I've been thinking recently about making RL Black Market setup easier. The idea I came at was making a Black Market deck to use all the time. The rules I invented are:
- there are 30 cards in the deck, they are alternate art versions of various Dominion cards,
- none of those cards can introduce extra setup rules or additional game components,
- cards should be of various cost and function,
- cards used should not be extra strong, but still decent, preferably above average,
- cards used should not need multiple copies to work.
Black Market setup rule becomes: take Black Market deck, remove all the cards that are already in the kingdom from it, use the remaining ones whenever someone plays Black Market.
Then I looked through the cards lists to choose the set. Initial composition I got is the following:
$2 Haven
$2 Crossroads
$2 Pawn
$3 Steward
$3 Watchtower
$3 Market Square
$3 Oracle
$3 Village
$4 Ironmonger
$4 Throne Room
$4 Smithy
$4 Workers' Village
$4 Horse Traders
$4 Cutpurse
$4 Spice Merchant
$4 Baron
$4 Feodum
$5 Vault
$5 Laboratory
$5 Haggler
$5 Upgrade
$5 Bazaar
$5 Catacombs
$5 Count
$5 Rabble
$5 Jester
$5 Counterfeit
$6 Altar
$6 Hoard
$6 Nobles
What do you think about such deck - will it decrease Black Market's variance (which was one of the thing I was aiming for) while leaving it playable often enough? Are there any problem cards I overlooked and should be removed or interesting additions you see?
