Black Market Connections
Enchantment
At the beginning of your first main phase, choose one or more —
• Sell Contraband — Create a Treasure token. You lose 1 life.
• Buy Information — Draw a card. You lose 2 life.
• Hire a Mercenary — Create a 3/2 colorless Shapeshifter creature token with changeling. You lose 3 life. (It is every creature type.)
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate
- Price
- $18.23
- EDHREC rank
- #133
Black Market Connections puts three repeatable engine modes on the table at once — a Treasure, a 1/1 Rogue, or a card drawn each upkeep, at the cost of 1 life per mode you activate. The life loss is real but rarely lethal in Commander, and any deck that wants a steady supply of bodies, mana, or cards should be running it; Admiral Brass, Unsinkable decks include it at a 66% clip for exactly that reason.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Admiral Brass, Unsinkable
Admiral Brass, Unsinkable demands a critical mass of Pirates to rebuy from the graveyard, and Black Market Connections feeds that engine on two axes simultaneously — the Pirate token mode keeps the creature count up, while the Treasure mode accelerates the mana needed to recast legends from the bin.
Burakos, Party Leader // Folk Hero
Burakos, Party Leader // Folk Hero scores party members across creature types, and Black Market Connections is one of the cleanest ways to manufacture a Rogue on demand every upkeep while simultaneously drawing or ramping — letting Burakos, Party Leader // Folk Hero fire its draw trigger more consistently.
Nalia de'Arnise
Nalia de'Arnise cares about creatures with the Rogue subtype showing up in the top four cards of your library, and Black Market Connections guarantees a Rogue token every turn to feed that gameplan while also accelerating the mana Nalia de'Arnise needs to activate her ability repeatedly.
Betor, Ancestor's Voice
Betor, Ancestor's Voice rewards you for playing multiple permanents in a single turn, and Black Market Connections turns every upkeep into a free trigger — the Treasure or token mode contributes directly to the resource chain Betor, Ancestor's Voice needs to keep the board compounding.
Vihaan, Goldwaker
Vihaan, Goldwaker turns Treasure tokens into attacking creatures, which makes Black Market Connections a direct threat enabler rather than mere acceleration — every upkeep you're printing a potential attacker that Vihaan, Goldwaker animates on your combat step.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Black Market Connections earns its reputation: 40 life gives you room to pay 3 or even all three modes without flinching, and the card is equally good in tempo-light battlecruiser pods and fast, tuned metas alike. In Legacy and Vintage, the three-mana investment and upkeep-speed payoff are far too slow for formats where games end on turns one through three — Black Market Connections is technically legal in both but never played competitively. Oathbreaker splits the difference: smaller life totals make triple-activation costly, but the two-player-leaning format still gives it enough time to pull ahead if your signature spell enables any of the three modes.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Budget Alternatives
Cheaper options that do most of the same work
The closest single-card approximation is Phyrexian Arena, which matches the card-a-turn mode of Black Market Connections for around $2 and one less life — you lose the tokens and Treasures, but the draw is unconditional and the cost is negligible. If you want the mana production angle instead, Pitiless Plunderer converts creature deaths into Treasures and requires no life payment, though it relies on board presence rather than working in isolation the way Black Market Connections does.
Price Context
Current price
$18.23 mid tier
At $18.23, Black Market Connections sits in the mid tier — not a budget pickup, but not a format-warping staple that commands a premium either. It holds value well because it's a genuine three-in-one engine with no close functional substitute, and demand stays consistent across a wide range of black Commander decks.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Admiral Brass, Unsinkable
- Burakos, Party Leader // Folk Hero
- Nalia de'Arnise
- Betor, Ancestor's Voice
- Vihaan, Goldwaker
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.