village/Fishing Village or Fishing Village/Island as the Farming Village doesn't contribute to the Minion engine at all and probably slows down my Islanding by skipping over the cards which are highest on my priority list for setting aside. I didn't open Silver because I wanted as little dead-weight as possible in my eventual Minion deck and I could get $ from Fishing Village anyway.
I quickly realised that with Fishing Village, Minion AND Treasure contributing to my final plans, I was going to have a lot of money, so on turn 5 I picked up a Hamlet over Fishing Village with $3 as it was the only +buy on the table. I proceeded to blast through the Island stack, setting aside as many starting cards as possible and picking up Fishing Villages whenever I fell short of $4. On my turn 12 I hit my first $6 hand, which was also my first $5 hand. "Brilliant", I thought, "now I can start picking up Minions and this will be over in no time at all". I looked at the Minion stack and was horrified to see only 3 remaining. I needed to change my plan fast, and considering my opponent had 7 Minions, I didn't feel too confident that I could change it fast enough to do anything meaningful. I picked up a Gold as Fishing Villages alone were not producing huge amounts of money. Afterall, it was turn 12 and I'd only just hit $5 for the first time!
I soon got a grasp on my new plan as I noticed just how many spare actions my Fishing/Farming Villages were creating for me. I looked at the kingdom cards available thinking "maybe there's a terminal that can pull me out of this", and sure enough the only meaningful terminal available was a +3 card terminal: Rabble. I had to go for it. I wasn't too upset about the lack of choice because I love playing action chains and with all the spare actions I had, that was inevitable with Rabble. I ignored VPs for the next few turns and by the end of turn 15 I'd picked up 4 Rabbles (thanks to my early foresight in needing a Hamlet for +buy) and my opponent was just picking up his third Province.
I was behind but it wasn't all over yet. I could still remember the 6 Islands I rushed earlier and realised that this meant, despite the fact I was 3-0 down on Provinces, I wasn't actually too far behind. I kicked my deck into gear. with a load of cards Islanded away, and Fishing Villages only being in my deck every other turn, I had a very slim deck which allowed me to get all four Rabbles out reliably. The game finished on turn 20 with me picking up 4 of the remaining 5 provinces and 3 Duchys to boot (thanks to my Hamlet!) to take a commanding lead and steal victory from the jaws of defeat 48 - 37.
Now, why did my opponent's 7-Minion engine shut down for the last 5 turns of the game? Rabble. Each time he came to the table he'd do what you always do with a Minion engine: Play all but 1 Minions for money, discard and draw 4... Then he was in trouble. After 4 Rabble hits, the top 2-3 cards of his deck were all green. That only left him with 1-2 card with which to find a Minion to carry on his chain. I feel that the usually weak attack portion of Rabble is what bought me the time I needed to pull back from a 3-0 Province defecit, and I was pretty proud of this game.
So yeah. The point of this game report: You can open double-village, let your opponent get a 7-0 Minion lead, go 3-0 down in Provinces and still win.
Usual disclaimers: Neither of us played optimally. My opponent was level 5 so I was always favourite to win (and when I say "always" I mean "before I went 7-0 down on Minions"). etc. etc.
