Interestingly enough, I was planning to write a Black Market article, but never got around to actually doing it. Haven't played Dominion in the past few days, so here goes.
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Often, Dominion cards can be classified into a certain category. You have trashers like Chapel and Remake, +Cards like Smithy, +Buy from Woodcutter and Herbalist, and +Actions from Village cards. Although this is not an exhaustive list, it shows that many Dominion cards can be grouped together into certain general effects.
Black Market throws all of that out the window. It is the only card in the game that allows you to buy cards from outside the game. And because of this, it is one of the most high-variance cards in the game. You can lose a game because one player managed to pick out a power card from the Black Market and you didn't, and there isn't really much you can do about it.
DownsidesBlack Market is terminal. Because of this, it must always be judged in comparison to buying a Silver instead of Black Market.
Black Market is slow. Let's suppose you buy a Black Market on T1/T2. Then you play it on T3/T4. That means that if you buy something from the Black Market, the earliest you can see that card is on turn 5, and that's assuming you find the card you want.
It's unpredictable. There is absolutely no guaranteeing that you find the card you want, with the money to pay for it. The most important thing to remember about Black Market is that you should never assume you'll get a specific card. Rather, you should have several cards that you want to buy, and be flexible in building a plan that can accomodate them. Compare to new Dark Ages card Ironmonger.
When to buy Black Market1. A slow game. This is probably the most important point to keep in mind. Black Market is only useful if you actually get the time to play the action card you bought. Against a fast Big Money strategy, like Embassy-BM or Courtyard-BM, I would hesitate at picking up Black Market. The fast pace means you play fewer Black Markets, have a smaller chance of obtaining a good card, and an even smaller chance of having that card have a meaningful impact.
2. Villages. Unless you're buying Black Market for variety (see a later point for this), Villages are almost essential to Black Market. Because of how the Black Market deck is created, you are going to primarily be buying actions, often terminals. You need Villages to ensure you can actually play them. And the Villages should be in the Kingdom rather than in the Black Market deck. Don't hope to get lucky and buy +Actions; buy them from the Kingdom.
3. Engine decks. If you can play Black Market every turn, you're bound to find what you want fairly quickly. The problem is that buying Black Market early will probably hurt the speed of your engine deployment. So in these games, you want to do it after you've picked up a few pieces.
4. Strong cards in the BM deck, preferably those strong even when bought late. Remember that when buying from a Black Market, you're getting the card turn 5 at the earliest. So although buying trashers from the Black market is tempting, I would hesitate about it. There's a reason you open Chapel, Steward, and Remake on T1/T2, and not on turn 5. Even Ambassador is not an amazing buy from the Black Market.
Also, there need to be strong cards. Not one strong card and several weak ones. There should be a couple (at least 3) cards that you really want from the Black Market, as well as some that you would be fine with adding to your deck (generally cantrips).
Cards to watch out for are:
- Cursers. Although curse-givers are much stronger early on in the game than later, Curses are still amazingly painful. Still, if there's only one Curser and nothing else, I wouldn't bother unless the board was very slow. The chances of getting it are too slim otherwise.
- Missing engine components. This should be considered more as a bonus than as an active reason to buy it.
Good engines typically have +Actions, +Cards, and +Buys. If one of those categories is missing from the board, you can try to get it from the Black Market. As mentioned before, trying to get missing +Actions from Black Market is usually not worth it. Trying to get that missing +Buy is alright, but don't neglect Provinces/Colonies. Finally, picking up terminal draw can be quite good, but should be considered more as a side goal. (I lost my train of thought here, so this point is a lot more jumbled up.) - Tournament. Yep, Tournament gets its own section. It's that good. I might be overdoing it, but if I see Tournament in the Black Market, I'd buy Black Market about 80% of the time. If you get the only Tournament in the game, you get exclusive access to all the Prizes. And the prizes are really good. Essentially, Tournament can be considered as a potential Curser, +Buy, +Actions...you get the idea. The best part is that because Tournament is most useful after the first Province, it is relevant over almost the entire game.
5. Fairgrounds. Black Market - Fairgrounds is very strong, and is worth considering even if there are not many Villages in the game. I'm honestly not sure how it compares to the top-tier BM decks, like Masquerade-BM, but you can get very high point-scoring Fairgrounds with Black Market out.
(Would like someone with more experience to talk about this point. My gut reaction is that you should try to always buy a card from the Black Market, but it's also important to ramp up to reach $6. I think overall, you should open Black Market/X, try to always buy from Black Market, and buy either Villages for the actions or money for the...money. When you have a solid economy, you can go nuts with 1 copy of everything.)
6. Vineyard. Vineyard likes slow games as well (ignoring Vineyard rushes with Ironworks and the like.) So Black Market can be useful in picking up lots of actions, and as a source of +Buy. Ideally, the Black Market will have lots of cantrips, or some decently strong attacks to slow down the pace of the game.
7. Tactician. So Black Market is an amazing way to fuel a Double Tactician deck. Play Black Market, play Tactician, use massive buying power from the Treasure in play. In this situation, you want at least 2 Black Markets, just to be safe. Missing a Tactician in Double-Tact hurts, but missing your source of +$ hurts a lot more.
Works with:- Villages + Weak Terminals
- Fairgrounds
- Tactician
- Weak board/a somewhat weak engine
- Colonies
Conflicts with:- Strong engine possibilities
- Strong Big Money cards
- Attacks (they slow down the game, but you need to pick up the Attack and at that point Black Market is less attractive.)
