Hello,
I have also installed the package msttcorefonts and after a dist-upgrade I was
experiencing the same problems: emacs didn't start anymore.
I solved the problem by commenting out a FontPath line in /etc/X11/XF86Config:
#FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
I inserted this line earlier myself, but I do not know anymore why. I don't
know why removing this line solved the problem.
Hope this helps...
Jonas Kley