In Master Trader players produce one or more unique resources and these are traded for the other players' in order to form a set according to a specific privilege a player has and this combination gives them a specific reward in the shape of gold coins, advanced resources or Victory Points (VP).
The goal of the game is a race to become the first player with a specific amount of VP.
There are many unique privileges arranged in three levels:
In Level 1, players trade 3 different basic resources for 1 gold coin.
In Level 2, players trade 2 different basic resources for 1 advanced resource.
In Level 3, players trade specific combinations of advanced resources and/or gold coins for VP and/or gold coins.
All privileges must be purchased with gold coins.
The game plays over an unlimited amount of rounds, each round consisting of 3 phases. Phases 1 (Free Trade) and 2 (Resource Conversion) are concurrent (no player turns). Phase 3 (Buy Privilege) occurs in a particular order that gives preference to the weaker players at the time.
The entire game is based on a closed economy with limited resources.