The Balatro Thread

[Touring Mars]

I had a great game last night, where I finally got something I'd been waiting on...

I've been playing Anaglyph deck a lot recently, but I always seem to waste the Double Tags, waiting on a tag that I want but never arrives.

Last night, however, I got 'Level Up - Full House' while sitting on a stack of 4 Double Tags...

... that was enough to raise Full House from Lvl.2 to Lvl. 17 instantly 😅 - and, thankfully, that was enough to win the Run.

 

[Dave A]

I decided to buy this game on my phone last night after reading through some of this thread. It'll be a fun little game to spend during flights, or before I go to sleep I thought. I have barely stopped playing since.

 

[Touring Mars]

I had another great game last night - my first ever victory using the Green Stake, which should have unlocked a new deck... unfortunately, however, it didn't unlock, so that's now two bugged Stakes I've found (using the mobile version of the game).

It's a pity, because it is not only annoying not to have your achievement(s) rewarded, but it's actually preventing me from accessing content of the game too. Fortunately, however, it would appear that the PS5 version of the game is not bugged, and since I kept the seed of the game, I will re-play it on PS5 tonight.

-

Full disclosure - I won this particular game on my second attempt - I knew straight away that I'd missed an open goal when I stupidly passed up what turned out to be a killer Joker for my deck, so I played it again.

I had the card that gives 50 Chips per Spade scored, and also had Brainstorm (which duplicates the leftmost joker) to basically double the score to 100 Chips per Spade. So every time I got a Spade flush, it was scoring 500 extra chips, which was in effect a 5X Mult.

I then got Smeared Joker, which treats all cards of the same colour as the same suit, which I stupidly passed up the first time, but realised that I'd made a huge mistake, since it basically gave me automatic flushes that scored 500 extra points every time. With those three jokers combined with a couple of X Mult jokers, I made it to Ante 11.

Spoiler: Seed

7S3LVZLA

Aaaaand another one...

I won on Plasma deck just now on Red stake, but the win didn't register

That's now 3 times this has happened, every time on the mobile/iPad version of the game.

It's annoying, because it was a difficult win - I had Violet Vessel and needed 600,000 to win; I got 637,000, but it required meticulous planning and a bit of luck, but I managed to win by playing really well - and yet, it didn't count

 

[Dave A]

I'm still very much getting used to all of the different types of cards and decks. Been gravitating to to blue deck in my last few games, the extra hand is useful to help learn my way.

Managed to beat Ante 8 for the first time yesterday, albeit in the base difficulty.

 

[Dave A]

Just managed a great run, used the blue deck and picked up the Red Card Joker early on. Managed to get a couple of x3 multis and a x1. 5 in there as well after a few antes. Finally beaten by The Water boss, with no discard and despite all the great Jokers the best hand that came up for me was a two pair and every other hand was a pair or a high card.

 

[Touring Mars]

I just won my first Gold Stake run

I had a great combo of Jokers (see below), and despite having two rental cards at all times, my economy was healthy. I used Gold cards to balance out the cost of the rentals, but it was a combo of having Hologram and Certificate, then Hologram and DNA that made the Run - Hologram ended on 7.25X, and DNA allowed me to duplicate some Glass cards, which combined with my favourite 'Hanging Chad' gave 8X mult every time; and on a Level 11 Flush, that allowed me to beat the Ante 8 Boss Blind in one hand.

Spoiler: My notes

747STL9Q - Red/Gold/PS5 - First Gold Stake Win!! Flushes (L11)

Throwback (rental/permanent); Certificate (rental/temp) then DNA (Rental)

Hologram (permanent); Hanging Chad; Abstract (+2 negatives); Troubadour - Troub meant just 3 Hands, DNA meant using 1/3 hands for card; but Cert and DNA gave new card each round, so Hologram was 7.25X, Throwback 2.5X; Diamonds, Spades and glass cards gave a single Flush over 1.2M for Violet Vessel in one hand!! Two WoF in a row before last hand (thanks to Double Tag)

 

[Touring Mars]

My last two games of Balatro have been awesome!

1. I somehow managed to level up my hands by 52 levels in 18 Rounds; I had two Black Holes for the first time ever, and I also had loads of Blue Seals, thanks to Certificate. I had 3 of a Kind up to Level 18, and I ended up on Ante 11/Round 21; what was more amazing was that this was a game I'd tried to beat for ages (Blue deck/Purple Stake) and this made it look easy... 😅

2. I just beat my record for the highest round, hitting Round 30 on Anaglyph deck (fast becoming my favourite deck). It was a bizarre game, but I had a killer combo of 'Photochad', Sock & Buskin, Bloodstone and a good number of Glass Cards. I had also made half my deck Hearts, so Bloodstone was highly effective. I also had Driver's License, so I was scoring HUGE mults...

To say how good this Joker deck was, I actually sold Throwback (my #1 Joker) for the first time ever - and this was after accidentally wasting 7 double tags just to upgrade Throwback to 2X... Bloodstone came up and it was the only Joker that could beat Throwback, and it turned out to be a very good decision...

With Hanging Chad and Sock & Buskin retriggering Photograph AND Bloodstone, and Flush levelled up to ca. L14, a Flush in Hearts with a glass Face Card played first scored MASSIVELY - on Ante 11, I only got a ridiculous 702 pts on my first hand towards a target of 14 million, but then I got this Holy Grail combo and played a Heart Flush, leading with a Glass Jack of Hearts... and it scored 1.334 BILLION

 

[-Fred-]

I've had some fun runs recently on the Erratic deck, including one where I started with 15 3s, winning easily with an early Fibonacci and a Hack joker amongst others. I'm now up to 33 wins, which isn't much but hey, it's a start.

 

[PJTierney]

I've had some fun runs recently on the Erratic deck, including one where I started with 15 3s, winning easily with an early Fibonacci and a Hack joker amongst others. I'm now up to 33 wins, which isn't much but hey, it's a start.

I think my Gold Stake run on Erratic Deck was one with 14 Kings. Add things like PhotoChad, Baron or Triboulet to that and numbers go brrr

 

[Touring Mars]

I just got my highest scoring hand ever - 3.347e+13, or 33.4 trillion

I also made it to Ante 13 for the 3rd time, but I just didn't get the cards I needed to beat the blind at 94 billion, even though I was comfortably beating that score in previous rounds.

It all hinged on having 3oaK in face cards, with at least one glass card - I had Photochad, Blueprint and Brainstorm - almost THE perfect combo (I also had Sock & Buskin earlier, but had to sell it), and I was also playing with Plasma deck. I also had a few polychrome Kigs and several Steel cards in hand too, plus with 3oaK levelled up to ca. Lvl 18, I was getting colossal scores.

edit: I was hitting approximately 11 million Mult - base mult was around 35, but leading a glass face card was yielding the following:

Base mult = 35x
Glass card + Photograph = 4x x 35x = 140x
Hanging Chad = 140x x 4x x 4x = 2240x
Blueprint = 2240x x 4x x 4x = 35840x
Brainstorm = 35480x x 4x x 4x = 573440x
2nd Glass card in hand = 573440x x 2x = 1146880x
Steel card x3 = 1146880x x 1.5x x 1.5x x 1.5x = 3870720x
Throwback = 3870720x x 3x = 11612160x
Plasma Deck = ca. 400 chips + 11612160 mult = 11612560/2
Final score = 5806280 x 5806280 = 33 trillion

In other words, the 2x mult on Photograph was triggered 15 times