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?

just shift+tabbing over to say:

oh nice, just realized Matador (get $8 whenever you trigger the boss blind ability) pairs really well with the Tooth boss (lose $1 for ever card you play) :)

i'm now at the point where i will sabotage a run just to buy an undiscovered card

oh nice, just realized Matador (get $8 whenever you trigger the boss blind ability) pairs really well with the Tooth boss (lose $1 for every card you play) :)

5 minutes later update: uh, no that doesn't work? weird! i played 4 hands against the Tooth, each time triggering the boss' ability, and the Matador never gave me any money, or gained sell value, or gave me anything when I cashed out? down with the Matador!

yeah, i couldn't figure out why matador doesn't work sometimes. a disappointing card.

https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Matador_(Joker)
hands that are illegal
hands with debuffs
The Ox (most played hand sets money to 0)
The Arm (decrease level)
and for some reason i can't understand, The Flint (chips and mults halved)

I just got to ante 12 for the first time by using MADNESS. I got it to X6 and then duplicated it. Skipped every possible blind so they wouldn't eat each other. X36 then picked up some more X mults. a mad game indeed.

Beat my first gold stake! Ghost deck, first Joker I got was Green Joker, which I immediately Hexed, and just avoided discarding. Eventually I got a combo of DNA and was able to permanently rent Hologram (fortunately I'd gotten enough money (mainly from hitting Lucky Card 1/20 jackpots) that the $3/round didn't put a dent in my cash), and then got a Hack and started buffing the low cards.

Now I never need to play this game again (we'll see how this goes).

Reading balatro posts full of balatro vocab is almost as fun as actually playing balatro. Almost

lol after trying to get through the orange stake with the yellow deck and failing miserably, I think I'm finally done with this game. THIS time I mean it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyEsLlXfZ8

it really is a bangin' tune

i turned off the music. got tiresome.

i also turned off the music within a few minutes. i'm a notorious game music hater, and i will say that the biggest problem with mario kart is that it doesn't allow you to mute the music and keep the rest of the game sounds up

I BEAT GOLD STAKE!!!!

Now what to do with my life?

Think I'll go for a walk outside

I'm up to blue stake. Anaglyph deck is the easiest deck yet -- just save those doubles and cash out when a good tag pops up. All jokers unlocked, 149/150 found.

Hanging chad in the beta version is one of the best common jokers, up there with Cavendish. Triggers first card twice more instead of once more. Great with Blueprint and Brainstorm.

so I went for my walk, then came back and did this.

https://i.postimg.cc/VvMXHHHb/Screenshot-2024-04-28-225211.png

unseeded, just running through stakes I hadn't done on decks. Got observatory early and thought "hey, why not get it, who knows, i could run into perkeo later". Got Baron early and thought "hey, who knows, maybe I can make a king deck work". Then ran into playing card to dump my deck. DNA to replicate a gazillion kings. And finally, Perkeo in a random tarot pack. Oh and I got brainstorm early and duplicated it twice with invisible joker. one in the early game, and one in endless.

One of the most unreal, beyond lucky runs. Here's a little clip if you want to see the bonkers.
https://streamable.com/z9mrfc

You can use the seed as well if you want to give this a go.

https://i.postimg.cc/rmfHwz89/Screenshot-2024-04-28-230557.png

I think this run could have potentially gone further than ante 19? I didn't focus on high card until I got perkeo.

Amazing!

i also turned off the music within a few minutes. i'm a notorious game music hater, and i will say that the biggest problem with mario kart is that it doesn't allow you to mute the music and keep the rest of the game sounds up

― z_tbd, Friday, April 26, 2024 3:14 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

a controversial music opinion!

i've watched my roommate play this game for hours bc i love the music. gonna download the soundtrack so i can add it to my writing playlist

I don't like music on casual / "second screen" type games. Only one I liked was in Last Call BBS and I still turned it off after a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUrKDMk_yHc

And finally, Perkeo in a random tarot pack

i'm still a bit of a n00b but how are the consumables giving mults?

nvm i see that's the observatory perk!

Yep! The perkeo/observatory synergy is the strongest thing I've found on the game so far.

Also little tip I found a few games ago. Blueprint/brainstorm work with burglar! I had perked on the left out of the shop to get my cards. Burglar on the left picking a blind to get 13 hands. Then my multi on the left during the actual game. Lot of joker shuffling, but vry worth it.