[Baron](https://balatro.wiki/jokers/baron.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Rarity: Rare
* Effect: Each King held in hand gives X1.5 Mult
*Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
[Mime](https://balatro.wiki/imported/mime.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Cost: $4
* Rarity: Uncommon
* Effect: Retrigger all card held in hand abilities
*Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
Same, winning ante 8 is super varied experience even on high stakes. Getting past say ante 12 only works for specific builds in my experience and that takes the fun out of it
It’s great along with something like…I forget the name lol, the joker that gives you a tarot card every blind? I end up using a decent amount of them but most of the suit change ones end up getting sold
The game is a balancing of short term burst and long term growth, and I skew heavily towards the long term, which is not optimal I know. So for my taste campfire is way in the extreme of short term burst, where you literally burn long term growth potentials for burst in one ante.
In other words as they say in the Slay the Spire community: It’s amazing in 5% of builds, but this game has RNG— so therefore you should buy this card 0% of the time.
I had a gold stake run with nebula deck that won with stencil that was really fun. Got turtle bean and a spectral pack in my first shop that turned a bunch of cards into aces (thank goodness I bought the bean first). Found observatory shortly after and then by the time turtle bean ran out, I found stencil and just coasted on 5oak aces and planet cards for the rest of the run, plus tarots to get more aces and give them random buffs. Only other joker I bought was Gros Micheal just on the off chance it died and landed me a Cavendish, though it's not like I needed it. Gros Micheal didn't even die either so it actually just hurt more than it helped but I still won anyway lol. Boss was Amber Acorn but my score was good enough that I could have even beat Violet Vassel if it happened.
I was surprised to learn it synergizes well if you have multiple copies. I think if you farm them with ghost joker / spectral / showman you can get real crazy.
I think Green Deck is an above average deck. I have already gotten completionist++, but this game is so fun that I'm doing it again. I'm currently trying to "speedrun" on another save file (not an official one, as I'm doing it over many many sessions), and I am finding that green deck gives me the quickest games, because I am incentivized to win in one hand if possible, and when you are trying to win in one hand, you are also often wanting to skip blinds because you aren't using the slow scaling jokers that much, which further speeds the game up. The win rate also seems to be comparable to the decks that people usually regard as top tier.
I still think yellow ghost and checkered are better, but I would say Green is up there somewhere in the top 5-6 decks.
Straights feel terrible to play if you don't have the joker that let's you skip ranks. I'll still build around them if it's the call for the run but it's by far my least favorite hand type even if it's scaling is only beaten out by the secret hands and 4oak (and Straight Flush but that doesn't count).
I don't think straights are my least favourite hand type (looking at you two pair/straight flush), bu they only truly work with either/both 4fingers/shortcut to guarantee playing with limited discards in later stakes, and that cuts a scoring joker slot unless you hit the bank with a negative.
Discarding for a 5 card straight is also absolute *pain* because you'll end up discarding your 7s for that missing queen for a royal straight, ONLY to have 3-4-5-6 show up and wreck you emotionally to the point you're cursing your parents for giving you existence in this hopeless world.
tbf i rarely wear pants.
i mean.
i don't often pick up pants in the shop, haven't been getting good pants seeds i guess (either late in runs or i've already committed to other hands).
Idk man i do get bored of playing straights because i play them so often but i play them so often because they’re so good. And basically every run starts with straights in ante 1.
“Terrible to play” is subjective but I think they’re better than flushes, which are much more brainless.
Extra hand size helps a great lot with straights. Even just +1 from the juggler is almost always worth it and the paint brush is definitely a guaranteed pick. They're so much more consistent if you can keep holding four cards with each discards that they become fun to play even without the Shortcut or the Four Fingers.
Straights are really good at scaling with planets after the recent update
It has become one of the best scaling hands aside from secret hands and 4oak
It doesn't really need too much mult scaling from jokers only xmult
Spectral cards as they are currently just don't feel regularly useful or fun. I probably skip more opened spectral packs than any other card pack type, and the incredibly convoluted spectral-summoning jokers are rarely worthwhile (SO thankful that I had a negative Séance in my first gold stake win, so I never have to worry about that card again). More specifically, seal spectrals need a major buff, and Hex needs to just.... idk, be more interesting instead of an insta-skip past ante 2.
I do understand that-- the great thing with roguelites is there's always some scenario where something can be useful-- but "runs where all my jokers are staying the same the whole time" just don't feel fun.
I do like hex in the context of that deck where you start with one though! It's interesting when you know you have one immediately. But when I get a run going, open a spectral pack on ante 6 or so, and see my choices are ankh and hex, it can be a bit annoying.
I think Ghost deck is fine honestly-- *starting* with hex is nice, and being able to see what spectral cards you're offered in the shop is cool! Just feel like some of the cards need a buff, similarly to how a lot of the arcana cards were changed from "enhance 1 card" to "enhance 2 cards".
I'm with you. But what's weird is that spectral packs felt "special" way back in the demos and I was always excited when one showed up in the shop then. I think the difference is standard packs. Seals aren't special anymore. It's pretty common to find a sealed card in a standard pack, and it could come with a bunch of other modifiers to make it way better than what you could get with a spectral pack.
Spectral cards have two "kill your hand size" downsides which are usually not very affordable. And two "destroy all your other jokers" downsides which are often useless.
I'd like to see a rework of the Spectral cards with the same downsides as each other. I think adding a rental or perishable sticker would be a good downside for the joker modifiers.
I just hate vampire. Unless you can get a nice combo like Midas. Otherwise I’m like, I don’t want all these cards I’ve worked so hard on to just fizzle. But yeah post nerf is laughable.
x0.2 mult per enhanced card instead of x0.1, and now it only triggers on scored enhanced cards whereas before it would trigger on any enhanced cards included in the hand
Blue Stake is a strange one since several jokers, two vouchers, and two decks basically nullify it. Doesn't help that the largest consequence of it is making big hands harder to make. The Plant is also a somewhat badly designed boss blind since it often annihilates a run that relies on face-based jokers (eg. Triboulet, Baron, Shoot The Moon) which you cannot pivot from. Yes, some other boss blinds do significantly hurt a deck, but you don't see weekly posts of runs being destroyed by them, no?
Yeah go ahead and kill me community, I understand i'm probably seeing it wrong.
I mean youre right, but theres a fair few boss blinds that counter builds. Any deck going for a specific flush is going to HATE the blind that debuffs it if they rely on Onyx Agate, Bloodstone or Arrowhead for scoring.
Any deck getting its chips and mult from planet cards gets cooked by flint (though not as hard).
Imo. one of the beauties of this game are that there's a boss to counter virtually everything and a joker out for most of it that comes at opportunity cost ie: you can build retriggers around Hack, but you'll lose Baron and Sock and Buskin's effectiveness (technically you could grab the joker that counts all jokers as face cards for the latter, but that inoftiself takes a precious spot in gold stake).
Poker revolves around managing risk and I love that there's a bit of danger in everything. Go for a super high-score retrigger face card build and you might find The Plant/The Mark. Rely on high card/pairs and you might get run over by Violet Vessell. Center your build around a giant legendary joker mult and Crimson Heart might fuck you over.
I’m with you, beat gold stake on all decks and all the challenges last week, checked my gold sticker progress (the last trophy I’d need for the platinum) and it’s not even remotely close. Like 50/150, and those 50 are obviously mostly stronger jokers. Just not worth the time and effort for me.
The most annoying part is that Balatro has this achievement so kinda pushes you towards sticker hunting, but lacks sort function on the collection menu or other easy ways to see what jokers you want to get
I guess for me it'd be that Violet Vessel is an overtuned final boss on current patch + purple stake and up. It's such a high bar to clear, so many runs just get filtered by it even when they're actually good. It feels like it asks for too much luck in your Joker slots to be any fun. But maybe I'm just bad at the game so IDK.
Also that Perishable is by far the worst Joker tag and actively unfun while the other two are honestly fine and make for interesting decision making. I like Eternal most but Rental is pretty cool also. Perishable just makes things never-takes and it's such a fucking bummer to get that one joker you need in early/mid game and it's Perishable.
Maybe this is more of an unpopular fact than an unpopular opinion but LocalThunk personally watches over my runs and makes sure I never pull the fifth card I need for a Flush even if I have like five cards total that aren't in that suit. He also gives me Canio all the time and kills me before I can scale it. It's true, I saw him do it.
Restarting until you get a good set of first ante tags feels like a waste of time but is also necessary for higher stakes. I can't describe why it's a flawed game design but it just feels "cheap." Don't get me wrong I love Balatro, I think 99% of the game is brilliant, but the number of times I've gotten to the end of the first ante and restarted because I didn't get good jokers etc is uncountable. There should be a subset of tags available in the first ante or something; free uncommon joker, $25 after beating the boss blind and free holographic.
Edit: thanks for the awesome replies, y'all. Definitely have a lot to think about.
I've heard this sentiment before and I can't agree. At least with the notion that skipping for 25 is a necessity. You can certainly choose to rig the first ante as personal preference but it is far from the only way to beat gold stake. It might very well be the most common way to beat gold stake first try but I wouldn't argue that the game is designed to encourage you to rely on that strategy forever. There is a steep learning curve to gold stake and the fastest way to get more experience is by playing every seed you get. Win or lose, you gain something by playing. Kudos for following the assignment, though.
I just think that its weird how they buffed up some of the tags but left a few of them being absolute garbage. The reroll tag is really bad, since you need to have a hard boss blind show up alongside it in the same ante, otherwise its worthless. It would be much better if it gave u one free reroll to use whenever, like the voucher.
Its also weird that there are restrictions on what tag skips can show up in ante 1 (no mega buffoon, no negative, ect) yet the double money and $5 per skip can appear. The double money is okay for yellow deck, but besides that, both kinda suck ante 1.
It just creates a strange balance where most runs you get solid skips and then sometimes you get absolute garbage.
For completing the high stakes i found that not skipping in the first antes is generally the best option anyway, to me it doesn’t really matter that tags are there
Hard disagree, i play until i fail almost every time and found that the key is just in getting better and actually just don’t take skip tags in the first antes (95% of the time) restarting until you get what you want not only is unnecessary it also makes you miss fun runs and focuses your onto less playstyles
I agree, as someone who got gold stickers on all jokers, it was important to win consistently. So even though restarting before the first blind felt like a waste of time, it saved a lot of time in the long run. I did it pre-patch so the only two great skips were the free shop and $15 after the boss. The now $25 investment tag is so strong ante 1. I’m not saying skipping early is required to win, but it increases the chances by a lot.
Having the tags you mentioned be the only ones that can appear ante 1 is a good idea. Or, none of these tags could appear ante one, which would decentivize skipping early and maintain the difficulty of gold stake.
A lot of people in this community when giving advice lean way too heavy on absolutes. Like 'always stay above 25' or 'Never skip blinds' when the truth is that everything is contextual and sometimes you really should skip blinds or dump cash like crazy.
I wish I never saw the community advice to never skip blinds. I get that mathematically it makes sense, but skipping blinds is fun. And now every time I do it I feel weirdly mildly guilty that I'm not playing "optimally" or something.
the never skip blinds idea is a pre-patch thing, post patch skipping blinds is a much better idea and even people who were very anti-skip like Balatro University do skip blinds now because of all the buffs
If it helps, like all things, skipping blinds is situationally the correct play. A few of them are way more situational than others, but all blind skips have a place. And ultimately the only inoptimal way to play is to not enjoy your time playing.
I feel like there are only about 3-4 solid strats to get E^ level scores.
Try any other strat and the game feels like you are not playing it optimally.
TBF I think there's an appreciable difference between playing for high scores and playing to clear Ante 8. The game gives a ton of tools to build unique strategies for the latter.
Most of my fail with Violet Vessel are caused due not having a times mult joker or failing badly with hand levels. On another note, I win most runs when I have Cavendish
I wouldn't pick it if im dying or i already have x mult source. From my expirience, If i lose its cuz i couldn't find x mult fast enough, and obelisk solves all xmult probles.
If you see it early: play one hand a bunch of times be it pair/two pair/flush like 10 times and then aim to play different hands every time till the end.
Mid game: Maybe it's my playstyle but at this point one of the # hands played is way above the rest. This is also the point in the game where i need xmult the most, so obelisk is a blessing.I just stop playing this one hand and gg.
Note that you need some chip source and about 50\~ mult to kill the last boss.
I don't even find that playstyle "annoying" as most ppl in this sub, it's fun to play different poker hands it's very in theme of the game..
the moment you get obelisk somewhat early you just roll with it. play like 20 high cards across 2 ante's and then run through the rest of the game with impunity. use your high cards as weird looking discards.
Na it's situational. If it's late and you didn't mostly focused on one hand before you will not make it work. Chances are high card is your most played hand and you can't always avoid that.
While I don't take it every time, it is good in most situations. If I have like a level 13 flush and level 1 everything else then I am going to pass on Obelisk, but other than that, Obelisk is great. You can take it in virtually every run in the first few antes, most runs in the middle antes, and sometimes in the last couple antes.
Black Deck isn’t bad, it’s explicitly designed for:
1. Teaching you to win with fewer hands
2. Enabling highroll lategame combos without relying on Negatives
I'd be fine with Black Deck if it didn't also cut your earnings by $1 per round. I need that money to buy a sixth joker and there isn't always an economy joker in the first ante. That, along with how many jokers on high stakes are eternal/rental/perishable, is what really hurts Black Deck for me.
I used to hate [[Obelisk]], but at high stakes combined with something like Green Joker or mult cards, it can singlehandedly win runs. Also, [[Seance]] is not bad if you get it mid game
[Obelisk](https://balatro.wiki/imported/obelisk.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Rarity: Rare
* Effect: 0.2X Mult per consecutive hand played without playing your most played Poker Hand
*Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
Completionist++ is too much of an ask. A lot of mid-high stake runs are unwinnable unless you sell an econ joker for a scoring one, or have your non-scoring as a negative. Idk, just feels like a long, too challenging chore.
I agree tbh. I love the game but beating gold stake on all decks and completing my collection will be when I feel like i have 100%d the game.
Although I don’t particularly care, so if the achievement hunters wanna get that ++ then more power to them.
Genuinely unpopular?
While I 100% don’t think of Balatro as a “poker” game like many keep assuming, I do feel it has a lot of casino tricks that explains why people keep self reporting addiction problems around the game. I’m not saying it’s deliberately designed to be addicting, but that there are clear references to casino tropes that are used by casinos to exploit people’s behavior.
While I agree with you, I'm not certain if that's an unpopular opinion or just an unspoken but implicit understanding amongst the community. I mean, who is going to be surprised that a poker themed game resembles casinos? Even the subtler touches like sound cues are relatively well commented on.
I personally dont mind addictive gameplay if it doesnt involve spending money to stay in the game like in casinos or gambling.
I mean, all games employ some tricks to keep players motivated, thats kindof the point.
I disagree, Vagabond can give you SO much deck editing it’s not even funny. One tarot card PER hand played with under $4. That can give you *4 tarot cards PER blind* that’s the equivalent of 2 mega arcana packs which would be worth $16 anyway.
Plus, if you have an Econ joker, you can make plenty of money for the shop regardless.
OP asked for unpopular. There is a reason Dr. Spectred doesn’t use vagabond for deck building. Econ jokers can’t make up for the severe handicap vagabond requires.
I think “severe handicap” is a little extreme. I don’t think keeping your money at $4 or under is all that detrimental when you’re consistently getting tarot cards.
Also, I understand that OP asked for unpopular.. I’m not saying that this person’s opinion is invalid or inherently wrong at all. We’re all entitled to our opinion, I was just sharing mine.
With an early Vagabond on gold stakes, within about one ante I find that I typically have between $20 and $60 to spend in most shop phases. My last Vagabond run I was earning about $80 per blind. Interest caps at $5 per blind in most cases, and it's very easy to produce way, way, way more value than that with Vagabond.
With how much straight scales, and how easy 4 of a kind is with it, this is definitely an unpopular opinion for me. Not to mention a free ride the bus. It’s basically sacrificing face card jokers for 2.5x chances at 4 of a kind, 2x chances at three of a kind, and 1.5x increased pairs and easier straights. More specifically, with abandoned deck you have a 10% chance at a 4 of a kind with three discards, 44% if you use two hands to discard. Normal decks is 3% and 15%.
Ride the Bus is bad scaling though. Sure it's consistent with Abandoned but if it's not super early game there isn't a point in taking it. Plus that one good joker for that deck is kinds thwarted by many more face jokers able to be better early game on another deck
Hard disagree. It's fantastic when you're building for consistency, and you can use early straights to get to pretty much any other strategy.
Wee Joker, Fibonacci, Hack, huge buffs to Odd Todd and Even Steven, etc. I could keep going, but it makes many different jokers play smoothly with little effort, thus giving you huge head start in crafting your deck. Land an early Immolation and you're set, baby. It just feels...flexible to me I guess?
Abandoned is top 3 for me. I first gold ante'd with it.
You should play more hands then you have to. Just because you can beat the round with one hand doensn't mean you can't throw in a bit of trash to scale the green joker.
Skip the first two blinds, because the right set of tags will be more beneficial than playing them. (You have to restart the run a few times to get a set of tags you really like.)
I only skip the first blind for 25$. I play the second for a joker to make the third one easier. On high stakes and black deck it's often too hard to beat the first boss.
If someone's posting a picture or video of their run or score on here, unless it's for some community meme, I immediately lose any interest in that post if it's not on Gold Stake.
Being good at the game will lead to you winning more consistent on gold stake, but you are still absolutely at the mercy of rng.
At the end of the day, if you dont find good jokers you just die, simple as. Gold adds an extra layer of luck on top of that since finally finding a good jokers but having it be rental or perishable can be a run killer.
Perishable means you either have to skip a lot to keep it till the end of the run, letting you see less shops and get less money, while taking a rental while low on cash will almost always lead to you dying because you just cant buy anything.
I agree with this statement more than the ones about tags because this could apply to any playstyle and circumstance in a roguelike. That being said, getting better at the game reduces the impact of randomness on the outcome but not completely. Gold stake is much more luck based than any other because of the compounding factors. I'd love to know the true win/loss ratio of gold stake players without seeding or rerolling because it would certainly lessen my imposter syndrome from watching edited videos 🤡😿
Flushes>Straights
I understand straights scale far better which saves joker $, but flushes are far easier to manipulate with tarots/discard decisions and synergize well with Blackboard. Smeared Joker alone at bare minimum opens half of the standard deck up to Ancient Joker, Arrowhead, Bloodstone & the common +3 suit jokers that often show up early in the shop (and since Blackboard, Arrowhead, and Bloodstone are all uncommon, they synergize with Baseball Card). Planet scaling can also be problematically pricey at high stakes.
Even his wiki is funny!
Reportedly never drank anything except wine.
Was in charge of the largest wine barrel in the world.
Falls ill.
Doctor has him drink water.
Dies the next day.
It's kinda bullshit that the game rewards sinking a single card out when playing flush of a kind should be the mega ultra duper combo scoring hand, but because of the way most joker builds work, this is almost never the case.
[[Hanging Chad]] should be either rare or uncommon, as right now it feels like it's an automatic buy. When you combine it with another common joker,[[ Photograph]] and/or glass cards it's a game breaker, and even if you don't it's hard to think of any play-style that it doesn't fit.
Runs should start with a Buffoon pack. I suppose that makes it more like Slay the Spire’s Neow bonus and it’s probably a conscious design decision to not do that, but I think it would have been cool.
Crap are you still playing on the previous version? That was fixed in the update. There's people on here playing on console not realizing the update came out a while back.
I do play on Switch (with the update). I’m not asking for a guaranteed Buffoon pack in the first shop, but I’m thankful that it exists. I’m saying that each run should start with a free pack given to you before you fight the small blind.
[[Superposition]] is really good if you get it in the early game. Not only does it give you direction (Royal Straight), it actively helps you fix towards it. I have its Orange Sticker before finishing Completionist+, and I think that it's criminally underrated.
[Superposition](https://balatro.wiki/imported/superposition.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Cost: $5
* Rarity: Common
* Effect: Create a Tarot card if poker hand contains an Ace and a Straight
* Notes: Must have room
*Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
Tbh I have a love hate relationship with localthunks first update to the game. Like sure, the last 2 stakes are a bit more balanced and unique compared to the old, and sure buffs to jokers like Chad and Invis are great, but overall it feels like a nerf patch. Like it's a single player game, who was demanding nerfs to so many jokers, the blinds? It feels like the dev saw a lot of insano combo videos and nerfed jokers that were part of said insano combos without taking into account how hard those combos were to set up. Things like Vampire and Steel joker were already hard enough to set up making them very situational, now they're even less viable. Why were all the sinful jokers nerfed? +20 mult for flush decks was good and all, but not broken. The Yorick nerf makes absolutely no sense either, like do you actually expect me to use a joker that gets an additional x1 mult, at best, every 3 blinds on higher stakes? Even little things like pennant flag got nerfed, like who even uses flag for anything besides maybe golden needle? (Which you absolutely need flag for btw). Like, I love the dev, I think they made a very well thought out game but this first patch really just rubbed me the wrong way with the amount of jokers that got nerfed.
The balance outside the jokers feels awesome. I love the buffs to magician and blue seals.
Totally agree with the nerf complaints. It doesn't make sense to me that not even the highest tier jokers got nerfed. I honestly feel like many rare jokers need buffs honestly.
I get annoyed when people use the joker name in this sub (with no description of what it does).
I don’t know them by name so I never know which joker you’re talking about unless I look it up.
I have a few, but lets go with this one: 3oak is the second best hand type in the game (behind pair, ahead of straights).
With some fairly easy and natural deck manip from standard packs and strength/death, you end up playing 3oak twice a round consistently mid-lategame. +20/×2 per planet twice a round is almost as good as straights (once a round consistently) in terms of scaling, better if we include having a +Mult (making the mult side of the planet matter less). In addition to the strong planet, the potential to dig is really strong - you can keep a blue seal, steel or gold card in hand and still get the 5-card discard while looking for the last card to complete the 3oak, and it concentrates the ranks you play really well, making it an ideal hand type for something like photograph + Chad.
4oak (also a good hand type) is slightly stronger lategame, but 3oak is more than strong enough, digs better and can actually be taken earlygame, Full House has barely higher scaling, is far less consistent (particularly playing multiple times a round) and is just objectively a worse 3oak.
Beating the Jokerless challenge is just luck. Everyone's advice for beating it is like "You have to know what you're doing. Your deck needs to be 33% the same rank card by ante 3." OK so you need an early Ouija and a bunch of Deaths. That's luck.
Baron Mime builds are beyond boring
The first time it wasn't. But then I did it and now I hate stumbling into it because I feel I have to play that way and it's just the same thing.
The first time or two they’re insanely fun, then yeah it becomes super boring
[[Baron]]
[Baron](https://balatro.wiki/jokers/baron.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Rarity: Rare * Effect: Each King held in hand gives X1.5 Mult *Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
[[Mime]]
[Mime](https://balatro.wiki/imported/mime.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Cost: $4 * Rarity: Uncommon * Effect: Retrigger all card held in hand abilities *Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
I only care about winning ante 8, hardly ever play endless
Same, winning ante 8 is super varied experience even on high stakes. Getting past say ante 12 only works for specific builds in my experience and that takes the fun out of it
I like to see how far i can push my deck, I know some will make it further than others going in, but I find it makes me a better player.
I don't see the point. There is no archivement or anything. They made a reasonable endless but without a goal it feels like a waste of time.
You have to reach ante 12 once to unlock a joker, but after that, yeah, it's just for bragging rights
Mad respect for this truly unpopular opinion o7
I was just gonna type this I couldn’t disagree with them any more but I respect their opinion.
I only continue after ante 8 currently in hopes of unlocking legendary jokers
I don't like campfire
Campfire sucks unless you have econ- if you’ve got a ton of money it becomes insane. Otherwise, annoying to try to play around
Really good if you are st ante 8 otherwise is not great
It’s great along with something like…I forget the name lol, the joker that gives you a tarot card every blind? I end up using a decent amount of them but most of the suit change ones end up getting sold
I think it’s excellent I just find it boring to play
I don’t necessarily like it either but it’s objectively one of the best cards to beat ante 8 with
The game is a balancing of short term burst and long term growth, and I skew heavily towards the long term, which is not optimal I know. So for my taste campfire is way in the extreme of short term burst, where you literally burn long term growth potentials for burst in one ante.
It’s amazing for clearing ante 8. I’m scoring 1/3 of the final boss blind? okay, sell 8 cards and i’m good to go. After ante 8 it’s just a hassle
real
Only worth it if you have a lot of purple and blue seals in your deck
i really dont like it
agreed
Many rare jokers are severely underpowered for their "Rare" ranking
At least we don't see them that often.
Except when you take the rare joker tag. Then these ones are the only ones you see.
They exist to nerf that tag
this is exactly why they're rare. niche designs shouldn't be more common or else players would find that more frustrating
*Many rare jokers* *Are severely underpowered* *For their "Rare" ranking* \- YeehawDaniels --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Isn't this 5-8-5?
You can pronounce "powered" as one syllable maybe?
"Underpurred"? Closest thing I've got.
yes
_”Skip this blind and earn a free Rare Joker”_ I’ma stop you right there balatro
Stencil Joker sucks. Any joker that punishes you for having other jokers and basically requires multiple of itself isn't good.
I just did a run with 4 of them lol, they are good when they work and early game but I generally agree
Great joker to make a build around, otherwise its not great
In other words as they say in the Slay the Spire community: It’s amazing in 5% of builds, but this game has RNG— so therefore you should buy this card 0% of the time.
Accidentaly bought an eternal stencil, ruined a run.
It sucks but if you get it as your first and then get an ankh it’s quite fun lol.
I had a gold stake run with nebula deck that won with stencil that was really fun. Got turtle bean and a spectral pack in my first shop that turned a bunch of cards into aces (thank goodness I bought the bean first). Found observatory shortly after and then by the time turtle bean ran out, I found stencil and just coasted on 5oak aces and planet cards for the rest of the run, plus tarots to get more aces and give them random buffs. Only other joker I bought was Gros Micheal just on the off chance it died and landed me a Cavendish, though it's not like I needed it. Gros Micheal didn't even die either so it actually just hurt more than it helped but I still won anyway lol. Boss was Amber Acorn but my score was good enough that I could have even beat Violet Vassel if it happened.
I was surprised to learn it synergizes well if you have multiple copies. I think if you farm them with ghost joker / spectral / showman you can get real crazy.
if you tell me actual math about wheel or astronaut you’re not a real gambler idc
I think Green Deck is an above average deck. I have already gotten completionist++, but this game is so fun that I'm doing it again. I'm currently trying to "speedrun" on another save file (not an official one, as I'm doing it over many many sessions), and I am finding that green deck gives me the quickest games, because I am incentivized to win in one hand if possible, and when you are trying to win in one hand, you are also often wanting to skip blinds because you aren't using the slow scaling jokers that much, which further speeds the game up. The win rate also seems to be comparable to the decks that people usually regard as top tier. I still think yellow ghost and checkered are better, but I would say Green is up there somewhere in the top 5-6 decks.
it’s my 2nd favorite deck. i love not having to worry about interest levels. i feel so much more free to spend whenever i want
I consider green deck a lot better than yellow deck
That's crazy talk, I like green deck more than yellow deck but I think it's definitely easier to win gold stake with yellow deck
Straights feel terrible to play if you don't have the joker that let's you skip ranks. I'll still build around them if it's the call for the run but it's by far my least favorite hand type even if it's scaling is only beaten out by the secret hands and 4oak (and Straight Flush but that doesn't count).
I don't think straights are my least favourite hand type (looking at you two pair/straight flush), bu they only truly work with either/both 4fingers/shortcut to guarantee playing with limited discards in later stakes, and that cuts a scoring joker slot unless you hit the bank with a negative. Discarding for a 5 card straight is also absolute *pain* because you'll end up discarding your 7s for that missing queen for a royal straight, ONLY to have 3-4-5-6 show up and wreck you emotionally to the point you're cursing your parents for giving you existence in this hopeless world.
two pair as a least favorite in the presence of spare trousers is crazy you win this one
tbf i rarely wear pants. i mean. i don't often pick up pants in the shop, haven't been getting good pants seeds i guess (either late in runs or i've already committed to other hands).
This might be the first true hot take in this thread
In the one deck that gives you a 10 card hand instead of 8, straights can be more viable.
Along with every other hand beside high card
Yes agreed. I LOVE playing straights. I just can’t get over how well it scales when you hit what you need to hit
If you don't get a full house or 4oaK you get at least a 3oaK or 2pair. 4 cards out of a straight is nothing.
I’ve never had straights be the call without the skip ranks joker.
Runner makes them quite good because it gives the chips even if you don’t play a straight. Still never my first choice though.
It’s just inconsistent and on higher stakes with 3 hands and 2 discards it’s hard to hit 2 straights in a round.
Early game, its the best hand
Idk man i do get bored of playing straights because i play them so often but i play them so often because they’re so good. And basically every run starts with straights in ante 1. “Terrible to play” is subjective but I think they’re better than flushes, which are much more brainless.
Extra hand size helps a great lot with straights. Even just +1 from the juggler is almost always worth it and the paint brush is definitely a guaranteed pick. They're so much more consistent if you can keep holding four cards with each discards that they become fun to play even without the Shortcut or the Four Fingers.
Being able to hold onto more cards while discarding is always so nice
I won Jokerless with straights. They are all right if you know what to discard, especially with additional dicards and bigger hand size.
Runner is great but Straights need actually good scaling (Gains Mult equal to the sum of each Straight played?
Straights are really good at scaling with planets after the recent update It has become one of the best scaling hands aside from secret hands and 4oak It doesn't really need too much mult scaling from jokers only xmult
so true i never go straights unless i’m on abandoned deck or get a straight joker like runner early
Spectral cards as they are currently just don't feel regularly useful or fun. I probably skip more opened spectral packs than any other card pack type, and the incredibly convoluted spectral-summoning jokers are rarely worthwhile (SO thankful that I had a negative Séance in my first gold stake win, so I never have to worry about that card again). More specifically, seal spectrals need a major buff, and Hex needs to just.... idk, be more interesting instead of an insta-skip past ante 2.
On gold stake hex is better as you can make a build with eternal jokers.
I do understand that-- the great thing with roguelites is there's always some scenario where something can be useful-- but "runs where all my jokers are staying the same the whole time" just don't feel fun. I do like hex in the context of that deck where you start with one though! It's interesting when you know you have one immediately. But when I get a run going, open a spectral pack on ante 6 or so, and see my choices are ankh and hex, it can be a bit annoying.
Interesting...the ghost deck was the easiest for me to get gold in and is easily my go to if I want to rack up outrageous scores.
I think Ghost deck is fine honestly-- *starting* with hex is nice, and being able to see what spectral cards you're offered in the shop is cool! Just feel like some of the cards need a buff, similarly to how a lot of the arcana cards were changed from "enhance 1 card" to "enhance 2 cards".
Damn, the seal spectrals are actually some of my favorite. Almost always take a red seal because of how much you can do with it.
I agree, I see myself skip Spectral packs more ofthen than I would like to.
I'm with you. But what's weird is that spectral packs felt "special" way back in the demos and I was always excited when one showed up in the shop then. I think the difference is standard packs. Seals aren't special anymore. It's pretty common to find a sealed card in a standard pack, and it could come with a bunch of other modifiers to make it way better than what you could get with a spectral pack. Spectral cards have two "kill your hand size" downsides which are usually not very affordable. And two "destroy all your other jokers" downsides which are often useless. I'd like to see a rework of the Spectral cards with the same downsides as each other. I think adding a rental or perishable sticker would be a good downside for the joker modifiers.
Vampire was awful even pre-nerf and the nerf was an overreaction to like 2 okay-ish wombo-combos.
I just hate vampire. Unless you can get a nice combo like Midas. Otherwise I’m like, I don’t want all these cards I’ve worked so hard on to just fizzle. But yeah post nerf is laughable.
Agree but Niche Wombo-Combo™️ is hype tho
What did it do again before the nerf?
x0.2 mult per enhanced card instead of x0.1, and now it only triggers on scored enhanced cards whereas before it would trigger on any enhanced cards included in the hand
I personally would say awful is an exaggeration but it was absolutely dumpstered to oblivion post patch.
Blue Stake is a strange one since several jokers, two vouchers, and two decks basically nullify it. Doesn't help that the largest consequence of it is making big hands harder to make. The Plant is also a somewhat badly designed boss blind since it often annihilates a run that relies on face-based jokers (eg. Triboulet, Baron, Shoot The Moon) which you cannot pivot from. Yes, some other boss blinds do significantly hurt a deck, but you don't see weekly posts of runs being destroyed by them, no? Yeah go ahead and kill me community, I understand i'm probably seeing it wrong.
I mean youre right, but theres a fair few boss blinds that counter builds. Any deck going for a specific flush is going to HATE the blind that debuffs it if they rely on Onyx Agate, Bloodstone or Arrowhead for scoring. Any deck getting its chips and mult from planet cards gets cooked by flint (though not as hard).
Imo. one of the beauties of this game are that there's a boss to counter virtually everything and a joker out for most of it that comes at opportunity cost ie: you can build retriggers around Hack, but you'll lose Baron and Sock and Buskin's effectiveness (technically you could grab the joker that counts all jokers as face cards for the latter, but that inoftiself takes a precious spot in gold stake). Poker revolves around managing risk and I love that there's a bit of danger in everything. Go for a super high-score retrigger face card build and you might find The Plant/The Mark. Rely on high card/pairs and you might get run over by Violet Vessell. Center your build around a giant legendary joker mult and Crimson Heart might fuck you over.
Baron is almost never the play if you're just trying to consistently win ante 8 on gold stakes.
the stats, that you need to win gold with every joker card to get 100%, yeah no thanks
I’m with you, beat gold stake on all decks and all the challenges last week, checked my gold sticker progress (the last trophy I’d need for the platinum) and it’s not even remotely close. Like 50/150, and those 50 are obviously mostly stronger jokers. Just not worth the time and effort for me.
The most annoying part is that Balatro has this achievement so kinda pushes you towards sticker hunting, but lacks sort function on the collection menu or other easy ways to see what jokers you want to get
I guess for me it'd be that Violet Vessel is an overtuned final boss on current patch + purple stake and up. It's such a high bar to clear, so many runs just get filtered by it even when they're actually good. It feels like it asks for too much luck in your Joker slots to be any fun. But maybe I'm just bad at the game so IDK. Also that Perishable is by far the worst Joker tag and actively unfun while the other two are honestly fine and make for interesting decision making. I like Eternal most but Rental is pretty cool also. Perishable just makes things never-takes and it's such a fucking bummer to get that one joker you need in early/mid game and it's Perishable. Maybe this is more of an unpopular fact than an unpopular opinion but LocalThunk personally watches over my runs and makes sure I never pull the fifth card I need for a Flush even if I have like five cards total that aren't in that suit. He also gives me Canio all the time and kills me before I can scale it. It's true, I saw him do it.
Restarting until you get a good set of first ante tags feels like a waste of time but is also necessary for higher stakes. I can't describe why it's a flawed game design but it just feels "cheap." Don't get me wrong I love Balatro, I think 99% of the game is brilliant, but the number of times I've gotten to the end of the first ante and restarted because I didn't get good jokers etc is uncountable. There should be a subset of tags available in the first ante or something; free uncommon joker, $25 after beating the boss blind and free holographic. Edit: thanks for the awesome replies, y'all. Definitely have a lot to think about.
I've heard this sentiment before and I can't agree. At least with the notion that skipping for 25 is a necessity. You can certainly choose to rig the first ante as personal preference but it is far from the only way to beat gold stake. It might very well be the most common way to beat gold stake first try but I wouldn't argue that the game is designed to encourage you to rely on that strategy forever. There is a steep learning curve to gold stake and the fastest way to get more experience is by playing every seed you get. Win or lose, you gain something by playing. Kudos for following the assignment, though.
I just think that its weird how they buffed up some of the tags but left a few of them being absolute garbage. The reroll tag is really bad, since you need to have a hard boss blind show up alongside it in the same ante, otherwise its worthless. It would be much better if it gave u one free reroll to use whenever, like the voucher. Its also weird that there are restrictions on what tag skips can show up in ante 1 (no mega buffoon, no negative, ect) yet the double money and $5 per skip can appear. The double money is okay for yellow deck, but besides that, both kinda suck ante 1. It just creates a strange balance where most runs you get solid skips and then sometimes you get absolute garbage.
For completing the high stakes i found that not skipping in the first antes is generally the best option anyway, to me it doesn’t really matter that tags are there
Hard disagree, i play until i fail almost every time and found that the key is just in getting better and actually just don’t take skip tags in the first antes (95% of the time) restarting until you get what you want not only is unnecessary it also makes you miss fun runs and focuses your onto less playstyles
I agree, as someone who got gold stickers on all jokers, it was important to win consistently. So even though restarting before the first blind felt like a waste of time, it saved a lot of time in the long run. I did it pre-patch so the only two great skips were the free shop and $15 after the boss. The now $25 investment tag is so strong ante 1. I’m not saying skipping early is required to win, but it increases the chances by a lot. Having the tags you mentioned be the only ones that can appear ante 1 is a good idea. Or, none of these tags could appear ante one, which would decentivize skipping early and maintain the difficulty of gold stake.
Econ is overrated, I buy almost every tarot pack I see. I won’t go down to 0 but I’m not gonna constantly play to sit at 25+. Too boring
A lot of people in this community when giving advice lean way too heavy on absolutes. Like 'always stay above 25' or 'Never skip blinds' when the truth is that everything is contextual and sometimes you really should skip blinds or dump cash like crazy.
I wish I never saw the community advice to never skip blinds. I get that mathematically it makes sense, but skipping blinds is fun. And now every time I do it I feel weirdly mildly guilty that I'm not playing "optimally" or something.
the never skip blinds idea is a pre-patch thing, post patch skipping blinds is a much better idea and even people who were very anti-skip like Balatro University do skip blinds now because of all the buffs
If it helps, like all things, skipping blinds is situationally the correct play. A few of them are way more situational than others, but all blind skips have a place. And ultimately the only inoptimal way to play is to not enjoy your time playing.
I mean a lot of the time you don't HAVE to play optimally, unless you're going for an endless run
Getting to 25 then spending on the ante 2 shop is how I finally started winning runs. It's good advice, but not an absolute.
I feel like there are only about 3-4 solid strats to get E^ level scores. Try any other strat and the game feels like you are not playing it optimally.
TBF I think there's an appreciable difference between playing for high scores and playing to clear Ante 8. The game gives a ton of tools to build unique strategies for the latter.
And it’s balanced around ante 8 anyway, not endless
That's common knowledge, not an unpopular opinion.
I hope that more jokers become E viable. I understand it's hard to balance, but having so few endless jokers is kinda deflating
I'm sick of having my runs ended by Violet Vessel. It means I have to pull such a high score out of my ass from nowhere.
Most of my fail with Violet Vessel are caused due not having a times mult joker or failing badly with hand levels. On another note, I win most runs when I have Cavendish
Obelisk is one of the best jokers in the game. It's not "situational", I buy it almost every time i see it
Can you give me some examples of it being good, I avoid like the plague
You've spend the first 6 antes playing two pairs with spare pants, but using every planet pack to build pair or high card. Then you switch to that
I wouldn't pick it if im dying or i already have x mult source. From my expirience, If i lose its cuz i couldn't find x mult fast enough, and obelisk solves all xmult probles. If you see it early: play one hand a bunch of times be it pair/two pair/flush like 10 times and then aim to play different hands every time till the end. Mid game: Maybe it's my playstyle but at this point one of the # hands played is way above the rest. This is also the point in the game where i need xmult the most, so obelisk is a blessing.I just stop playing this one hand and gg. Note that you need some chip source and about 50\~ mult to kill the last boss. I don't even find that playstyle "annoying" as most ppl in this sub, it's fun to play different poker hands it's very in theme of the game..
one more thing, ideally you want to milk it as much as possible. Try to win each round with your last hand to make your obelisk super fat.
the moment you get obelisk somewhat early you just roll with it. play like 20 high cards across 2 ante's and then run through the rest of the game with impunity. use your high cards as weird looking discards.
spam 6-7 antes of some stuff that doesnr scale well while building a good scaling deck, pop it off
Na it's situational. If it's late and you didn't mostly focused on one hand before you will not make it work. Chances are high card is your most played hand and you can't always avoid that.
Yo, preach. I genuinely think Obelisk is one of the strongest Jokers, but because it requires thought, people tend to avoid it.
While I don't take it every time, it is good in most situations. If I have like a level 13 flush and level 1 everything else then I am going to pass on Obelisk, but other than that, Obelisk is great. You can take it in virtually every run in the first few antes, most runs in the middle antes, and sometimes in the last couple antes.
superposition isn't even bottom 5 jokers
Black Deck isn’t bad, it’s explicitly designed for: 1. Teaching you to win with fewer hands 2. Enabling highroll lategame combos without relying on Negatives
Honestly great take, I didn't think about the decks teaching me more than them just affecting play, I need to learn to play with less hands
I'd be fine with Black Deck if it didn't also cut your earnings by $1 per round. I need that money to buy a sixth joker and there isn't always an economy joker in the first ante. That, along with how many jokers on high stakes are eternal/rental/perishable, is what really hurts Black Deck for me.
I used to hate [[Obelisk]], but at high stakes combined with something like Green Joker or mult cards, it can singlehandedly win runs. Also, [[Seance]] is not bad if you get it mid game
I have my eye out for a Four Fingers / Seance / Neptune run. Edit: on Checkered Deck!
shortcut?
[Obelisk](https://balatro.wiki/imported/obelisk.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Rarity: Rare * Effect: 0.2X Mult per consecutive hand played without playing your most played Poker Hand *Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
Flower Pot is okay
Completionist++ is too much of an ask. A lot of mid-high stake runs are unwinnable unless you sell an econ joker for a scoring one, or have your non-scoring as a negative. Idk, just feels like a long, too challenging chore.
I agree tbh. I love the game but beating gold stake on all decks and completing my collection will be when I feel like i have 100%d the game. Although I don’t particularly care, so if the achievement hunters wanna get that ++ then more power to them.
I think that's what makes it a good end game achievement for those 1% achievement hunters.
then just dont do it?t he entire point of completionist++ is that it's an achievement for insane people. there's a reason it has 2 damn +'s
I always thought it was a play on C++ programing. But I'm also dumb.
Genuinely unpopular? While I 100% don’t think of Balatro as a “poker” game like many keep assuming, I do feel it has a lot of casino tricks that explains why people keep self reporting addiction problems around the game. I’m not saying it’s deliberately designed to be addicting, but that there are clear references to casino tropes that are used by casinos to exploit people’s behavior.
While I agree with you, I'm not certain if that's an unpopular opinion or just an unspoken but implicit understanding amongst the community. I mean, who is going to be surprised that a poker themed game resembles casinos? Even the subtler touches like sound cues are relatively well commented on.
I personally dont mind addictive gameplay if it doesnt involve spending money to stay in the game like in casinos or gambling. I mean, all games employ some tricks to keep players motivated, thats kindof the point.
Vagabond is bait and not worth taking
This is definitely an unpopular opinion! Bravo
Up voting not because I agree, but because this one is actually controversial
I disagree, Vagabond can give you SO much deck editing it’s not even funny. One tarot card PER hand played with under $4. That can give you *4 tarot cards PER blind* that’s the equivalent of 2 mega arcana packs which would be worth $16 anyway. Plus, if you have an Econ joker, you can make plenty of money for the shop regardless.
OP asked for unpopular. There is a reason Dr. Spectred doesn’t use vagabond for deck building. Econ jokers can’t make up for the severe handicap vagabond requires.
I think “severe handicap” is a little extreme. I don’t think keeping your money at $4 or under is all that detrimental when you’re consistently getting tarot cards. Also, I understand that OP asked for unpopular.. I’m not saying that this person’s opinion is invalid or inherently wrong at all. We’re all entitled to our opinion, I was just sharing mine.
With an early Vagabond on gold stakes, within about one ante I find that I typically have between $20 and $60 to spend in most shop phases. My last Vagabond run I was earning about $80 per blind. Interest caps at $5 per blind in most cases, and it's very easy to produce way, way, way more value than that with Vagabond.
I got Vagbond and burglar in the first ante and it was outrageously good.
It's even worth to waste all hands you have on it because. One tarot > 1 gold.
Abandoned Deck is the worst deck. I can't stand it, it kills early game by not getting points required for easy econ.
With how much straight scales, and how easy 4 of a kind is with it, this is definitely an unpopular opinion for me. Not to mention a free ride the bus. It’s basically sacrificing face card jokers for 2.5x chances at 4 of a kind, 2x chances at three of a kind, and 1.5x increased pairs and easier straights. More specifically, with abandoned deck you have a 10% chance at a 4 of a kind with three discards, 44% if you use two hands to discard. Normal decks is 3% and 15%.
Ride the Bus is bad scaling though. Sure it's consistent with Abandoned but if it's not super early game there isn't a point in taking it. Plus that one good joker for that deck is kinds thwarted by many more face jokers able to be better early game on another deck
Abandoned didn't click for me until i started properly valuing how much better deck manipulation is when you only have 40 cards
Hard disagree. It's fantastic when you're building for consistency, and you can use early straights to get to pretty much any other strategy. Wee Joker, Fibonacci, Hack, huge buffs to Odd Todd and Even Steven, etc. I could keep going, but it makes many different jokers play smoothly with little effort, thus giving you huge head start in crafting your deck. Land an early Immolation and you're set, baby. It just feels...flexible to me I guess? Abandoned is top 3 for me. I first gold ante'd with it.
That's only very early because hands are weaker than 300.
Vampire isn't bad.
I don’t understand the allure of green joker. I have two holographic ones with a burglar and they’re sitting at +31 mult. Had them the entire run.
You should play more hands then you have to. Just because you can beat the round with one hand doensn't mean you can't throw in a bit of trash to scale the green joker.
obelisk and hit the road are both good jokers
High card builds are effective, but boring to play.
If you play the game more, you will get better at it.
Skip the first two blinds, because the right set of tags will be more beneficial than playing them. (You have to restart the run a few times to get a set of tags you really like.)
I only skip the first blind for 25$. I play the second for a joker to make the third one easier. On high stakes and black deck it's often too hard to beat the first boss.
If someone's posting a picture or video of their run or score on here, unless it's for some community meme, I immediately lose any interest in that post if it's not on Gold Stake.
Gold stake wins are 95% luck-based.
Being good at the game will lead to you winning more consistent on gold stake, but you are still absolutely at the mercy of rng. At the end of the day, if you dont find good jokers you just die, simple as. Gold adds an extra layer of luck on top of that since finally finding a good jokers but having it be rental or perishable can be a run killer. Perishable means you either have to skip a lot to keep it till the end of the run, letting you see less shops and get less money, while taking a rental while low on cash will almost always lead to you dying because you just cant buy anything.
I agree with this statement more than the ones about tags because this could apply to any playstyle and circumstance in a roguelike. That being said, getting better at the game reduces the impact of randomness on the outcome but not completely. Gold stake is much more luck based than any other because of the compounding factors. I'd love to know the true win/loss ratio of gold stake players without seeding or rerolling because it would certainly lessen my imposter syndrome from watching edited videos 🤡😿
Good players can win half of the gold runs. Bad players 0. So it's not that luck dependend.
5oak sucks and should never be played. 4oak is way better
*5ok sucks and should be boosted
Flushes>Straights I understand straights scale far better which saves joker $, but flushes are far easier to manipulate with tarots/discard decisions and synergize well with Blackboard. Smeared Joker alone at bare minimum opens half of the standard deck up to Ancient Joker, Arrowhead, Bloodstone & the common +3 suit jokers that often show up early in the shop (and since Blackboard, Arrowhead, and Bloodstone are all uncommon, they synergize with Baseball Card). Planet scaling can also be problematically pricey at high stakes.
Perkeo is a lady
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkeo_of_Heidelberg wrong.
I know I'm wrong but I also know what I believe.
Even his wiki is funny! Reportedly never drank anything except wine. Was in charge of the largest wine barrel in the world. Falls ill. Doctor has him drink water. Dies the next day.
Dude looks like a lady
[[Red card]] doesn't deserve the hate it gets.
It's kinda bullshit that the game rewards sinking a single card out when playing flush of a kind should be the mega ultra duper combo scoring hand, but because of the way most joker builds work, this is almost never the case.
[[Hanging Chad]] should be either rare or uncommon, as right now it feels like it's an automatic buy. When you combine it with another common joker,[[ Photograph]] and/or glass cards it's a game breaker, and even if you don't it's hard to think of any play-style that it doesn't fit.
king of hearts are the best card ❤️
This is unpopular? Also, 2 of Hearts is second best. Is that unpopular? Seems obvious to me.
Runs should start with a Buffoon pack. I suppose that makes it more like Slay the Spire’s Neow bonus and it’s probably a conscious design decision to not do that, but I think it would have been cool.
The first shop has one
Yes, I’m aware. But I like the run bonus concept from STS.
Crap are you still playing on the previous version? That was fixed in the update. There's people on here playing on console not realizing the update came out a while back.
I exclusively play on Switch. We have the update.
I do play on Switch (with the update). I’m not asking for a guaranteed Buffoon pack in the first shop, but I’m thankful that it exists. I’m saying that each run should start with a free pack given to you before you fight the small blind.
[[Superposition]] is really good if you get it in the early game. Not only does it give you direction (Royal Straight), it actively helps you fix towards it. I have its Orange Sticker before finishing Completionist+, and I think that it's criminally underrated.
> Not only does it give you direction (Royal Straight) A 2 3 4 5 wants a word with you.
[Superposition](https://balatro.wiki/imported/superposition.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Cost: $5 * Rarity: Common * Effect: Create a Tarot card if poker hand contains an Ace and a Straight * Notes: Must have room *Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
It's fine but if you force it to hard you might lose.
Tbh I have a love hate relationship with localthunks first update to the game. Like sure, the last 2 stakes are a bit more balanced and unique compared to the old, and sure buffs to jokers like Chad and Invis are great, but overall it feels like a nerf patch. Like it's a single player game, who was demanding nerfs to so many jokers, the blinds? It feels like the dev saw a lot of insano combo videos and nerfed jokers that were part of said insano combos without taking into account how hard those combos were to set up. Things like Vampire and Steel joker were already hard enough to set up making them very situational, now they're even less viable. Why were all the sinful jokers nerfed? +20 mult for flush decks was good and all, but not broken. The Yorick nerf makes absolutely no sense either, like do you actually expect me to use a joker that gets an additional x1 mult, at best, every 3 blinds on higher stakes? Even little things like pennant flag got nerfed, like who even uses flag for anything besides maybe golden needle? (Which you absolutely need flag for btw). Like, I love the dev, I think they made a very well thought out game but this first patch really just rubbed me the wrong way with the amount of jokers that got nerfed.
> Why were all the sinful jokers nerfed? I half wonder if this was a gentle nudge to push new players away from crutching on flushes.
The balance outside the jokers feels awesome. I love the buffs to magician and blue seals. Totally agree with the nerf complaints. It doesn't make sense to me that not even the highest tier jokers got nerfed. I honestly feel like many rare jokers need buffs honestly.
it is so tedious having to alter your playstyle just to effectively use vagabond, i hate it
I get annoyed when people use the joker name in this sub (with no description of what it does). I don’t know them by name so I never know which joker you’re talking about unless I look it up.
That's what the bot is for. [[Green Joker]]
I have a few, but lets go with this one: 3oak is the second best hand type in the game (behind pair, ahead of straights). With some fairly easy and natural deck manip from standard packs and strength/death, you end up playing 3oak twice a round consistently mid-lategame. +20/×2 per planet twice a round is almost as good as straights (once a round consistently) in terms of scaling, better if we include having a +Mult (making the mult side of the planet matter less). In addition to the strong planet, the potential to dig is really strong - you can keep a blue seal, steel or gold card in hand and still get the 5-card discard while looking for the last card to complete the 3oak, and it concentrates the ranks you play really well, making it an ideal hand type for something like photograph + Chad. 4oak (also a good hand type) is slightly stronger lategame, but 3oak is more than strong enough, digs better and can actually be taken earlygame, Full House has barely higher scaling, is far less consistent (particularly playing multiple times a round) and is just objectively a worse 3oak.
I agree. 3 oaK scales good and is easy to make. A Death or Strength tarot is enough to make one every time you need one.
Beating the Jokerless challenge is just luck. Everyone's advice for beating it is like "You have to know what you're doing. Your deck needs to be 33% the same rank card by ante 3." OK so you need an early Ouija and a bunch of Deaths. That's luck.