Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: Roadrunner7671 on September 17, 2015, 03:23:32 pm
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Man, I don't understand why people hate on Balck Market. It's a luck based card, that is true, but Dominion is a game that combines luck with skill. It's lucky to hit $8 in a BM game or to draw 3 Estates with your Chapel, but people don't hate Chapel for that, do they?
Before I even knew of Black Market (or of promo cards at all) my mother and I played Dominion. We had nine kingdom piles and one pile with 10 random cards in it that we did not see at the beginning of the game. It made the game a ton of fun. Yes, it's very unlucky if your opponent gets a curser or trasher out of the Black Market deck, but you can go for Black Market as well!
Black Market is also fun because it lets you play your Treasure cards during your action phase. This makes a lot of cards awesome, including Tactican, Quarry, Royal Seal, and possibly Diadem. You can also avoid it IRL by not buying it. If you hate Cultist but you love Dark Ages, you are out of luck. If you hate Black Market, don't purchase it to play with. In Dominion Online, there are many ways to not care about Black Market:
1. Don't buy it and build an engine with the 9 other cards.
2. Realize that you play very very few games with Black Market.
3. Veto Black Market (or don't play with it).
4. Go for Black Market because you have the action space or are doing a Poor House thing. You might get something good, but you will always get two coins.
That's just my inexperienced two cents on Black Market, I'm sure if someone disagrees with me they will say why.
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Man, I don't understand why people hate on Balck Market. It's a luck based card, that is true, but Dominion is a game that combines luck with skill. It's lucky to hit $8 in a BM game or to draw 3 Estates with your Chapel, but people don't hate Chapel for that, do they?
I sort of do, actually.
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I sort of do, actually.
You have a black belt in unhelpness. I'm *almost* positive that you are the 2% minority and that experienced players (like yourself) generally cry with happiness when they see Chapel on the board.
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Man, I don't understand why people hate on Balck Market.
Poor taste, unfortunately, is an all too common affliction.
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It's the single greatest card in the game, and it's not very close. No other card makes most of the boards it appears in automatically interesting and fun.
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Black market's quality is a hotly contested issue in the upcoming Tuvaluan chieftain election. Currently the fascist party supports the assertion that black market is an unfun card while the objectively correct party is in favor of black market.
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I despise luck-based cards (Swindler and Urchin come to mind), but i looooove Black Market. Like, it is my favorite card by a lot (Bishop comes in at a distant 2nd). I just love the possibilities it gives you. And that's basically how I see it -- it doesn't add luck to the game as much as it adds possibilities. You have to have a legitimate reason to ignore 25 kingdom cards. And like you mention, it adds other neat mechanics to the game (in addition to what you mentioned: draw-up-to-x, Menagerie, exclusive access to Prizes, etc.).
Who really dislikes it? I'd be curious to know why, especially if it were for other reasons besides just the luck factor.
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I despise luck-based cards (Swindler and Urchin come to mind), but i looooove Black Market. Like, it is my favorite card by a lot (Bishop comes in at a distant 2nd). I just love the possibilities it gives you. And that's basically how I see it -- it doesn't add luck to the game as much as it adds possibilities. You have to have a legitimate reason to ignore 25 kingdom cards. And like you mention, it adds other neat mechanics to the game (in addition to what you mentioned: draw-up-to-x, Menagerie, exclusive access to Prizes, etc.).
Who really dislikes it? I'd be curious to know why, especially if it were for other reasons besides just the luck factor.
I favor AdamH's view: it isn't the luck aspect of Black Market that's the major problem, it's the *exclusivity* aspect. One of the big points of Dominion is that everyone has access to the same cards in each game. Sure, there are piles where who gets to them *first* is a factor, but except in weird cases, you'll always have the chance to buy every card on the board.
Black Market and Tournament both break that part of the basic premise of Dominion. That's the reason I find both distasteful.
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I despise luck-based cards (Swindler and Urchin come to mind), but i looooove Black Market. Like, it is my favorite card by a lot (Bishop comes in at a distant 2nd). I just love the possibilities it gives you. And that's basically how I see it -- it doesn't add luck to the game as much as it adds possibilities. You have to have a legitimate reason to ignore 25 kingdom cards. And like you mention, it adds other neat mechanics to the game (in addition to what you mentioned: draw-up-to-x, Menagerie, exclusive access to Prizes, etc.).
Who really dislikes it? I'd be curious to know why, especially if it were for other reasons besides just the luck factor.
I favor AdamH's view: it isn't the luck aspect of Black Market that's the major problem, it's the *exclusivity* aspect. One of the big points of Dominion is that everyone has access to the same cards in each game. Sure, there are piles where who gets to them *first* is a factor, but except in weird cases, you'll always have the chance to buy every card on the board.
Black Market and Tournament both break that part of the basic premise of Dominion. That's the reason I find both distasteful.
But I would say being the first to get that Witch, or Mercenary, or Platinum, or whatever, can swing the game just as much as getting that Followers, or that Chapel from the BM deck, etc. does.
Also, Knights are exclusive, but I like them. They add elements and mechanics to the game that can make for a very interesting, complicated, and fun match. If people don't care for that exclusivity, then that's just a difference in taste I guess.
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I despise luck-based cards (Swindler and Urchin come to mind), but i looooove Black Market. Like, it is my favorite card by a lot (Bishop comes in at a distant 2nd). I just love the possibilities it gives you. And that's basically how I see it -- it doesn't add luck to the game as much as it adds possibilities. You have to have a legitimate reason to ignore 25 kingdom cards. And like you mention, it adds other neat mechanics to the game (in addition to what you mentioned: draw-up-to-x, Menagerie, exclusive access to Prizes, etc.).
Who really dislikes it? I'd be curious to know why, especially if it were for other reasons besides just the luck factor.
I favor AdamH's view: it isn't the luck aspect of Black Market that's the major problem, it's the *exclusivity* aspect. One of the big points of Dominion is that everyone has access to the same cards in each game. Sure, there are piles where who gets to them *first* is a factor, but except in weird cases, you'll always have the chance to buy every card on the board.
Black Market and Tournament both break that part of the basic premise of Dominion. That's the reason I find both distasteful.
This only works at an extremely superficial level, it's a not a "basic premise of Dominion". A turn 1 Trading Post is an entirely different beast than a turn 3 one, and not even related to a turn 5 one. Players are always getting uneven opportunities, all the time, every game. That's what Dominion is about, trying to manage those asymmetries so you win.
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I despise luck-based cards (Swindler and Urchin come to mind), but i looooove Black Market. Like, it is my favorite card by a lot (Bishop comes in at a distant 2nd). I just love the possibilities it gives you. And that's basically how I see it -- it doesn't add luck to the game as much as it adds possibilities. You have to have a legitimate reason to ignore 25 kingdom cards. And like you mention, it adds other neat mechanics to the game (in addition to what you mentioned: draw-up-to-x, Menagerie, exclusive access to Prizes, etc.).
Who really dislikes it? I'd be curious to know why, especially if it were for other reasons besides just the luck factor.
I favor AdamH's view: it isn't the luck aspect of Black Market that's the major problem, it's the *exclusivity* aspect. One of the big points of Dominion is that everyone has access to the same cards in each game. Sure, there are piles where who gets to them *first* is a factor, but except in weird cases, you'll always have the chance to buy every card on the board.
Black Market and Tournament both break that part of the basic premise of Dominion. That's the reason I find both distasteful.
This only works at an extremely superficial level, it's a not a "basic premise of Dominion". A turn 1 Trading Post is an entirely different beast than a turn 3 one, and not even related to a turn 5 one. Players are always getting uneven opportunities, all the time, every game. That's what Dominion is about, trying to manage those asymmetries so you win.
Sure, I get that. I just don't like the particular asymmetry where one person can get a card and nobody else can. Is it because I find it unfair? No. YMYOSL. To win you have to manipulate that and capitalize on it. I just don't like it. It's how I feel. My mommy always told me it's OK to be different and that I'm a special snowflake. I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.
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You're getting better at this, Adam!
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This only works at an extremely superficial level, it's a not a "basic premise of Dominion". A turn 1 Trading Post is an entirely different beast than a turn 3 one, and not even related to a turn 5 one. Players are always getting uneven opportunities, all the time, every game. That's what Dominion is about, trying to manage those asymmetries so you win.
You have a point, but there is a gigantic difference between asymmetrical opportunities and unique opportunities. And even if it's not perhaps a premise per se--I don't know if Donald has said that or not--I do think the idea of a Magic-like game without the fundamental inequalities of Magic is a huge part of the game's draw. It's one of the reasons that Ascension and Star Realms are so inferior.
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You have a point, but there is a gigantic difference between asymmetrical opportunities and unique opportunities. And even if it's not perhaps a premise per se--I don't know if Donald has said that or not--I do think the idea of a Magic-like game without the fundamental inequalities of Magic is a huge part of the game's draw. It's one of the reasons that Ascension and Star Realms are so inferior.
The premise was a game where you build a deck while playing, with everything of yours in your deck. You can read all the details, including a bit about me considering and rejecting what is now Ascension-style card access, in the secret history: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=8619.0.
The fact that normally a card is accessible to all players all game (until running out) makes it cool to make a card that breaks that. It's one card and easy to not play with. It's a promo even.
It's a general rule of games where the rules change, that I've learned the hard way, that there is only so far you can go before many people don't like how far you went. For some people Black Market goes too far for Dominion and well. If there were no cards anyone hated, there would be no cards anyone loved either. Black Market is cited as a favorite card a lot and is not quite so far up there on the hated list. I consider it a success. I should get the wording fixed someday though.
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I favor AdamH's view: it isn't the luck aspect of Black Market that's the major problem, it's the *exclusivity* aspect. One of the big points of Dominion is that everyone has access to the same cards in each game. Sure, there are piles where who gets to them *first* is a factor, but except in weird cases, you'll always have the chance to buy every card on the board.
Black Market and Tournament both break that part of the basic premise of Dominion. That's the reason I find both distasteful.
The thing I like with Black Market is the variety it gives to a board, with unique cards to put in your deck. But I'm also not that fond of the exclusitivy aspect, and I think I would have preferred everyone to have their own BM deck with one each of the BM cards selected for this game. Then they shouldn't be more than perhaps ~20, so you have a decent shot of finding your own copy of That Important Card that you opponent(s) already are using.
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Man, I don't understand why people hate on Balck Market.
Poor taste, unfortunately, is an all too common affliction.
are you referring to the Urban dictionary sex act http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=balck
or the Nazi general https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Balck.
I guess both are in pretty poor taste...
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I despise luck-based cards (Swindler and Urchin come to mind), but i looooove Black Market. Like, it is my favorite card by a lot (Bishop comes in at a distant 2nd). I just love the possibilities it gives you. And that's basically how I see it -- it doesn't add luck to the game as much as it adds possibilities. You have to have a legitimate reason to ignore 25 kingdom cards. And like you mention, it adds other neat mechanics to the game (in addition to what you mentioned: draw-up-to-x, Menagerie, exclusive access to Prizes, etc.).
Who really dislikes it? I'd be curious to know why, especially if it were for other reasons besides just the luck factor.
I'm curious as to why you think Urchin is any more luck based than any other card?
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I despise luck-based cards (Swindler and Urchin come to mind), but i looooove Black Market. Like, it is my favorite card by a lot (Bishop comes in at a distant 2nd). I just love the possibilities it gives you. And that's basically how I see it -- it doesn't add luck to the game as much as it adds possibilities. You have to have a legitimate reason to ignore 25 kingdom cards. And like you mention, it adds other neat mechanics to the game (in addition to what you mentioned: draw-up-to-x, Menagerie, exclusive access to Prizes, etc.).
Who really dislikes it? I'd be curious to know why, especially if it were for other reasons besides just the luck factor.
I favor AdamH's view: it isn't the luck aspect of Black Market that's the major problem, it's the *exclusivity* aspect. One of the big points of Dominion is that everyone has access to the same cards in each game. Sure, there are piles where who gets to them *first* is a factor, but except in weird cases, you'll always have the chance to buy every card on the board.
Black Market and Tournament both break that part of the basic premise of Dominion. That's the reason I find both distasteful.
Totally agree. Nothing makes a game more one sided than one guy getting the only tournament/KC/Prince or even curser/looter when no others are available on the board
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I favor AdamH's view: it isn't the luck aspect of Black Market that's the major problem, it's the *exclusivity* aspect. One of the big points of Dominion is that everyone has access to the same cards in each game. Sure, there are piles where who gets to them *first* is a factor, but except in weird cases, you'll always have the chance to buy every card on the board.
Black Market and Tournament both break that part of the basic premise of Dominion. That's the reason I find both distasteful.
The thing I like with Black Market is the variety it gives to a board, with unique cards to put in your deck. But I'm also not that fond of the exclusitivy aspect, and I think I would have preferred everyone to have their own BM deck with one each of the BM cards selected for this game. Then they shouldn't be more than perhaps ~20, so you have a decent shot of finding your own copy of That Important Card that you opponent(s) already are using.
somehow I never even considered this, but this alone would make the card much better IMHO.
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I think, if I actually had Black Market for my home games, I'd ensure the following cards didn't get put into the Black Market deck:
Cultist
Fairgrounds
Fool's Gold
Knights
Magpie
Peddler
Rats
Tournament
Transmute
Treasure Map
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The only thing I'd change about Black Market is to add some Black Markets to the Black Market so you can Black Market a Black Market with a different Black Market deck.
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The only thing I'd change about Black Market is to add some Black Markets to the Black Market so you can Black Market a Black Market with a different Black Market deck.
(http://i.imgur.com/6fSNSod.jpg)
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The only thing I'd change about Black Market is to add some Black Markets to the Black Market so you can Black Market a Black Market with a different Black Market deck.
(http://i.imgur.com/6fSNSod.jpg)
Xzibit will also provide the Royal Seal and cantrip.
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Cultist
Fairgrounds
Fool's Gold
Knights
Magpie
Peddler
Rats
Tournament
Transmute
Treasure Map
Cultist isn't that bad even when you only have one of them.
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Cultist
Fairgrounds
Fool's Gold
Knights
Magpie
Peddler
Rats
Tournament
Transmute
Treasure Map
Cultist isn't that bad even when you only have one of them.
I assume that he listed it for the same reason he listed Fool's Gold, Treasure Map, Rats, Magpie, Transmute, and Knights... it's a card that can't fully do what it says if you only can get one of them. So it becomes just a weaker Witch. I don't think there's anything wrong with that though; it's probably still strong enough that you'd at least consider getting it.
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Cultist
Fairgrounds
Fool's Gold
Knights
Magpie
Peddler
Rats
Tournament
Transmute
Treasure Map
Cultist isn't that bad even when you only have one of them.
I assume that he listed it for the same reason he listed Fool's Gold, Treasure Map, Rats, Magpie, Transmute, and Knights... it's a card that can't fully do what it says if you only can get one of them. So it becomes just a weaker Witch. I don't think there's anything wrong with that though; it's probably still strong enough that you'd at least consider getting it.
That's what I was saying.
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Cultist
Fairgrounds
Fool's Gold
Knights
Magpie
Peddler
Rats
Tournament
Transmute
Treasure Map
Cultist isn't that bad even when you only have one of them.
I assume that he listed it for the same reason he listed Fool's Gold, Treasure Map, Rats, Magpie, Transmute, and Knights... it's a card that can't fully do what it says if you only can get one of them. So it becomes just a weaker Witch. I don't think there's anything wrong with that though; it's probably still strong enough that you'd at least consider getting it.
That's what I was saying.
I missed the word "even" in your post; without that it sounds like you were saying that Cultist isn't too strong with only one copy, so no need to prevent just a single player from getting it.
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One difficulty with Black Market is managing your other purchases when you don't know which black market cards, if any, will complete your deck. Some people probably like continuously changing their plans as the game develops but I like to consider a bit further ahead. It can also be difficult to learn from any mistakes during a black market game since the different unique cards provide so much variance they can mask the overall deck performance.
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I think, if I actually had Black Market for my home games, I'd ensure the following cards didn't get put into the Black Market deck:
What I personally don't like in the Black Market deck is cards with setup. It's extra-wonky.
In practice though I always just used an expansion. This game, the Black Market has all the Prosperity cards.
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One difficulty with Black Market is managing your other purchases when you don't know which black market cards, if any, will complete your deck. Some people probably like continuously changing their plans as the game develops but I like to consider a bit further ahead. It can also be difficult to learn from any mistakes during a black market game since the different unique cards provide so much variance they can mask the overall deck performance.
yeah, black market winds up producing a slightly more innovation-like and less dominion-like game. the nice thing about dominion, of course, is that next game will be different.
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Cultist
Fairgrounds
Fool's Gold
Knights
Magpie
Peddler
Rats
Tournament
Transmute
Treasure Map
Cultist isn't that bad even when you only have one of them.
I assume that he listed it for the same reason he listed Fool's Gold, Treasure Map, Rats, Magpie, Transmute, and Knights... it's a card that can't fully do what it says if you only can get one of them. So it becomes just a weaker Witch. I don't think there's anything wrong with that though; it's probably still strong enough that you'd at least consider getting it.
especially if its the only source of ruins. more-so in a multiplayer game.
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gotta say, as someone who's just above the "baby" stage with this game, i am awfully close to the stef/SCSN side on black market. i think it creates an element of adaptability that appeals a lot to me as a fighting-game player. it seems like so often you just can't plan out an entire strategy from the start with black market involved? maybe that's a top-player skill though.
tournament is so much less interesting to me because it seems to reward a rush for an early province, though there's probably skill in transitioning from that to a real engine. i tend to fall into BM-ish strats with it atm
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Honestly, I think Tournament is overrated. I think the main problem lies with both players trying to get to Province first rather than building and playing out the board. Don't get me wrong. On some boards, the card is devastating depending on who wins the first prize.
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Honestly, I think Tournament is overrated. I think the main problem lies with both players trying to get to Province first rather than building and playing out the board. Don't get me wrong. On way too many boards, the card is devastating depending on who wins the first prize.
FTFY ;)
That said, I think often it is correct to try to get to 1 Province asap even before building a "real" engine. And then you have that double impact that the guy with the earlier Provinces can choose the best price and block other Tournaments...
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If there are strong Attacks (particularly ones that gives +(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/3/3d/Coin2.png/16px-Coin2.png), like Swindler), it's usually better to get those going before you start picking up Tournaments, because they're usually better at helping you get to that early Province.
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With Tournament the way I always played it is to grab cards that enable an early Province buy rather than opening Tournament / Silver. IE Baron, Death Cart, etc. Failing that, an attack that gives you $2 (or +2 Cards or something) which both slows your opponent down and helps you get to $8 quickly. Only in the absence of these cards do I really think opening Tournament is necessary - you can grab Tournament at any point up to the time you shuffle your Province in to your deck and it's about the same payoff. Not that a Peddler variant is bad for a deck.
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People who complain about Black Market should remember that it's just a promo. Somehow promo cards have gotten the same status as regular cards and that's fine for Walled Village, but BM is as promo as promo gets, it's almost a fan card!
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"just" a Promo
Dude, Promos are practically their own self-contained set. You've got a village, a terminal draw, a virtual +Buy, a Kingdom Treasure, an engine-y Remodel/Hero/Lab, and two different Throne Room variants.
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I like Black Market, of course I love its potential for interactions with playing treasures that I would enjoy it even it just gave a +buy in the middle of the action phase.
What I do not like about Bm is that some percentage of games do have one unique, killer card that is not available to all. Much as it can be fiendishly annoying on Knights boards to have +buys or trashing go to the first buyer.
On the other hand, it is fun how much the dynamics change when building Bm decks - early game cycling becomes insanely good, variability is a given in the deck (both from cards and having treasures in play), and the potential to need to balance buys mid turn with those at the end.
All told Bm tends to be one of the more interesting cards in the game for me.
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i'm probably wrong, but BM seems like one of the absolute strongest cards at offsetting big disadvantages from the first 3 shuffles. so many games feel over to me by turn 8, but hardly ever when that card is involved.
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Black Market's unique, killer cards are not all that unique from distinct, killer reshuffle luck in terms of having fate hand you a winner.
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I love Black Market, for it introcuces whole new level of fun and variety in the games it appears in. There is some luck factor, but IMO it's far from comparable with likes of Swindler, Urchin, Familiar (connecting 3$ and P) or luck of getting 5/2 opening with strong junker on the board.
It's certainly among my top 5 favourite cards.
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I don't know if it necessarily true, but in my opinion Black Market is one of the best engine enablers, ever. So since engines are fun, Black Market is, too.
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Black Market's unique, killer cards are not all that unique from distinct, killer reshuffle luck in terms of having fate hand you a winner.
Sure they are. If you open 5/2 you clearly have an advantage on a lot of boards, but there are a lot of places where that advantage might be surmounted. For example, you open 5/2, but your Witch misses the first shuffle and I play my T3 Witch before you on T5. More importantly, there are often a lot of tactical adaptations I can try (by cycling instead of +actions, get a second trasher, etc.) in order to attempt to optimize my build against your luck.
With the admittedly uncommon killer unique Black market cards, this sort of equalization may not be possible at all. For an obvious case, say I pull Possession out of the Black market on a board with Masq or Amb. How exactly do you tactically adapt to that? Sure I might take an extra turn to get you a Masq/Amb and take a few Possession plays to line up with whatever are the key cards (Colonies, Goons, villages, etc.), but you pretty much cannot change things. Likewise, if there is no trashing in game except for one Chapel, there just is no way on a lot of boards to compete against a thin reliable deck.
Getting there first is important, often game deciding near equal skill for a lot of other things ... but very rarely do things swing so heavily on just ONE shuffle (stuff like Possession, Kc/Bridge, etc. might come close, but those are rare).
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Black Market's unique, killer cards are not all that unique from distinct, killer reshuffle luck in terms of having fate hand you a winner.
Sure they are. If you open 5/2 you clearly have an advantage on a lot of boards, but there are a lot of places where that advantage might be surmounted. For example, you open 5/2, but your Witch misses the first shuffle and I play my T3 Witch before you on T5. More importantly, there are often a lot of tactical adaptations I can try (by cycling instead of +actions, get a second trasher, etc.) in order to attempt to optimize my build against your luck.
With the admittedly uncommon killer unique Black market cards, this sort of equalization may not be possible at all. For an obvious case, say I pull Possession out of the Black market on a board with Masq or Amb. How exactly do you tactically adapt to that? Sure I might take an extra turn to get you a Masq/Amb and take a few Possession plays to line up with whatever are the key cards (Colonies, Goons, villages, etc.), but you pretty much cannot change things. Likewise, if there is no trashing in game except for one Chapel, there just is no way on a lot of boards to compete against a thin reliable deck.
Getting there first is important, often game deciding near equal skill for a lot of other things ... but very rarely do things swing so heavily on just ONE shuffle (stuff like Possession, Kc/Bridge, etc. might come close, but those are rare).
Why does it matter if it's one reshuffle or two? I accept this point: Black Market into Chapel as the only trasher on a board with Conspirator, Worker's Village, and Lab is 100% win rate, opposite player's decisions no longer matter, all in one fishing out of the Black Market deck.
5/2 Embassy into Gold into Gold into Gold into Province into Province into Province into Province into Province also induces a 100% winrate where the other player's decisions no longer matter. It requires more reshuffles to be controlled, for sure, the characteristics of each reshuffle are critical for the games where Embassy is ridiculous to actually be ridiculous. The the end result that one player got a 0% winrate irrespective of his own decisions is the same. No engine has time to try to ramp up try for the Duchy split on those mornings when Embassy wakes up and decides "Today is a good day to mimic Stash"
The only difference is perception, the false decisions that the player facing Embassy perceives as being relevant. You think, maybe the Gold or Embassy will miss the reshuffle next time, so let me think about what I'm buying, let me maximize my chances of winning. But you don't know the entire time that none of it will matter.
With the turn 3 Chapel or turn 3 Witch, you might know that none of it matters right away, although only because you can look through the Black Market deck and find out your fate is actually sealed. But does playing out the game offer any less value to you than playing out a loss against the Embassy player? You can still play pretend, you can still think about scenarios in which what you buy does matter, and decide what you would buy in those scenarios. You will enjoy the same choices as the Embassy victim, and end up with the same loss as the Embassy victim. Maybe that's what you're into. But you can also do something the Embassy victim can't do, you can just resign, right away, start a new game.
I'm not going to address Possession Ambassador handing over Province because that's a little bit what if the blue moon rises on the 29th day of February and I get KC-Masquerade-Goons'ed by Elvis, who is still alive, was just set aside with a Haven that was trashed by a Procession of Prince, in terms of total frequency.
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Black Market's unique, killer cards are not all that unique from distinct, killer reshuffle luck in terms of having fate hand you a winner.
Sure they are. If you open 5/2 you clearly have an advantage on a lot of boards, but there are a lot of places where that advantage might be surmounted. For example, you open 5/2, but your Witch misses the first shuffle and I play my T3 Witch before you on T5. More importantly, there are often a lot of tactical adaptations I can try (by cycling instead of +actions, get a second trasher, etc.) in order to attempt to optimize my build against your luck.
With the admittedly uncommon killer unique Black market cards, this sort of equalization may not be possible at all. For an obvious case, say I pull Possession out of the Black market on a board with Masq or Amb. How exactly do you tactically adapt to that? Sure I might take an extra turn to get you a Masq/Amb and take a few Possession plays to line up with whatever are the key cards (Colonies, Goons, villages, etc.), but you pretty much cannot change things. Likewise, if there is no trashing in game except for one Chapel, there just is no way on a lot of boards to compete against a thin reliable deck.
Getting there first is important, often game deciding near equal skill for a lot of other things ... but very rarely do things swing so heavily on just ONE shuffle (stuff like Possession, Kc/Bridge, etc. might come close, but those are rare).
Why does it matter if it's one reshuffle or two? I accept this point: Black Market into Chapel as the only trasher on a board with Conspirator, Worker's Village, and Lab is 100% win rate, opposite player's decisions no longer matter, all in one fishing out of the Black Market deck.
5/2 Embassy into Gold into Gold into Gold into Province into Province into Province into Province into Province also induces a 100% winrate where the other player's decisions no longer matter. It requires more reshuffles to be controlled, for sure, the characteristics of each reshuffle are critical for the games where Embassy is ridiculous to actually be ridiculous. The the end result that one player got a 0% winrate irrespective of his own decisions is the same. No engine has time to try to ramp up try for the Duchy split on those mornings when Embassy wakes up and decides "Today is a good day to mimic Stash"
The only difference is perception, the false decisions that the player facing Embassy perceives as being relevant. You think, maybe the Gold or Embassy will miss the reshuffle next time, so let me think about what I'm buying, let me maximize my chances of winning. But you don't know the entire time that none of it will matter.
With the turn 3 Chapel or turn 3 Witch, you might know that none of it matters right away, although only because you can look through the Black Market deck and find out your fate is actually sealed. But does playing out the game offer any less value to you than playing out a loss against the Embassy player? You can still play pretend, you can still think about scenarios in which what you buy does matter, and decide what you would buy in those scenarios. You will enjoy the same choices as the Embassy victim, and end up with the same loss as the Embassy victim. Maybe that's what you're into. But you can also do something the Embassy victim can't do, you can just resign, right away, start a new game.
I'm not going to address Possession Ambassador handing over Province because that's a little bit what if the blue moon rises on the 29th day of February and I get KC-Masquerade-Goons'ed by Elvis, who is still alive, was just set aside with a Haven that was trashed by a Procession of Prince, in terms of total frequency.
Really? This is the best you've got?
Embassy may well hit a province every turn from T2. But as was shown in the puzzle section, there are strategies that can beat that with the worst possible luck. You are still inhabiting the same decision matrix, just with different tactical decisions and risk-reward ratios.
In contrast, pulling the only trasher out of the Black Market, or the only big gainer (e.g. Market square) with Bishop out in the kingdom or Masquerade when you have discard and an engine already out are things that place you and your opponent in different decision matrices. There are other times in Dominion where this happens: Possession in multiplayer games, Knights, and Prizes ... and shockingly all those mechanics are often viewed less favorably by folks who prefer other very nice elements of dominion.
But if you want to go with the simplistic "its all shuffle luck, so why play at all school", the degeneracy of the Black Market deck is the lowest of any shuffle that occurs in the game. When it comes to unique outcomes, the shuffle luck of the Bm deck is orders of magnitude more "unique" than any other shuffle in a normal game.