I didn't include these because they aren't really *altered* by the black market. I mean, it can be lovely to pull a T3 chapel from the BM, but that's more because chapel was great in that game anyways, not because of the black market. The same is true with these VP cards.
Goons actually suffers a bit because you want to stack goons.
Not entirely true. If you have chip cards and the opponents don't, you can adopt a long game strategy that is not open to the other players. For instance, let's say I buy bishop out of the black market deck after my opponent has raced ahead to a 2 province lead in our chapeled decks (say we are both going for menage decks). Before this I would have to make that up buy purchasing 13 more VP than the opponent at some point before the decks run out. Now, I can build an ever more efficient deck and bishop a gold (as long as I can play BM/silver/copper/bishop I can replace this) and gain 4 VP a turn whilst my opponent's deck crashes and sputters. Every turn he spends cleaning out the duchy pile (no +buy assumption) means I make up another point of my deficit.
But what if we both could get bishop? Well he could start using his bishop on provinces and I'd likely be behind as I have to spend an extra turn or two getting up to province trashing. Being able to be the
only player playing with an unlimited point horizon drastically changes the game. Likewise, monument can do the same (particularly with TR or KC).
BUT does it really change when you only have one tactician? If you can consistently draw out your deck (or else this trick is rather useless), I'm not sure if tactician becomes a significant improvement.
Yes. Having BM/tactician means that you can buy some engine component (like village, haven, cellar, etc.) AND have the mega turn next turn if you put it into an engine. Being the only one able to play a +buy can also be insanely huge late game, perhaps even more important than having assured province from a 10 card hand when you reach the late game.
So on both sides of the coin, I say this works well. BM can allow you to use a few coins AND to play tactician that turn - this can be quite huge if you shoehorn a tac into a draw engine. When coming from the BM deck, tac may give you the only +buy in the game and perhaps also the only +action (say allowing you to play double torturer).
Which leads me to another thing that can be huge to get out of the BM deck- another +buy. In a game without +buy, getting woodcutters out of the BM deck can vastly increase your odds of winning.
I would also dispute that peddler is a degenerate card. It's cost is normally prohibitive, but if you can bring down the price enough (say with quarries, bridges, or highways) then it can be a fine purchase as a singleton. Fools gold can work if you have reached the province buying stage and expect to insta-upgrade it to gold (particularly if you can get it for near free with highway or bridge).
Another set of cards I'd put in are all discarding attack cards. Having the only militia/ghost ship/goons/etc. is pretty huge in that you can now do things like gov/council rooom chaining and not pay the full price for so doing. Even without that, there are some types of engines that let you hit the attack reliably, but only if you have a decent number of cards. E.g. cross roads/great hall/IW/village (any) can draw huge hands and cycle you through to your militia. Dropping down to three cards really hurts that engine. Likewise, engines that use heavy cellar (e.g. cross roads/cellar/village/draw) are much less likely to draw through if they start with 2 fewer cards. Then there is the nastiness of discard/masquerade.
Which is also another biggee to get out of the BM deck. Masquerade can function as a curser in some decks (gain a curse, draw it with your engine, pass it to the other guy, lather rinse repeat), it can allow you to pass & trash (e.g. you've been losing the cursing war), and it can allow you to steal the odd VP card late game (in a green enough game that lasts long enough, you will eventually be able to swap a copper for a duchy because the other guy will have no other option).
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Topic: How does black market affect cards? (Read 9147 times)