Joker? BALATRO know her!

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.

fantastic game, small thing that's driving me crazy though, the shades of red for diamonds and hearts are slightly different, which is nice! but the shades of black for clubs/spades are (i think) the same. can be hard to discern the difference quickly on the small switch screen.

i don't know if this is a colorblind guy problem or if it's a slight design oversight. the latter seems odd because otherwise this game is basically perfect- they thought of everything!

There is a setting that makes the clubs blue and the diamonds orange. It helps me because II have trouble distinguishing clubs and spades on the steam deck.

yep, high contrast mode. excellent!

i love how the long awaited balatro update is 3MB :)

I beat the gold stake for my second deck (yellow), and it turns out you can get by with sub-S-tier Jokers. Big driver was my Glass Joker, which I managed to get to X4.75, with just Hanging Chad (foil), Greedy Joker (+mult for diamonds, also holographic), Blue, and Fibonacci.

hanging chad is amazing now.

flushes: boring but powerful
https://i.ibb.co/LQ5RyBG/image-2024-05-01-204956014.png

Hanging Chad really makes Lucky Cards viable.

I just found out that you can put red seals on steel cards. :o

FINALLY broke the 100 million chip threshold. That's all the jokers unlocked, and just 3 voucher unlocks left, only 1 of which seems tricky.

just got this seed: L9CNC8ZD
skip the first blind to get a free DNA joker. after the boss, open the 2x spectral pack to make it negative and duplicate it. i couldn't find a legendary unfortunately.

i ended up with most cards being glass aces.

Okay, I'm addicted! Thanks ILX

I haven't been able to beat a deck yet though. I usually manage to get to around the fifth ante fairly easily, then the boss blind just wipes me

Gotta get jokers that scale! That's the ticket

Managed to get to my 7th ante yesterday. I heard that Joker order is important. I wasn't sure how planet cards worked, but I think I understand now

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

This is way upthread, but I'm not sure what it means? Where can I see this?

dunno about the switch, but it's an option on the opening screen on pc

I find straights the hardest hands to get consistently. I only bother with them on the deck with no face cards.

straight is pretty dang good if you get Four Fingers and Shortcut

i dunno, i seem to get straights more than things like four of a kind

straights are more likely than 4 of a kind, the hierarchy of scoring is in order of the probability, so flushes are slightly more rare than straights, full houses more rare than flushes etc. etc.

in poker, but not in a game where you can edit the decks

yes v true

The spectral card which changes all the cards to the same rank is very helpful for 4 and 5 of a kind, and potentially flush five as well

ok this game is ruining my life but i finally beat gold stake (with abandoned deck). that's the first time i ran across a Wee Joker (add +8 chips every time a 2 is scored) early on, and i combined it with DNA to create many, many 2s, and the Ride the Bus joker is perfect for abandoned deck so the mults were crackin

Wee Joker was adding 650+ chips by the end of ante 8!

sorry. this game...it's not right

This rocks so dang hard pic.twitter.com/xckNR6yvG7

— localthunk (@LocalThunk) May 15, 2024

Yeah the game was literally breaking my sleep cycles -- I'd wake up super-early (4-6am) without being able to go back to sleep because I *had* to play. I'm kind of glad gold stake turned me off because now my sleep has gotten loads better.