Ok, after I played this combo the first time in the
GokoDom I, I'm really interested in getting some in-depth look. Suppose there are no Attack cards in the kingdom, so you can play this combo safely. Just some thoughts how I think you should play:
1.) Denial Strategy
Let's assume other strong cards are on the board. How can you counter this? If you don't contest Hermits or Market Squares at all, you don't have to fear a 3-pile ending, but getting Provinces is really risky. If you don't get 5 Province until he triggers this combo, you're dead anyway and still he can get 3 Provinces and 5 Duchies and win, so you really need 6 Provinces in that time and most combos aren't that fast. So I don't think that's viable most of the times.
But I still think a denial strategy might be possible. You have to either contest the Hermits or the Market Squares. If Market Square is the only source of cheap +Buy contesting those could work out. If you can get 6-7 Market Squares really fast, this combo will have problems with only 4-5 Buys and not much Gold. Market Squares probably won't hurt your deck that much, but you still have to be careful not to lose too much speed. You probably need one Hermit yourself, but only to get a lot Market Squares and get some Gold with them while you keep building your engine.
Contesting the Hermits is probably the better option as you can't set the combo up without Hermit, but the cases when this works are probably still rare. Because when you pick up lots of Hermits - faster than your opponent - you're half on the way on setting this combo by yourself.
2.) Mirror Match
In a mirror match you all play for a mega turn. This means you want to end the game when you trigger this. But as none of you gets any points before that and Hermits and Market Square will run out, it's all about winning with one point and 3-pile. 3-piling Estates is the most obvious thing. If you have an even split, then you need 1 Hermit and 4 Madmen to trigger this which means that you have only 6 buys with 5 Market Squares. You could gain 1 Estate with that one Hermit that you can trash to trigger the Market Squares. Still you're one buy short. So if there's any source of +Buy you should really get it. It's not that important to have enough money as you only need $14 to 3-pile the estates. As long as you have at least 5 Hermits and enough buys you're safe.
Another possibility would be to trigger this earlier to get as many points and Gold as you can get. That's tricky because you probably won't have enough money for that. You will probably get 5 Golds only which means only $22 and 6 buys. If you focus on that you should try to get some Golds while setting this up and wait until you have enough for 4 Provinces which means 3 Golds and one Copper for $32. After you've bought 4 Provinces you could safely try to 3-pile the Estates afterwards.
Comments?
