The Balatro Thread

[Touring Mars]

I had an amazing game after work tonight - but I reckon I blew it by being just a bit too greedy.

I got to Ante 11 and needed 14M - but, I scored 7.4M with my first hand, and all I needed was one more Q to get another 7M+ hand with no discards* and 3 hands left - so I played 2 dead hands, expecting a Q with the 10 replacement cards... but it wasn't to be.

* I got greedy because I was discarding like crazy to level up Yorick, despite already having him on 14X Mult... I should have played more carefully... even 2 two pairs would have given me the 7M I needed, but I played the last Ante like an idiot.

Still, it was my first attempt at Blue Stake on Red Deck, and I won it by a country mile.

-

I also discovered a very nice synergistic combo:

Photograph (2X Mult for first face card played in hand) + Hanging Chad (2x retrigger of first card played)

Basically turns any face card into a 8X Mult - not sure if it also triggers 1.5X if the face card is also Polychrome... that would be ridiculously powerful (I think that would make a single face card worth 27X Mult... )

 

[-Fred-]

I also discovered a very nice synergistic combo:

Photograph (2X Mult for first face card played in hand) + Hanging Chad (2x retrigger of first card played)

Basically turns any face card into a 8X Mult - not sure if it also triggers 1.5X if the face card is also Polychrome... that would be ridiculously powerful (I think that would make a single face card worth 27X Mult... )

It does, and will also trigger any seal the card has.

 

[PJTierney]

Yes, PhotoChad is one of the easiest high score combos to make as both Jokers are Common.

Combo it with a Glass Card and any form of duplication.

Xbox

Play Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) on Xbox.com. Use your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership to play 100s of consoles games on PC and supported mobile devices.

www.xbox.com

 

[Fezzik]

The game is one of the free offerings for PS Plus in May.

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for May: Ark: Survival Ascended, Balatro, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun

All playable May 6.

blog.playstation.com

 

[Touring Mars]

The game is one of the free offerings for PS Plus in May.

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for May: Ark: Survival Ascended, Balatro, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun

All playable May 6.

blog.playstation.com

Wow... I'm surprised that a relatively new game can be on PS Plus already.

Balatro is worth the price of PS Plus itself, let alone the regular price of the game - it's my most played game this year by a mile.

-

Yes, PhotoChad is one of the easiest high score combos to make as both Jokers are Common.

Combo it with a Glass Card and any form of duplication.

Xbox

Play Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) on Xbox.com. Use your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership to play 100s of consoles games on PC and supported mobile devices.

www.xbox.com

Do you play some seeded games? I don't know people can get such massive scores on a regular game.

I just beat Purple stake for the first time this evening, after missing out very narrowly in my previous game. Still could only manage Ante 11, but it was very sweet to finally get access to the Orange stake.

 

[PJTierney]

Do you play some seeded games? I don't know people can get such massive scores on a regular game.

I never played seeded.

I primarily played only to Rank 8 (mostly Gold Stake) but there was one Achievement that required 100 million so I'd do Endless until I got it.

 

[Wilsonson]

The game is one of the free offerings for PS Plus in May.

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for May: Ark: Survival Ascended, Balatro, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun

All playable May 6.

blog.playstation.com

I looked for and found this thread after hearing about this. I will definitely start the game (was interested before) and report back.

Does anyone have some interesting links to strategy guides or such? I know I could google it but I'd love some trusted recommendations.

Does a background in poker (long time ago) actually help here? Sounds like deck building skills from Magic or Pokemon or such seem more important.

 

[Touring Mars]

@Wilsonson There are loads of resources on YouTube, but my personal recommendation is - don't look up how to play Balatro too much. A large part of the fun of the game is learning how it works for yourself.

That said, it is also necessary sometimes to look up or remind yourself what specific jokers do, and I often find myself here: https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Balatro_Wiki

You definitely do NOT need any poker skills to enjoy Balatro - if anything, playing Balatro as if you would play poker normally is very often not a good idea; I still find it really weird to not play the 'best' hand (i.e. a Royal Flush) because it won't score anything like as high as a hand you've developed more, so it turns normal poker logic on its head a lot of the time.

One thing I've found quite useful is looking at various Tiermaker lists, like this one: https://tiermaker.com/categories/video-games/balatro-joker-tier-list-version-101f-17122176 - these basically allow players to create a tier list of what jokers are best, but they are obviously highly subjective.

What I find great about the game is that sometimes a Joker that feels pretty useless can be very strong if you combine it well with other jokers and how you develop your game - and the opposite is also true... sometimes a 'go-to' Joker can really let you down, and so judging when a specific Joker is going to work for you or not is a really cool and ever-changing part of the game.

Good luck with it, but a major word of warning - it is very addictive!!

 

[Touring Mars]

I just threw away my first Orange stake win by a colossally stupid mistake...

I was comfortably on Ante 8, and I had Verdant Leaf as the Boss Blind (debuffs all cards until one joker is sold, 400,000 Cr. target), but I had just scored 433,000 Cr. with a hand to spare, so I figured I could comfortably sell my 'Acrobat' joker (3X on the final hand, which I didn't even use to get over 400,000 Cr. in the last hand). Furthermore, I had just got a copy of my killer card - a 4x mult, red seal 7, which was working brilliantly with my Hanging Chad joker.

So, I decided to sell 'Acrobat', and did so... except, I forgot that you need to start the bloody Round before selling the joker, and so I threw the joker away for nothing...

... what a ******* idiot I ended up having to sell a 2nd joker, and that killed the game. Absolutely raging.

 

[Wilsonson]

Just played my first game ever. Instantly hooked. The only board or card games that interest me these days (unless it is for the social aspect) are games where the best move is not obvious. The more non stupid options there are the better.

I guess this feeling of "man I could do a number of things that all look kinda juicy" will diminish once I get more experienced but I have a very strong feeling that it will never completely go away and that there will not be an obviously best move (at least from my point of view) for a long long time.

I died at ante 5 when I needed 16k coins. We'll see how fast I improve and finish the run to ante 8 for the first time.

Things I learned and questions I have:

• Intuitions about poker odds go out the window. With tons of discards big hands can become quite likely
• Stacking buffs seems like a good idea but they also make you vulnerable once your power combo doesn't arrive. No idea if diversifying (and how) isn't better.
• The different kinds of buff cards are staggering. Jokers, tarots, planets and so on. Phew.
• Are gold cards any good? I liked the idea of getting some extra bucks but the obvious draw backs kind of suck too.
• I tried and collect interest. Had about 25 coins most of the time at the end. One time I get a card that let me double my money which was nice then. But I also didn't buy a lot of stuff I could have.
• I tried and discard a ton and finish a blind in 1 or 2 hands (didn't work later on). I also saw jokers that rewarded not discarding. No idea how to approach this.

I am looking forward to many more games.

 

[Wilsonson]

I just found this guy on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/@BeansHambone/videos
Looks like he has some nice content especially geared towards beginners.
Does anyone have more YouTube recommendations?

 

[PJTierney]

I just found this guy on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/@BeansHambone/videos
Looks like he has some nice content especially geared towards beginners.
Does anyone have more YouTube recommendations?

Balatro University has lots of good explainers. He’s probably the most knowledgeable person on the game and goes into great detail on thought processes.

 

[-Fred-]

I've been trying to win a game on orange stake for weeks now, and I feel like the game is just trolling me and making sure I don't get it by throwing the worst bosses possible at the worst moment possible.

 

[Wilsonson]

I had my first 2 wins on white stakes over the weekend. So far red stakes seem much harder but I also feel like I'm slowly getting the hang.

Watching some YouTubers helps but is also daunting. Most breeze through their hands and take a lot of knowledge for granted. I feel like I could only learn something if I already had a solid understanding of and experience with the game.

 

[Touring Mars]

I've been trying to win a game on orange stake for weeks now, and I feel like the game is just trolling me and making sure I don't get it by throwing the worst bosses possible at the worst moment possible.

I believe it is, at least to some extent.

"Director's Cut" is very much your friend for Purple Stake and beyond. I never used it until then, thinking it was a waste of money - but it has saved my bacon several times, and was the main reason I got past Purple Stake.

Also, I now pay much more attention to the Boss Blinds, insomuch as I make a point of checking what it is immediately as the new Ante starts - that way you can often make better decisions as to whether to skip or play the Small and Big Blinds.

Ironically, my only Orange stake win so far included the Legendary joker, Chicot - which disables all boss blinds. That said, I also had Throwback and IIRC, I didn't really need Chicot to get past Ante 8.

 

[Touring Mars]

Boy, this game is seriously trying my patience now

There's just so many ways it can trip you up, and I learned a hard lesson yet again this evening.

Yet again, I lost on the final Boss Blind - despite getting everything I needed card-wise.

I even bought 'Director's Cut' as insurance against an unsympathetic Boss Blind, which is what I got - Violet Vessel, requiring 1,200,000 to beat it, and I was scoring something more like 400,000 - but, Director's Cut would rescue me, right?

Wrong. I completely forgot that you need to have $10 in the bank to use Director's Cut, and I didn't I couldn't even sell a Joker to make the money I needed.

So I played it straight and needed three 3oak and 2 Full Houses (in 5 Hands, so no no-scoring hands at all...), or the other way around. In hindsight, I should have gone for 2-3, or even all Full Houses, but I reckoned it was improbable. In the end, I got 3-2, and scored a very respectable 900,000 - but nowhere near what I needed.

-

edit: Incidentally, that score of 900k was 3 times more than I would have needed to beat any other Boss Blind, albeit they all have their own drawbacks too - but I reckon I would have won easily with any other Boss

 

[Touring Mars]

I had a great game last night using the Anaglyph deck - it's the first time I've properly used it's special abilities, and I can now see how this deck could be the way forward for an Orange stake run.

I ended up with a stack of 6 Double Tags, as there was nothing particularly interesting to use them for - until Ante 7, when I had the option to skip a blind and level up Pair by 3 levels. The stack of double tags turned this from 3 levels to 21 levels 😅 Having already manually upgraded Flush, I now had a useful backstop incase I missed a Flush...

By the end of the game, I had Flush and Pair up to Level 28, and made it to Ante 11 (though I got trounced by the Boss Blind...)

Imagine, however, if the Level Up was for Flushes... that would have put me Level 49

I had been holding out for a Negative Joker, which would have given my 7 negative jokers - but probably not enough time/money to use them; in that case, "Swashbuckler" (which I had) would have gone through the roof.

-

Just played another Anaglyph deck game, and had a stack of 7 Double Tags which went to waste

I could have (and should have) used it to get $280 (which would have doubled my money to $560) - and I had both "Bull" and "Bootstraps", both which scale with $$ - I was holding out for Negative jokers or Level Ups, but they never came... annoyingly, I would probably have survived at least another Round or 2 had I taken the money. Even without it, "Bull" was up to 560 chips (which would have doubled to 1120 chips!!) and "Bootstraps" was on 116 Mult (and could have been 232 Mult!)... I won't make that mistake again!

 

[-Fred-]

After what feels like months I've finally won a game on orange stake with the tried and trusted PhotoChad method, which means I now have all decks unlocked. Still have to score an "e" run, but that's another problem for another time.

 

[Touring Mars]

After what feels like months I've finally won a game on orange stake with the tried and trusted PhotoChad method, which means I now have all decks unlocked. Still have to score an "e" run, but that's another problem for another time.

Great job

I've beaten Orange stake once on my iPad, but am still to crack it on my PS5 - albeit I almost literally threw away a win last week, and screwed up another two Runs through bad joker plays.

PhotoChad is a winner though, Hanging Chad in general can be a very powerful card and I use it alot.

 

[Touring Mars]

I beat Orange stake on my PS5 🎉

And it was arguably the best game I've ever played - I reckon I got my strategy and card play just right, and it was touch and go for a good long while. By Ante 6, I was getting on well but needed something to happen. That's when I noticed that my hand had 4 Uncommon Jokers in it, and I realised that Baseball Card would be perfect.

On Ante 7, I had no Jokers on sale at all, so I did a reroll (despite desperately trying to save cash, as I had Bootstraps - which had been doing the heavy lifting to this point), and lo-and-behold, there is was - BUT, it was perishable 😭 However, as if by fate, I only had 5 Rounds of the game to go, and so it worked out perfectly.

Even better, I got Crimson Heart as the Boss Blind to win the Run. I normally hate this Boss, as often all 5 Jokers are needed, esp. against the higher stakes - but my deck was surprisingly lean:

• Certificate of Authenticity (Polychrome)
• Sock & Buskin
• Bootstraps
• Baseball Card
• Acrobat

So apart from Bootstraps (which was delivering a hefty 90 Mult) and Baseball (4x 1.5X Mults!), the rest were not essential.

And, obligingly, I got CoA, the S&B, and then Acrobat disabled, and beat the Boss Blind in 3 Hands 🥳🎉

-

Special mentions go to:

To Do List, a joker I rarely use, but it delivered much needed early cash and boosted Bootstraps in the process. It was also Perishable, but in the 5 Rounds I had it, it kept me in the game early on.

Mad Joker (10 Mult for 2 Pair) which I ended up selling to make room for Baseball Card, and it was also a very handy early card.

 

[Wilsonson]

Congratulations! Which deck was this with?

I'm thoroughly hooked on the game by now. Still in the process of unlocking all the jokers. Currently doing white stakes runs on all the decks to get to know them. Will try to work my way through the stakes again once I have all of them unlocked and also got a higher win rate on white stakes.

Watching YouTube makes it look so easy but I usually have no idea what I'm doing and am overwhelmed by all the possible synergies.

 

[Touring Mars]

Congratulations! Which deck was this with?

I'm thoroughly hooked on the game by now. Still in the process of unlocking all the jokers. Currently doing white stakes runs on all the decks to get to know them. Will try to work my way through the stakes again once I have all of them unlocked and also got a higher win rate on white stakes.

Watching YouTube makes it look so easy but I usually have no idea what I'm doing and am overwhelmed by all the possible synergies.

It was on the Red Deck - I reckon there are maybe easier decks to do it with, Anaglyph is a lot of fun, and I've made good progress on Ghost and Abandoned decks too, though I gave up on developing Blue Deck as 2 Discards was just too difficult on higher stakes.

I love finding new or useful synergies, and that short-lived synergy between Bootstraps and To Do List tonight made the game for me.

 

[Touring Mars]

Followed up my win earlier with my first game on Erratic Deck on PS5, and absolutely smashed it.

For the first time ever, I got the best Joker combo in the game - Blueprint and Brainstorm.

I also had Ancient joker (1.5X per card of a specific suit), and then I also got Smeared joker (treated all cards of the same colour as the same suit), and so I was hitting Flushes of the right type for Ancient joker every time... and that was scoring 4M chips a hand

I got caught eventually, as I had a Boss Blind that disabled Spades, and Ancient needed Clubs - so I had to sell Smeared joker to release the Clubs, but by this point I needed 14.4M to win, and that meant I needed at least 2 flushes in one suit, and I didn't get it. I got annoyingly close though - I did get one Club flush, and it yielded over 9M in a single hand... and, I realised that if I'd just moved the face card to the end of my hand, it might have actually beaten the Blind...

 

[Touring Mars]

Needed a Straight Flush on the last hand to win... nailed it 😎

 

[Wilsonson]

Took me a while. I knew what Four Fingers does. The combo with Smeared Joker seals the deal. Nice one.

Did you win this run? Did Scary Face help you later? Without deck manipulation I often feel like these specific jokers are hit and miss and often a waste.

 

[Touring Mars]

Took me a while. I knew what Four Fingers does. The combo with Smeared Joker seals the deal. Nice one.

Did you win this run? Did Scary Face help you later? Without deck manipulation I often feel like these specific jokers are hit and miss and often a waste.

No, I didn't win that Run - indeed, the fact that I needed a Straight Flush with 1 hand and 0 discards left on Ante 4 shows how poor my Joker deck was!! Bull was no good as I had no cash, and the others were also virtually useless in adding points, so I was scuppered by the next Boss.

-

I did, however, win my next game using Chequered Deck after taking a punt on Oops! All 6s - I got it early and it was permanent, so it was a big gamble; but my idea was to hold out for Bloodstone, as 50% of my deck was Hearts, and the Oops joker turned it from a 50/50 to a 100% success rate; and it paid off big time. I then converted as many cards to Hearts as possible, and I re-rolled the Boss Blind that debuffed Hearts.

I also had a crappy negative joker, which I was able to sell to debuff Verdant Leaf (Ante 8 Boss Blind) and won the Run easily.

 

[Touring Mars]

I had a fun game on Ghost deck (Green Stake), and immediately built a strong Joker combo from the outset.

Ghost deck gives you a 'Hex' spectral card at the start, which turns a Joker into Polychrome but deletes all your other jokers - so it's ideal to have at the start.

I got 'The Order' (3X for Straights) for free, and it was Holographic (10 Mult) - but I also had 2 Buffoon Packs. The first had 100 Chips for Straights, but also had 'Card Sharp', so I went with the latter. I bought that, turned it to Polychrome, and then got the free 3X Straights card. The second Buffoon Pack gave me 'Shortcut', which allows you to make Straights with gaps, and that combo basically won me the Run.

In fact, I beat the Run by playing just 124 cards, which was basically 22 Straights and 14 other cards. By the end, I'd played 31 Straights and just 14 other cards in the entire game.

After Ante 8, I needed to swap out one of my weaker Jokers, and got Hanging Chad (Foil), which gave me a chance of going further. Coupled with a decent amount of Glass Cards, which give 2X Mult each time they are played, I was eventually able to hit 6M in a single hand, but alas it still wasn't enough to get past Ante 11 - but it was a great game, and a rare example of a killer Joker deck developing so quickly.

-

Another win tonight, and a joint record high score of Ante 12 / Round 29.

I very nearly blew it by accidentally playing a Straight Flush instead of a Flush - it cost me the equivalent of an 8X Mult, but for once I scraped through and it didn't cost me the Run.

By the end, I had 10 9 of Diamonds, and finally got a Flush Five when I played 5 together.

 

[Wilsonson]

Just had my first win at orange stakes. For some reason I feel like I'm getting better at this while not being able to really say why. Maybe it is a combination of more experience and also having most of the collection unlocked by now.

This was my winning hand, easily beating the needed score. Followed by my final deck and hand levels.

I got the Constellation very early and decided to build around it. Went for flushes first. Got some heart buffing jokers and manipulated my deck towards hearts. Then slowly switched towards Royal Flushes. I bought every planet card possible and was rewarded. I kept on playing afterwards and finally ran into the all hearts debuffed boss blind which ended my run.

Due to many Tarot cards the Fortune Teller was at +35 mult.

While Triboulet was the icing on the cake I would have rather discovered one of my missing 2 legendaries.

My collection is getting closer to complete too.

Still need Stone Joker, 2 legendaries and 4 vouchers which just take time because you always need to buy the first one and then need the luck to get their second version.

I'm looking forward to more completion and even seriously considering going for the Platinum trophy which includes Completionist++ which means that you need a gold sticker on every single joker. It sounds kind of insane and also impossible but we will see.

 

[Touring Mars]

Great progress @Wilsonson

-

Damn it I screwed up a Gold Stake run that was built around Straights.

I had Shortcut (Straights with gaps); Constellation (1.5X), Supernova (Straight giving ca. 30 Mult), Polychrome +4 Mult joker and 'The Order' (3X Straights), and was hitting ca. 80,000 per hand, so I was comfortably through with just 2 'Straights'.

I got one Straight, but despite having AKQQJ (one Q was a 1.5X Steel Card), I couldn't get a 10 or a 9 (in spite of having 6 10s in my deck), and the Run was lost

I'm kicking myself now though, because I should have played smarter and broken up the AKQJ - this is my conventional poker thinking coming into play, and it properly scuppered me here..... I should have ditched the AQ much earlier and optimised my chances of a broken Straight. So frustrating, as I was looking good for a first Gold Stake win.

edit: I had a couple of inspired moments in the game. I had $1 and Constellation came up for sale at $6. I sold Mime and Chaos The Clown for $2 each, which was enough to buy an Arcana pack in the faint hope of getting cash - it gave me Temperance and $18!

I also bought a Rental joker for $1, and it paid off $5 for discarding 3 Face Cards; I then sold it before it charged me $3.

 

[Touring Mars]

Had my first really good game with DNA - had a huge number of Qs and 4s, all Hearts and had 4 of a Kind up to Level 37 😎

But, yet again on Anaglyph Deck, the Double Tags were completely wasted - except for getting 4oak up by 9 levels at the start of the game, which laid the basis for my strategy.

I'm convinced that Anaglyph gives you lousy bonuses for skipping Blinds on purpose - this is literally the 4th time out of 4 attempts where I've had nothing to go for after Ante 3; I was holding out for Negative (yet again, nothing...) and that's what really killed my game at Ante 10 - had Negative come up just once in the last 6 Antes, I would have had a fantastically good Joker deck, and yet it wasn't to be. Instead, I had 5 Jokers for the entire game, and two were permanent (including quite a weak one that I needed early on), and ultimately it cost me a possible record. Fantastic game, but definitely a case of what might have been...

Something I discovered in this Run:

Spoiler: Don't read this unless you want to discover a "cheat"

Earlier in the game, I had Misprint - good early joker, but no good later on - however, I googled something about it, and accidentally discovered an Easter Egg/cheat - that it tells you what the next card that will be dealt...