Joker? BALATRO know her!

Apologies for the tortured title.

So far I've beaten the 8th ante for 4 decks, and IIRC they've all been flush-oriented (which has been a pretty reliable strategy). I did find a Joker that creates a stone card every time you pick a blind and I realized how well those can work (e.g. synergizing with Jokers that give bonuses to deck size).

However, the black deck has been a pretty significant difficulty spike, and you have to get your engine going in the first couple antes if you're going to make a decent run. I'm starting to think that buying vouchers for it isn't a great use of money UNLESS it's the one that gives you a +1 to hands.

I'm gonna have to get those aren't I? You're going to make me

There's a compelling argument to make in favor of NOT getting the game, it's not too late for you.

Cosign

Real talk: flush decks boring. Pair and pair adjacent desks far more fun

I agree on both counts!

I finally beat ante 8 with the black deck -- basically followed the tips from this post. The joker set that I had was chip bonus for face cards, the joker that makes all cards a face card, chip bonus for pairs, Supernova, Fortune Teller (which I think was enhanced with an XMult), and an XMult for pairs, and I spammed pairs as much as possible. I also picked up a voucher that rerolls the boss blind (which I used on the extra big boss blind) and still just squeaked through it.

Black deck is a challenge that I just don't enjoy as much as some of the other decks. I keep cracking away at it just to finish up the basic difficulty level but it's kind of a drag to play by comparison.

Flush-focused runs make a lot of sense to get through the lower difficulties but you really need to pump up their hand level to make a dent with flush on ante 9+. I've had winning results for ante 1-8 from pairs or two pairs if I get the right jokers. Blueprint and Brainstorm jokers seem to be key for the highest scores.

black stake even worse than black deck imo

I beat the black stake a lot more quickly than I did the deck, but maybe that's because I've internalized the basic strategies better.

Also it'll be 2 weeks tomorrow since I bought it and I've put 61 hours into the game.

my condolences

big patch incoming

You can opt into the beta to get the patch early, which is what I did, and may have been what helped me beat the purple stake. Orange stake still kind of sucks right now, though.

I bought this a few days ago. Does winning get easier when you unlock more? Because it took me quite a while to win a single game (with the blue deck).

Current strategies I'm using are having a single-suit-heavy deck for flushes and getting the shiny jokers for free chips and mults.
Planet cards seem like they cost too much to be worth it until I am getting the maximum interest every blind.
I'm also not skipping blinds unless the the tag is really good, like a negative joker.

The higher level jokers and vouchers make a big difference but you'll still lose if the cards don't fall your way.

Doing a seeded run can be instructive... playing the same setup multiple times can make it obvious what you should have done in that scenario if you had perfect knowledge

100,000,000 chips in a single hand and finally reached ante 13 today, beating black stake in the process. Ended up with all multiplier jokers. A glass card broken, steel card in deck, campfire and blueprint.

The secret is multipliers and rare cards! Also, check the collection to see how to unlock specific jokers. There are unlocks you won't get unless you are intentional (i.e. discard a royal flush, play four 7 of clubs etc.) those unlocks are pretty essential if you want to go big

Also, check the collection to see how to unlock specific jokers.

I'd already known about that but this was a good reminder -- unlocking some of these specific jokers has reintroduced some fun into the game.

I'm so pissed, I had a deck with like 12 jacks in it last night and could have got the "discard 5 jacks in a hand" joker but forgot it was a thing! Definitely good to keep going back and reminding yourself

Where are your priorities?!

I fell into one of those dazed stupors playing this last night. Even when I called it quits at 2am, lying in bed all I could hear was "dun dun dun dun, dun, dun, dun dun, dun *synth line rises*."

Okay so I wanted to see how people get those silly ante 40 decks and found this. I was so close on a real run! But the blasted observatory wouldn't show up :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3G5NhnfI1Y

Plasma deck a little silly broken

wow, that's nothing like what my games look like. amazing that this game is only 60 MB.

The music in this sounds like a balearic cover of "Nutshell" by Alice In Chains

Anywhere, I got this on Switch in the recent sale. Only just started playing, but j can see why people are feeling it

i think my favorite card is Ceremonial Dagger -- the one that kills the joker to the right for an increased multiplier.
on the other hand, madness (the one that eats random jokers) might be the worst card? it's madness. madness.

i got smeared joker yesterday and that's a crazy card too.

working my way thru the challenges, beat half so far
just tried that madness joker and it was an absolute disaster lol

I beat the orange stake with the ghost deck.

madness pretty terrible sadly. Ceremonial dagger would be an okay card if it ate the joker on the left. I find it pretty garbage in its current state

smeared joker great (except that it makes you play flushes which are kinda boring ngl)

Madness is a great early-game joker imo. It gains .5x every round even if you have no other jokers to feed it with.

I got it first round and thought I was finally going to unlock the "win with under 4 jokers" joker, but it doesn't scale well enough for the late rounds at higher stakes.

I also play primarily plasma deck where it's not as big a buff

Why does it matter which direction the Dagger eats? If it's because of Swashbuckler, they changed its behavior in the patch so that it can be anywhere.

I just had a run with Egg + Swashbuckler, that was an easy win.

xp Because you typically want to put your multipliers on the right, and they're your most valuable jokers.

I had egg + bull + a bunch of money generating jokers with the plasma deck and it weas the easiest win i've had. Game played itself. Also how I finally got the $400 joker!

By multipliers I mean the Xtimes mults. Not the standard multis

It's okay if you always have a buffer joker before you hit the Xtimes on the right. But the best decks have Xtimes on Xtimes. A good run beating higher stakes for me is normally a stock multi followed by as many Xtimes as possible. maybe a big chip generator on the far left. By the time I'm past ante 4 on a winning high stakes run, Dagger has become more of a hinderance than a help in my experience

Oh, I didn't know that the order mattered for scoring. I think there was a tutorial screen about that and then I forgot about it. Luckily I was usually putting the red X cards on the right anyway.

Likewise it took me a while to realize "first played card" was the leftmost one and not the first one I clicked on.

thinking of making a clone of balatro but using cribbage rules. i get excited when i get hands like 8876.

The only placement tbat matters is having your xtimes on the right. You want to multiply the multi when it's at it's biggest number. Can also matter for poly/glass cards in the hand if your jokers are adding multi to cards played. I place my glass/poly's on the far right when playing out of habbit even when it doesn't matter.

One more voucher to unlock (stupid playing card one) and I'll have a 100% completed collection of everything. I really went overboard with this one

Wait, you can move the dagger to the left after the round has started! of course i'll eventually mess up and have it eat a legendary.

That's exactly what's happened to me every time I've had it with a decent XMult, which is 2-3 times now.

how often are folks skipping blinds? i've probably only done it once so far.. should i be taking advantage of this mechanic?

True abanana!

I only skip with the higher stakes where you get no cash from the small blind. Do love me a free shop in the early game or a negative joker tag when it comes up

yeh definitely worth checking the tag to see if it is worth it to skip - sometimes you get a lot of money or a free mega buffoon pack when you have no jokers

Yeah skipping really only becomes essential with harder stakes where you feel the money constraints the most (I've been playing the beta, which gives you the joker for free instead of making you pay for it). In the lower stakes, you can earn enough just playing blinds to buy what you need.

I am skipping more often now. There is a great joker called Throwback that gives you more red multiplier every time you skip a round.

I find a lot of the details on the various packs quite hard to read when playing handheld on the Switch. I switched off the CRT effect though, and that has helped a little. I recommend

balatro!!

quick q, longer explanation. the q: can ya'll recommend some good videos/channels for maybe...intermediate players?

longer explanation: it's easy to find beginner strategy and tips, and it's easy to find people who can make it to ante 16 and rack up quadrillions of points who will show you how to do the impossible. i'm somewhere in the middle i think. i've logged about 95 hours, 127/150 jokers unlocked, have defeated almost all of the decks. i still need to finish zodiac deck, i haven't gotten past green stake yet, and i've only done a couple of the challenges.

example of what i keep finding and don't want:

https://i.imgur.com/akyAgKo.png

it's not the clickbait headline, it's the 44 minute length of video, and knowing that the one secret i need is splintered into hundreds of little secrets that he's going to haphazardly mention throughout the video. i just can't do it. i've never clicked on it, i just can't do it.

is there a youtuber out there who is like "here's a really fun and helpful trick - i'll tell you all about it 2 minutes"

actually a texts guide recommendation is what i'm looking for i think lol

(ok, maybe i can just let this guy be my guru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7cBL6MvZyw)

The videos aren't short, but I've learned a lot from this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn-z2hdH1Co

gotta make videos longer to get more ad breaks
it sucks

For folks who've beaten the gold stake: How quick are you to start a new run if you don't get certain Jokers in the first ante?

Kate, best to not get into it in the first place particularly if you have an addictive personality. I need to quit the game cold turkey because it's starting up my sleep, again. If there are people who can play this casually I envy them.

Screwing up my sleep.

Kate, I had to explain the game to my father over Christmas as he was having a bit of trouble with it, but he also expressed concern that this game was starting to take up his entire free time. Gotta definitely ration it, I keep it to 2-3 runs a day at most.

Every joker unlocked except Stuntman! Was easier than I thought... or maybe I just got lucky. I'm thinking I'll put this game down with the equivalent of Completionist+, no way I'm going to gold stake every joker... my god

I also thought Completionist++ was way more work than I wanted to put in but when I got Completionist+ I was already more than 60% of the way there. As it stands now, I think I’m close to 80% now.

95% now and fewer than 60 stickers left, but some of the ones left expire all on their own so it's going to feel like an asymptote, I expect.

I'm having the worst times playing gold stake for some reason. Seems like I need to go at it 20-30 times... anyone got some videos of players playing gold stake that kinda show a better way of going about it?

Stuck on red deck, still only have checkered deck golded. Trying to get the others up there in the meantime.

Never skip a blind, shops are too good.
Get at least one of each chip/multi+/multi×/utility joker.
Don't buy bad jokers (there are bad jokers, check out a tier list)
Don't buy cards (planetary or tarot or card packs) till you hit $20. Exception for spectrals.

That's kinda how I play, works out well. Lee probably has much better advice

Never skip a blind, shops are too good.

― H.P, Sunday, January 19, 2025 5:55 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

not even for da money cmon gotta get that money baby

if the very first blind is free polychrome joker I’m slamming that skip button

for plasma deck specifically i found ignoring mult and just focusing on chip jokers was successful for gold stake. chip jokers like bull, hiker, runner etc can scale up the score much faster than investing in mult. only works with plasma deck because of that decks mechanics.

I'll sometimes take free shop (def on first blind) and sometimes free rare early on.

I've got gold on red and yellow - the latter took a lot of runs & I think, yes, my main mistake was spending money early (always a temptation with yellow deck).

HP mostly has it right, but I'll fill in some edge cases.

You can definitely skip blinds, but far less often than you want to.
Either or even both blinds can be skipped in ante 1 if you get one of these tags: uncommon, rare, investment, holographic, polychrome, coupon.
Other scenarios are:
you see a mega buffoon pack or top up and you don't have good Jokers that'll help you with the upcoming blinds;
you absolutely have no other way of dealing with the upcoming boss blind and you get a re-roll;
You get a 3- level upgrade for the hand you're playing;
It's late game and you get the one that gives you $5 for every hand you've played;
Negative tags are a trap lol on gold stake.

Try not to buy anything until you have $25, because that's the default interest max. You can actually beat Ante 1 without any scoring Jokers.

Chips, +Mult, and xMult is the basic template, but chips is definitely the one to toss if you come across another good xMult. In this case, you should start pounding planet cards to build up chips that way, but the xMult is going to be carrying you more.

Along those lines, xMult card enhancements like steel or glass are also powerful, but you'll need to have a fair number of them to really see dividends. This is more of an endgame concern IMO. Lucky cards aren't as good but really benefit if you play them a lot given how the expected value math works, so effects that allow you to re-trigger cards (Chad, Hack, Photograph, and their ilk) make Lucky cards a decent strategy. And all three of these enhancements will let you see their associated XMult Jokers which all scale well, too.

(I've actually been able to win gold stakes without +Mults, because of of re-trigger builds worth card enhancements. It takes a lot of setup so I wouldn't normally recommend going in this direction or of the gate, but it definitely illustrates the power of repeated x2 effects (like if you play full house with all glass cards, then you're increasing your base mult 32x, which is huge).)

Early to mid game, you want to focus on good scaling +Mult: Green, Ride the Bus, Supernova. Opinions are less unified about Red Card because of how expensive it is to scale, but if you've got the money, it basically makes planet cards irrelevant for most hands.

Currently my favorite xMult is Constellation, because basically you double dip on buffing your hands. Hologram is more situational, and it's better suited for high card or pairs.

Straights are powerful because they scale with planet cards really well, but to get them consistently you need to be aggressive about thinning out your deck. Thin or starting at the ends and concentrate on keeping cards in the middle, i.e. connecting cards. Abandoned deck is actually really great for straight runs but still takes some deck shaping.

If you've got a build that can get you through the next few blinds, don't chuck your economy Jokers at the first opportunity. Money is incredibly important to being able to pivot if a bad boss comes along or buying packs or, most crucially, re-rolling. I used to just sit on my money if I had over $50, but you want the chance to buy as many of the thing(s) you want as possible, and that means not being afraid of sinking $50 on re-rolls in a single shop if you can afford it.

Buy spectral packs when you can; if you see an Immolate, 90% of the time you should get it, because you get $20 back for thinning or your deck. Other spectral card to go for are:
blue, red, and gold seals
Cryptid if duplicate a great card (this is where a smaller deck is important too, because you need the right card to show up in your hand so that you can copy it).
Aura

Ectoplasm is obviously very tempting but you need to be playing small hands to avoid kneecapping yourself.

As for good videos, if you've got 90 minutes, Balatro University's "Balatro every day" playlist helped me a lot. I don't have nearly as great of a win rate as them or any other really good players, but I don't think I'd be sitting at 3 Jokers from C++ without seeing them in practice. BU is great about explaining their reasoning with every decision, but also gets some of the most obscene luck at the same time (which has become a meme).

ZainoTV's tier list videos are shorter but also insightful. Someone posted a card tier list as something of a joke but Zaino does a good job explaining why e.g. you should delete 6s before you delete 2s, and why Kings are considered OP (I'm traumatized by the Boss that debuffs face cards though so I still prefer Aces).

If I can highlight one thing you've said which I would count as the most important for an amateur: get scaling jokers and get them early and hyperfocus on them.

Also, pick a hand that you're going to go for (almost) exclusively that run. Something your early game jokers point to. For instance, if I get supernova within the first two ante's (hell, maybe even later) I'm going for a high card build 99% of the time. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but it just helps to focus your planetary cards and to give you a direction in synergistic your jokers. It's very much a judgement call thing.

I'm big on going for easy hand builds (high card, pair, two pair) because I like the security of it. It's less risky, and you've only got your bad shop management/luck to blame rather than screaming because you didn't get that one card you needed for the flush which loses you the game at ante 8

Good points!

From what I've heard leaning hard on high card/ pair is sufficient for normal gold stake runs (provided you use Planet cards to level them up). You'll also want to get into the habit of checking the upcoming Boss the instant you reach the small blind, because if you run into the "only 1 hand" boss, you could be in trouble. (This is really hard and I'm only now getting better about it, because this game is so mechanically smooth that you feel compelled to keep speeding through blinds because we're CHASING THE FIRE.)

Whereas 4OK, 5OK, and flush 5s (which to be clear takes a lot of work to reach, and just as much work to make sustainable) are geared towards Ante 9+.

Yeah following a lot of this advice already, but really need to refine things. Thanks so much for the tips, Lee!

All about simple card hands, scaling jokers, getting $25 early. Just need to be more precise in my decision making. I probably skip more small blind than not and perhaps that is crux

got my highest score yet. hologram + DNA + marble joker / triboulet + sock & buskin. swapped out the marble joker for brainstorm and applied that to sock & buskin.
would have gotten a few antes higher, but i wasn't paying attention and failed to reroll the boss blind that debuffs face cards.

Game has been trolling me. Gros Michel is one of the Jokers I need to win with, and twice now I've gotten it in Ante 8, and twice now it's gone extinct after the first blind I played, one of which was the final Boss Blind.

I see Gros Michel as a great early joker. Use it for the first 3-4 antes and let it die. Then hopefully you get Cavendish later on and that's one of the best jokers in the entire game.

Yep that's the general strategy, but for me to specifically get Completionist++, I need to beat Ante 8 with GM intact, which is proving elusive. If I don't get it in a late ante, I'm hoping to see a perishable version so that it doesn't try to extinguish itself, though I'm not sure it won't try to go extinct even when it's already expired.

Similar thing with another Joker, Turtle Bean, which is one of those that only lasts 5 hands before it destroys itself, so the perishable thing won't even matter.

I've had a perishable Gros Michel die on me fwiw. But yeah I get it now.

(Hopefully this embeds.)

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/56958675954193135/83DFB0BCAEE5DB31CA774213DD4FFE164904920C/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Now I never have to play this game again (on gold stake).

Impressive skill and dedication

Not sure about skill (my gold stake win rate is pretty bad, probably 5% or so), but yes, I've definitely been stubborn/addicted.

You dog. Holy hell that was insane. I'm sure the win rate drops when you're trying to win with specific Jokers - if you didn't need to worry about that I bet it would be higher.

The Balatro University vids are insanely helpful. Watching that dude play gold stake is simultaneously mesmerizing and educational. Seeing the decision making deviate so much from what I would have done in the same situation as recently as a few days ago is wild. Makes sense he's a math PHD, he calculates hands and alterations to his set of Jokers immediately and can quickly understand the value proposition of choices very quickly.

My purple/orange/gold win rate is already way higher (maybe 25+%?) and I understand certain critical tactics better like avoiding tags, utilizing blue seals, removing cards, and the importance of money jokers in the midgame. If anything, I'm losing a bit more frequently at the lower stakes as I'm more sloppy without the difficulty level forcing me to consider every decision so deeply.

leee da balatro god bow down

I think the single biggest lesson for me is that a hand at level 15+ essentially replaces the need for a chips joker to win. So jokers like Spaceman, Burnt Joker and the blue seal are now instant buys whereas before I'd probably pass on them.

Leee how many hours did you spend to get to C++?

I'm at 54% after 125 hours.... feels like it will take 500 for me to just get to C+

I'm sure the win rate drops when you're trying to win with specific Jokers - if you didn't need to worry about that I bet it would be higher.

You'd think lol but no -- the basic strategy is the scaling +Mult with a scaling XMult, focus on leveling one hand, have some good economy so that you can keep re-rolling for missing jokers, and I would consistently shoot myself in the foot with dumb/impulsive decisions as well as mis-clicks.

What I've learned is that I'd been consistently undervaluing economy, specifically gold cards, and how well they synergize with high card/pair runs, because all that extra money can always be used somehow.

xps lol 566 hours to C++. I've still got one achievement left and then I swear I'll be done with this game unless the I catch the high score bug.

Aaaand got the last achievement (play 5 wild cards at the same time). I can finally play other games!

Amazing achievement Leee. I'm limiting myself to one run a day at the minute to prevent it taking over my life

Congratulations Leee! I’ve got three or four gold stake wins and I just cannot imagine the perseverance needed for c++. Incredible.

Yeah economy is a huge lesson I learned from Balatro U.

Just had an insane run, had a Sock & Buskin, Pareidolia and Lucky Cat going with a Blueprint on the S&B and an Oops all 6s doubling odds and a deck totally loaded with lucky cards. Each card was triggered four times and each lucky went off about half the time or more which built up Lucky Cat to over 20x mult by the time I got to the 12th ante. In the late antes I began moving the Blueprint to the left of Lucky Cat to double the xmult.

Got my new high score of 64 mil but not enough for the Stuntman to unlock. Alas. If I had focused more planet cards on Uranus I might have unlocked it without needing to use The Baron but alas. Had no negative jokers for this one... all with only 5. Best part is this combo rakes in money with the lucky cards cashing in $20 a few times each hand.

can't believe I was balling so far on a round only to reroll and get the blind that hides your jokers on ante 8

embarrassing bag fumble

lol guess who's put another 20 hours into this??? This time I've been trying to beat Ante 12 for the first time, which I finally did (after several other boneheaded moves), though I didn't quite reach the scientific notation hand scores yet.

My build, L-R:
Baron, Green, DNA, Gluttonous Joker (negative that was just there for decoration), Brainstorm, Steel.

Managed to make a King with a red seal, and so whenever I drew it, I'd move DNA to the left-most to copy it twice, feeding Steel. In the subsequent hands, I'd move the Baron to the left, and that's when I'd get billion-level scores. TBH I was definitely hunting this and pre-optimizing my deck with this specific build in mind, which led to a lot of failed runs, but AFAIK this is basically one of two ways to beat Ante 12 (the other being Sock & Buskin + Tribouchet and possibly red-sealed glass kings/queens, but you can't really bank on pulling a legendary).

i beat my first deck too just the other day.

it's a drug

lol oh god LocalThunk is adding more Jokers for v1.1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYlh8bEURQY

gimmie da jokers bb

for the deck i beat the jokers i had were pretty unstoppable.

Four Fingers:All Flushes and Straights can be made with 4 cards.

Shortcut: Allows Straights to be made with gaps of 1 rank.

(those two together are strong asf)

Constellation: Gains X0.1 Mult per Planet card used. (this one is awesome!)

Baseball Card:Uncommon Jokers each give X1.5 Mult. (all my other jokers counted)

Luchador:Sell this card to disable the current Boss Blind. (never had to use it)

got those all pretty early then just bought every planet card i saw.I didn't really add any cards to the deck at all

Article referenced:
https://archive.is/20250207194015/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-02-07/maker-of-smash-indie-hit-balatro-talks-about-what-s-next

xp that's a great set of 4 for the painted deck (minus the Luchador)

Yeah I only kept it because it counted an an uncommon I nothing else good came up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJ2GcvlOZY

Nice to see that I'm not the only one capable of dumb mistakes.

Never tried to unlock stuntman so used red deck - more discards to hunt for my wincon - on white stake. Managed to get some red seal glass kings, Chad, photograph, the 4x for 4+ of a kind, blackboard, blueprint and brainstorm (my lucky day I guess). Maxed out at 1.2 billion. Might have kept going but red glass cards shatter lol. DNA would have been nice but didn’t get that one