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[tolenmar]

From the Dominion Wiki:

The key to the combo is that you trash down to a four-card hand of King's Court, King's Court, Goons, and Masquerade. Playing King's Court – King's Court – Goons reduces your opponent to 3 cards; now, playing a (Kinged) Masquerade forces him to pass you a card. But since you have no more cards in hand, you can’t pass him anything, but you can still trash the cards he gives you. Three times.

I don't get it.  With Masquerade, there is no point where you have no card in hand to give your opponent, because of masq's +2 cards.  The extra draw is before you hand cards to your opponent, so how is this supposed to work?

[GendoIkari]

You get it to where you have no more cards in your draw or discard piles. That's what it means by "trash down to a four-card hand".. it means trashing all but those 4 cards from your deck. However, you can also do it by having played the rest of your cards first; so you can have any number of other cards in your deck as long as you can play them all before you leave yourself with just King's Court, King's Court, Goons, and Masquerade.

[tolenmar]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

I knew I had to be missing something important, after all it wouldnt be a killer combo otherwise.
Thanks!

[GendoIkari]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

I knew I had to be missing something important, after all it wouldnt be a killer combo otherwise.
Thanks!

Yeah, I guess it could be clearer, but I think the "trash down" part was supposed to let you know that it meant that you would trash cards until your hand each turn was just those 4 cards. If it were just about getting 4 cards in hand, it wouldn't need to talk about trashing.

[Davio]

I once played a game where I trashed down to KC-KC-KC-KC-Masq.

So I would string the KCs together first and then play Masq to trash my opponent's deck (fortunately he didn't have Masq).

The question is: How do you turn a situation like this into a win instead of an actual stalemate?
Well, obviously starting with 4 KC's against a deck of 0 cards you can use some time to build up, buy 3 Coppers, eventually Silver or Woodcutter or something, etc...

In the game I referenced I purchased 4 Coppers and a Remake and there were only 4 Provinces left...

[Morgrim7]

That is why, if you ever get the chance, buy some +cash and keep it in your deck. You'll want it later.

[tolenmar]

See, all of that makes more sense.
I was playing solitaire, trying to make the pin work, and the combo was effective, but I could never empty my hand enough to fully pull off the combo.

For most of the game, my "opponent" was stuck with $4 or less most turns, but I also had cutpurses and mountebanks to fill up his deck with junk or make him discard some of his money each turn.

[StrongRhino]

That's what I thought when I first saw it. It also works with a 5th card, I found Monument is good for those VP tokens.

[tolenmar]

Of course, the bottom line here is that I just want to try and pull it on my regular gaming group... 

[eHalcyon]

Of course, the bottom line here is that I just want to try and pull it on my regular gaming group... 

That will be much harder to do if you are playing 3p or 4p.  The pin only really works in 2p because you can only pin one player (the one to your left, to whom you would be passing).  With more players, the others will still have hands and probably be able to crush your or break your pin with their own Masquerade or discard attack.  Or just use their hands to buy Provinces and win.

[tolenmar]

Yeah, I know, but I play a lot of 2p games throughout the week against each one individually.

[michaeljb]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

People saying "hand" when they mean "deck" has always been a Dominion pet peeve of mine

[Kuildeous]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

People saying "hand" when they mean "deck" has always been a Dominion pet peeve of mine

I better keep my offdecked comments to myself before you hand me.

[jaybeez]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

People saying "hand" when they mean "deck" has always been a Dominion pet peeve of mine

I find that people often get Dominion nomenclature confused.  I have heard people say "gold" instead of coin ("I play a Woodcutter for plus two gold and a buy"), and "deck" instead of kingdom/board/whatever ("Oh, this looks like an interesting deck, this should be a fun game!")  I've heard people refer to Victory cards as "land cards" (former Magic players maybe?) which kind of makes sense but then again, those cards do say "Victory" right on them.  I even heard someone call his draw deck his "hand" and his discard pile his "deck" which was beyond confusing.

[SirPeebles]

People usually don't see the pin coming, and can be confused by you trashing away your deck.  I'm sure your friend will find your deckjob curious at first, but just wait until you reach the climax.

[tolenmar]

ROFL.

This is why I love reading these boards.

[blueblimp]

The question is: How do you turn a situation like this into a win instead of an actual stalemate?

Assume no pile is empty yet. Here is a procedure for guaranteeing a win.

First empty curses by buying them and trashing them. Then, it'll be enough to empty the copper pile, with 2 for yourself, while keeping your opponent at <=1 copper, since then you can buy out estates for the win (although it may take a while!).

To do this, buy & trash coppers until, at the end of your turn, there are exactly 3 left in the pile and none in your opponent's deck. On your next turn, use Masq to leave yourself with >=1 copper and your opponent with none, depending on whether he bought a copper (this is always possible since either you or your opponent will have copper, but only at most 2 between you); then buy a copper. Now you'll have 2 coppers, your opponent 0, and there's 1 or 0 in the pile. Your opponent can choose to buy that copper or not, but it doesn't matter.

[Awaclus]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

People saying "hand" when they mean "deck" has always been a Dominion pet peeve of mine

I find that people often get Dominion nomenclature confused.  I have heard people say "gold" instead of coin ("I play a Woodcutter for plus two gold and a buy"), and "deck" instead of kingdom/board/whatever ("Oh, this looks like an interesting deck, this should be a fun game!")  I've heard people refer to Victory cards as "land cards" (former Magic players maybe?) which kind of makes sense but then again, those cards do say "Victory" right on them.  I even heard someone call his draw deck his "hand" and his discard pile his "deck" which was beyond confusing.

"I use this Workshop to buy a Silver" is a common line here.

[SirPeebles]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

People saying "hand" when they mean "deck" has always been a Dominion pet peeve of mine

I find that people often get Dominion nomenclature confused.  I have heard people say "gold" instead of coin ("I play a Woodcutter for plus two gold and a buy"), and "deck" instead of kingdom/board/whatever ("Oh, this looks like an interesting deck, this should be a fun game!")  I've heard people refer to Victory cards as "land cards" (former Magic players maybe?) which kind of makes sense but then again, those cards do say "Victory" right on them.  I even heard someone call his draw deck his "hand" and his discard pile his "deck" which was beyond confusing.

"I use this Workshop to buy a Silver" is a common line here.

Maybe if you Salvage the Workshop 

[Kuildeous]

I'm sure your friend will find your deckjob curious at first, but just wait until you reach the climax.

People saying "hand" when they mean "deck" has always been a Dominion pet peeve of mine

You, Sir Peebels, just won 1 Internet. Please see the cashier to redeem your prize.

[GendoIkari]

Ok, so it should read 'trash down to a four card DECK', not hand, at least for most games.

People saying "hand" when they mean "deck" has always been a Dominion pet peeve of mine

In this case, though, I don't think it said hand when it meant deck... it "said trash down to a 4 card hand" when it meant "trash down until you are only drawing a 4 card hand each turn". The "4 card hand" part was still correct, just not detailed enough to be clear.

[tolenmar]

Either way, it was the lack of clarity that had me confused.
I replayed solitaire again, and it worked pretty well.  I kept a couple of bazaars in hand so I would have the actions to play both King's Courts for way too long before I realized that if I KC'ed the other KC...

Things sped up considerably after that.

Although my opponent almost always had at least one card.  I was buying and trashing provinces, but only after I handed them to him via masq (having gotten to where I could get rid of my chapel).  In the end, I think I can pull it off now. It's a fun little mind game, that I probably won't play more than once.

I could find myself without a gaming group.

[GendoIkari]

Either way, it was the lack of clarity that had me confused.
I replayed solitaire again, and it worked pretty well.  I kept a couple of bazaars in hand so I would have the actions to play both King's Courts for way too long before I realized that if I KC'ed the other KC...

Things sped up considerably after that.

Although my opponent almost always had at least one card.  I was buying and trashing provinces, but only after I handed them to him via masq (having gotten to where I could get rid of my chapel).  In the end, I think I can pull it off now. It's a fun little mind game, that I probably won't play more than once.

I could find myself without a gaming group.

I've done the pin in probably about 5 games total, and every time I had several other cards in my deck aside from the 4 necessary ones. Usually a turn would look something like this:

KC-KC-Peddler-KC-Laboratory-KC-KC-Bazaar-Bazaar-Bazaar-Bazaar-KC-KC-Goons-Masq.

Having those extra cards is also helpful in actually setting up the pin, because if your opponent plays a Masquerade on his turn (which he can do any time before the pin is 100% in place, even if he starts his turn with just 1 card), then you need something non-essencial to pass him.

[Morgrim7]

Thats not a great deck. Theres a strong possibility of not being able to carry out the pin, if say you drew KCs and the Goons and Masq. Nix the extra KCs and you'd be fine.

[GendoIkari]

Thats not a great deck. Theres a strong possibility of not being able to carry out the pin, if say you drew KCs and the Goons and Masq. Nix the extra KCs and you'd be fine.

With all those Cantrips, it should be quite unlikely to not draw any in your opening hand.

Though thinking more carefully about it; I probably only had about 4 KCs; not 7.