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Black Market Guide — The F2P Route to Exclusive Weapons

Economy · 2026-06-20

What the Black Market Is

The Black Market is a limited-time event shop that opens during the post-season "celebration" window — the gap between one season ending and the next beginning. On a Season 1 server it first appears around Day 57, near the end of the season, and it then returns after every season that follows.

It is the single most important catch-up event for free-to-play players, because it is the main free route to a season's Exclusive Weapons. You earn a special event currency through normal daily play, spend it in a refreshing shop, and walk away with the weapon shards (and other rewards) you could not finish during the season itself.

It Is an Event, Not a Building

The Black Market is a temporary event, not a permanent base building or a normal store. It appears for the celebration window and then closes when the next season starts. Anything you don't spend is not lost, though — your event currency carries over into the next season's Black Market (see below). Treat it as a recurring opportunity, not a one-time shop.

AspectDetails
First appearsAround Day 57 of Season 1 — the post-season celebration window
RecursAfter every season, in the celebration gap before the next one
CurrencyBlack Market Cash — an event-only currency, separate from gems
Carry-overUnspent Black Market Cash rolls into the next season's Black Market
Headline rewardExclusive Weapon Shard Choice Chests — the F2P path to the season's weapons
Runs alongsideThe Champion's Duel celebration event, which feeds extra currency

Black Market Cash — How You Earn It

The shop runs on Black Market Cash, a currency you earn almost entirely for free through the event's own tasks. It is completely separate from gems. The important habit is simple: do the daily tasks every day the event is live, because the bulk of your spending power comes from steady daily income, not from one big drop.

SourceWhat it gives
Daily event tasksRadar tasks, killing Doom enemies/zombies, World Boss hits, Alliance Exercise and similar — your main daily income, capped per day
Bingo board (opening week)A task board where rows, columns and a full board pay out bonus cash
Champion's Duel predictionsPredict knockout-match winners — your stake is refunded if you lose and multiplied if you win, so it is near-free income
Celebration fireworksSending fireworks during the celebration grants cash, plus server-wide milestone chests
Secret / mobile-squad tasksExtra tasks that pay cash on top of (not counted against) your daily cap
Paid packsOptional bundles that grant Black Market Cash directly for real money
Keep a Reserve for Predictions

Champion's Duel predictions are some of the best value in the whole event. Because a losing prediction refunds your stake and a winning one multiplies it, betting costs you nothing on average and only ever grows your balance. Keep a small pool of Black Market Cash aside each day so you never miss your prediction slots — it is free currency you would otherwise leave on the table.

How the Shop Works

The Black Market shows a small set of items at a time — typically six: usually one free item, a couple at a discount, and the rest at full price. You can refresh the shop a limited number of times per day to draw a new selection. The first refresh each day is free; further refreshes cost a small amount of gems, and the prices climb for the last refresh of the day.

The key thing to understand is that availability is random but prices are fixed: refreshing reshuffles which items are on offer, not what they cost. So the workflow is always:

  1. Buy what you want first — a refresh wipes the current six items.
  2. Always take the free item — it costs nothing and the slot resets on refresh.
  3. Then refresh to look for the items you are prioritising.
Buy Before You Refresh

Refreshing replaces every item currently on display. The most common Black Market mistake is refreshing while a wanted item is still sitting in the shop — it vanishes with the rest. Purchase anything you actually want before you spend a refresh, and grab the free item on every screen before moving on.

Exact numbers — the daily Black Market Cash cap, the gem cost of each refresh, and the precise prices of each item — vary by season and are tuned by the developers over time. Use the in-game shop as the source of truth for current values; this guide focuses on the mechanics and priorities that stay constant.

What's in the Shop

The stock mixes the headline weapon shards with a broad spread of progression items. Typical contents:

  • Exclusive Weapon Shard Choice Chests — the headline reward. These let you pick shards toward the season's Exclusive Weapons, and prioritising them is how F2P players unlock the season's weapons without paying.
  • UR (gold) gear blueprints — for crafting and upgrading top-tier gear.
  • Skill chip chests — for your chip / combat-boost progression.
  • Decorations — including permanent stat-boosting decorations worth grabbing once.
  • UR hero universal shards — flexible shards toward hero progression.
  • Badges and materials — skill medals, drone parts, upgrade ore, and similar bottleneck materials.
  • Resources and speed-ups — fillers; generally the lowest value per cash.

What to Buy First

Spend with a plan. Your Black Market Cash is finite, and the temptation to nibble at cheap fillers is exactly what stops people from finishing the rewards that matter.

Buy First

  • Exclusive Weapon Shard Choice Chests — top priority by a wide margin. These are the reason the event exists for F2P players. Funnel the bulk of your cash here to finish the season's weapons.
  • The free item on every refresh — zero cost, always worth taking.
  • Permanent stat decorations — a one-time, permanent army boost is excellent value; secure it once.

Buy If You Can Afford It

  • UR gear blueprints — strong, but only if your weapon shards are on track first.
  • Skill chip chests — useful for chip progression once the essentials are handled.
  • Discounted bottleneck materials — skill medals, drone parts or ore only if you are genuinely stuck on that material.

Skip Unless You Are Swimming in Cash

  • Speed-ups and raw resources at full price — the worst value per cash; you will get these elsewhere far more cheaply.
  • Full-price fillers when weapon shards are still unfinished — every coin spent here is a shard you didn't buy.
Weapons First, Everything Else Second

If you do nothing else, prioritise the Exclusive Weapon Shard Choice Chests. Finishing a season's weapons through the Black Market is a power gain that pays off for the entire next season and beyond. Materials, blueprints and decorations are nice, but they come around again — a missed weapon window is far more expensive to recover later.

Don't Confuse It With the Glittering Market

A common mix-up: the Black Market is not the same as the Glittering Market. They are two separate shops with separate currencies.

Black MarketGlittering Market
Post-season celebration eventA separate, recurring event on its own schedule
Spends Black Market Cash (earned free)Spends Glittering Coins (largely from heavy diamond spending / packs)
Headline: Exclusive Weapon shardsHeadline: high-end gear blueprints

Most "what to buy" advice you'll see floating around about mythic gear blueprints actually belongs to the Glittering Market. For the Black Market, weapon shards are the prize.

Common Mistakes

  1. Refreshing before buying — a refresh wipes all six items. Purchase first, refresh second.
  2. Skipping the free item — it costs nothing and resets every refresh. Always take it.
  3. Spreading cash thin on fillers — speed-ups and resources feel cheap but drain the budget you needed for weapon shards.
  4. Forgetting the predictions — Champion's Duel predictions refund on a loss, so not betting is leaving free cash unclaimed.
  5. Ignoring the event entirely — if you missed a weapon during the season, the Black Market is your best free recovery route. Skipping it means falling further behind.
  6. Assuming it's gone for good — unspent Black Market Cash carries into the next season's event, so a small leftover balance is not wasted.
  7. Confusing it with the Glittering Market — different shop, different currency, different priorities.

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