Shanty Town, Baron, Navigator, Scout, Silk Road, Young Witch, Butcher, Ill-Gotten Gains, Minion, Venture, FairgroundsShanty was the bane.
http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131122/log.5075b25251c30da02a09b898.1385147298293.txtI wanted to share this game b/c I enjoyed it a lot and it was somewhat unusual for me: I almost never win trying to slog with fairgrounds. But here, the engine is rather delicate, and Silk Road makes strong support for the slog. Minion stacks need high minion density, so junking attacks and extended greening hurt.
He starts buying Shanty Towns, indicating more of an engine direction. T6 he gets a minion. Typically, uncontested Minions are quite strong, but here the only trashing is Butcher, and it's hard to get Butcher to turn curses into engine parts without useful $2s. Plus, he gets his first minion after I've gotten 2 silvers and a gold, and minions don't really like treasure. Instead, I have to hurt his minion stack. That means junking him. With all the Shantys he's got, YW won't do it. IGG is the way to go. IGG can hand out curses very fast if you can hit $5 reliably, and that's really going to hurt the Minions.
However, IGG rush is also out because of the Young Witch. When Hinterlands first came out, I looked at IGG, figured out whether it was rushable, and if it wasn't I'd tend to ignore it. Later, I saw how can IGG work in the presence of other cursers, helping you win the split. IGG is usually a crappy silver after you buy it, so you often don't want it outside of rushes, but TfB is one of the major exceptions to that rule. IGG works real well with Butcher. But in a slog where you're not trying to hit $8, the copper gaining doesn't hurt and can even help. Here, where I'm trying to hit $6 with a hand of four cards, copper isn't so hot, but $6 is not $8, so it's not that bad either.
My fifteen uniques for FG are to include IGG, YW, Butcher, Shanty Town, G/S/C, Curse, P/D/E, Fairgrounds, and Silk Road, so I'll need two more. Baron is decent - I'd trashed two estates, but the estate gaining is nice for beefing up the Silk Road. That leaves Minion, Venture, Navigator and poopooface. Of these, Venture helps my deck the most, but I get a navigator b/c I'm nervous about getting up to 15 uniques quickly in case of an early end. Plus, I mostly want to bump my $5 turns up to $6 with tokens.
Long story short, my plan works. Yed is able to draw his deck pretty reliably, but all the curses and coppers prevent those crucial Minion collisions. Plus, it takes quite a while for him to get the engine running. By the end he's struggling to hit $5.
I benefited from some good luck, blocking the YW often, few terminal collisions, and my butcher never missed the reshuffle, and of course first player advantage helps in cursing games, but I am inclined to credit my choices for the win.
