Black Market, the battlefield that draws for your opponent too
Black Market surfaced on Reddit this morning: a Radiance battlefield numbered 158/167. Its text is a single line — pay two runes of any colour and draw a card, and both players can do it, including the one who does not control the battlefield. Across the 1,605 cards printed so far, no other card says anything like it. The image comes from an r/riftboundtcg thread and Riot has not confirmed it on any official channel yet.
The cardWhat Black Market does
A battlefield is one of the horizontal cards sitting in the middle of the table: you send your units there to conquer it and score points. Almost every battlefield rewards the player holding it or the player who conquers it. Black Market does neither. It asks for no conquest and it does not care who is in charge.
The printed text reads: “[any rune][any rune]: Draw 1. Each player may use this ability once on their turn (even if they don’t control this battlefield).” In table terms: on your turn you exhaust two runes, whatever colour they are, and add one card to your hand. Once per turn only. Then, on their own turn, your opponent gets the same deal — no unit on the battlefield required, no conquest required.
The art is by Fish Art Studio and shows a smugglers’ market built on stilts among boats and lanterns: pure Bilgewater.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Battlefield | A horizontal card in the middle of the table. You move units onto it to conquer it and score. |
| Rune | The resource card you exhaust to pay. The rainbow symbol means “a rune of any colour”. |
| Controlling a battlefield | Having conquered it and still holding it. Normally that is the price of admission for a battlefield’s effect — not here. |
| Activated ability | An effect you choose to pay for, instead of one that triggers by itself. The colon after the cost is the giveaway. |
| Draw | Take the top card of your main deck into your hand. |
The precedentWhy this is a first
We combed the full catalogue of printed cards — 1,605 cards, 78 battlefields across Origins, Spiritforged and the Radiance previews so far. Not one contains the phrase “each player may use this ability”, and not one battlefield hands its effect to a player who does not control it. The closest thing was Spiritforged’s Power Nexus, which still demands four runes and that you hold the place: the opponent is locked out.
Black Market flips that. It is a piece of the table that works for both sides. Playing it does not buy you an exclusive advantage — it opens a tap that the other player drinks from as well.
Decks with runes to spare
Two runes for one card is steep on a turn when you want to deploy units. The players who will happily pay are the ones ending turns with runes unspent, or the ones who have emptied their hand and need to reload.
Decks built on speed
If your plan is to end the game quickly, gifting your opponent a card every turn works against you: the slower deck gets more out of the deal.
Why it matters for us. Radiance arrives on October 23 and Pre-Rift events run in Italian stores from October 16 to 22: those are the first tables where Black Market will land in the middle. In limited play, extra cards are scarce currency, and a battlefield that hands one to each side changes the rhythm of a game — especially for players used to picking battlefields with only their own score in mind. Worth walking in already knowing that here the ability belongs to the person across the table as well.
CaveatWhat we still don’t know
Riot has not shown this card. The only source is the r/riftboundtcg thread opened by u/DracoMoriaty, carrying the English official render (RAD 158/167, signed Fish Art Studio, copyright 2026 RGI). The numbering and the styling match the other previews of the past few days, but until it appears on a Riot channel we are treating it as unconfirmed. Nor do we know whether Italian players will open it in their own language: Radiance ships in English, French and Chinese.
The short version
- Black Market is a Radiance battlefield, card 158 of 167.
- It costs two runes of any colour and draws 1 — once per turn, for each player.
- It is the first card in the game to offer its ability to someone who does not control the battlefield.
- Single source: Reddit. Riot has not confirmed it.
Source: r/riftboundtcg, u/DracoMoriaty. Set dates: The Radiance Overview. Images: Riot Games.
Spotted an error?
To send a report you must first log in or sign up: it only takes a few seconds.