I have a bit of aBalatroaddiction. I’ve completed all the challenges, unlocked everything, and beaten the Gold Stake several times.
Like any deckbuilder, there isa wide range of viable strategiesthat you will discover as you play, but some will work more consistently than others.
Sure, you could push your luck and bet on getting the right Jokers, drawing the right cards, and not getting a Boss Blind that will ruin your plan. It’s fun to see where your luck can get you. However, if you want to get through all the Stakes, there are more consistent strategies to consider.
10Stacking The Deck
Keep An Ace Up Your Sleeve
While it would be cheating in a standard poker game, you’re encouraged to stack your deck in Balatro.
Adding playing cards may not seem to be a priority when Joker cards give a much more immediate benefit, but focusing on adding as many playing cards of a chosen type will help you get high-scoring hands more consistently.
You could add cards of a specific suit to help with Flushes or focus on a single rank for the even higher-scoring Five Of A Kind.
Not only that, but the playing cards you can add will often be enhanced, giving a variety of bonuses.
9Prioritize Hand Types
There are 12 hand types, and trying to upgrade them equally will leave you far behind. Additionally, many Jokers only work when you play a specific hand type.
Picking a certain hand type and prioritizing it by getting Jokers that synergize with it, adding playing cards to get in more frequently, and upgrading it throughout your run will help you win more consistently.
Sure, a Straight Flush typically scores higher than a Full House, but not if you’ve upgraded Full House several times.
However, you will want to keep your eye on potential backups. For example, if you’re focusing on Full House, you may desire to upgrade Two Pair periodically since you will inevitably be one card off from your preferred hand now and then.
8Get Jokers That Always Trigger
Because Things Don’t Always Go To Plan
While you should always consider what hand type is being played, some Jokers will make it less of an issue when you can’t get the hand you want. Jokers with bonuses that build up throughout the run are particularly strong.
For example, Runner and Spare Trousers are great because they always trigger and only add to the bonus when you play the right-hand type. Then there’s Hologram and Throwback and other Jokers that can build up very high Mult multipliers, each in their own way.
Ensuring you have a few of these will put you in a much safer spot if and when you get bad draws. With the right Jokers, you might even be able to score enough with a single High Card.
Balatro: 10 Best Rare Jokers, Ranked
These special cards can almost single-handedly win you a game if you know how to use them.
7Spam Tarot Cards
I See More Money In Your Future
Sometimes, an Arcana Pack seems like a waste of money, but they tend to be a net good. Hermit and Temperance allow you to make much more money off of them than they cost, and Emperor and Fool will allow you to get more bang for your buck and get more Tarot Cards as consumables.
Keeping Tarot Cards in your consumable slots can save you from a bad situation, with Strength allowing you to change card ranks and several options to change suits like The Moon. These consumables can help you get the hand type you need at that moment.
There’s also the great side-effect of inevitably enhancing several of your cards with Magician, Justice, and more.
6Skip Most Blinds
Speed Run Your Way To Victory
Skipping blinds may seem like a bad idea at first since you’re missing out on money, andmany of the Tagsyou get from skipping might not seem worth it at first.
However, if you skip as many as possible, Speed Tags will get you much more money than you would get from beating the blinds. Not only that, but skipping is the best way to get enhanced jokers, especially with the Polychrome and Negative tags.
Skipping also improves Flashback, one of the strongest Jokers you’re able to find, whether you have it yet or not.
That said, it’s crucial to know when you shouldn’t skip as well. Some Jokers, like Castle or Yorick, will benefit more from playing every hand to get those discards in. You also don’t want to go into a Boss Blind that you’re not prepared for, and you might need to play a Blind to stop by the shop.
5Look For Mult Multipliers
Math Isn’t That Hard
While more Chips and flat Mult bonuses are great, the way to rack up insanely high scores is with Mult multipliers. Mult multipliers compound, meaning instead of just adding a flat Mult value like many Jokers do, they add more depending on how high your Mult already is.
For example, starting with a Mult of 10, a Joker adding 12 Mult may seem better than one that multiplies the Mult by 2 since that only adds 10.
However, a second 2x Mult multiplier Joker would then add 20. When combined with leveled-up hand types and enhanced cards, these Jokers can end up adding Mult in the hundreds or even thousands at a time.
This makes Polychrome Edition Jokers extremely valuable, as they each get a 1.5x Mult multiplier.
Balatro: 10 Best Vouchers Ranked
Get to know the best Vouchers you can redeem in Balatro. Don’t lose a run, and use these powerful Vouchers to succeed.
4Don’t Forget About Vouchers
I Can Vouch For Them
Not all Vouchers are made equally, but increased hands, hand size, and discards are extremely valuable and shouldn’t be skipped out on if possible. The Blank Voucher can also lead to the Antimatter Voucher, giving another Joker slot, which is worth much more than the collective $20 you will spend on it.
The other Vouchers have varying usefulness depending on your current strategy, but you should always consider them. For example, Planet Merchant and Planet Tycoon are extremely valuable if you have the Constellation Joker.
While Vouchers won’t immediately increase your score like a Joker might, having an extra discard or hand available can save you in situations where a common Joker can’t.
3Always Get Negatives
They’re A Positive Thing
Negative Jokers effectively don’t take up a Joker slot, meaning you can have as many of them as you can find. Given how important Jokers are, having more is almost always a good thing.
However, sometimes the Negative Joker might not seem useful, like a Negative Riff Raff when all of your Joker slots are full, but you should generally buy it anyway.
Plenty of Jokers are dependent on the number of cards in your hand, and multiple Finisher Blind effects like Verdant Leaf and Crimson Heart are minimized by having Jokers that aren’t needed.
That said, there are a few Jokers that you might want to skip depending on your strategy, like Madness, Vampire, Burglar, and Stuntman.
2Use Hands As Discards
It’s Not A Waste When You Have A Plan
When you’re out of discards, you may think you need to play the best hand you have, even if it won’t score much. However, that’s often a waste of a hand. A better strategy is to play the cards you don’t plan on using to set up a better hand type.
An example is when the best hand you have is Two Pair, you may want to play every other card in your hand to redraw them and try to get a Full House.
Without Jokers, leveled-up hand types, or enhanced cards, the highest-scoring Two Pair will earn 120 points, while the lowest-scoring Full House will get you 208. Of course, be sure the card you’re looking for is still in your deck before you do that.
Things Change
The Jokers that are great early on aren’t always going to be too helpful later in a run. You have to be ready to sell that Joker that helped you a lot initially to get something that will help you out at higher ranks.
A good example is Smiley Face, allowing for an up to 25 Mult bonus, which is a lot and great for early on. However, 25 Mult is nothing later in the game, and you will want something like Card Sharp, allowing for a Mult multiplier of 3 instead.
You also have to remember that many Boss Blinds are determined by what you’ve played, so you need to have backup plans. If you can’t get a good score without Smiley Face,The Plant will take you out.
Every Balatro Deck Ranked By Difficulty
In this roguelike, you have 15 different options to lose contact with the real world.
