Balatro: The Poker Deckbuilding Roguelike Puzzle Game

[ShakeWell]

I know at least a couple of us played this during Nextfest, and it's coming out next week. I'm... maybe more hype than I should be? My go-to strategy so far has been to pump up Flushes as much as possible and then collect as much of one suit as possible. It's been mostly effective, but the Cerulean Bell can be a real jerk.

 

[Violentvixen]

Aaah, thank you for making a thread, I was going to and forgot. It took a bit for this to click for me, because at first I was just playing poker and couldn't hit the thresholds. Then I started really paying attention to what all the modifiers were doing and got the systems going.

I played the first demo in December (?) and never skipped a blind, I can't remember but maybe the rewards just weren't good enough? I do much more often in this demo and it's often worth it.

The Fibonacci card is amazing and I love it when I get that one. Also the pants card, my spouse hadn't realized that it levels up from two pairs in anything, so if you have a full house, or a flush with two pair that upgrades it too.

I still don't quite get the Specter card packs, just seems way too random for my taste. But once I started realizing how much all these types of cards work together... it's so damn satisfying when it just works. Fantastic sound design for such minimal feedback. Also glad that I could turn off screen shake and a lot of the CRT effects, they weren't working for me.

 

[ShakeWell]

Yeah, I just had a run where I got a bunch of levels piled on High Card from skipping a blind and... like JUST playing an ace or a face card was enough to clear a shocking number of blinds in a hand or two. The Specter cards are... I dunno, some are really good, and some are just fuck-awful. I can't wait to see ALL the Jokers and stuff that's in the full version.

 

[Olli]

This seems really interesting! I'll probably get it for the Switch once it's out.

 

[ShakeWell]

Got two clears tonight. I didn't initially see the value in destroying cards, but boy, if you're going hard on flushes, and you can makes some money or get something else from destroying cards? Do it. Thin the deck, take the cash (I was using the "if your first discard is one card, destroy it and get $3" joker), push hard on flush levels and beating the Cerulean Bell isn't that tough.

 

[Violentvixen]

Got two clears tonight. I didn't initially see the value in destroying cards, but boy, if you're going hard on flushes, and you can makes some money or get something else from destroying cards? Do it. Thin the deck, take the cash (I was using the "if your first discard is one card, destroy it and get $3" joker), push hard on flush levels and beating the Cerulean Bell isn't that tough.

Oh yeah, destroying cards or making glass cards is great.

 

[Dark Medusa]

Got two clears tonight. I didn't initially see the value in destroying cards, but boy, if you're going hard on flushes, and you can makes some money or get something else from destroying cards? Do it. Thin the deck, take the cash (I was using the "if your first discard is one card, destroy it and get $3" joker), push hard on flush levels and beating the Cerulean Bell isn't that tough.

That Joker used to read "$5" and good lord was it ridiculous.

I tend to go for Full Houses just because I think it's a bit more consistent with the Jokers available (you want to use Hack and Fibonacci to ramp up multiplier, and use Tarot to make everything one of the triggering cards). Obviously the strategy changes with which overpowered thing I find first, but I find myself trending towards Full Houses, since Cerulean Bell (which won't always be the "Final Boss" in the full build, I'm sure) doesn't wreck its gameplan as strongly as Flushes I feel.

 

[ShakeWell]

Steam says I've put... 17 hours into this demo. I should probably chill out until the full version comes out.

But I got another clear playing while all the NBA All-Star preshow stuff was going on. I had like 10 kings in my deck and was levelling up Four of a Kind pretty hard. Fairly easy clear. I do hope the Cerulean Bell isn't the only final Boss Blind in the full game.

 

[Violentvixen]

It's available, played for a bit before work. Lots of new cards and things already. I was a bit hopeful unlocks from the demo would carry over, but I bet they kept tweaking things so I suppose it's not a shock that you start fresh.

Edit: Hmm, now that I think about it, if I'm not preserving unlocks I wonder if I want to refund the Steam purchase and have it on Switch instead. Since Balatro isn't on a Mac and the Mac is what I take when I travel it might be nice to have this for traveling.

Doesn't look like there's a Switch demo, so if anyone gets it on Switch I'd be curious how it plays and how well touchscreen stuff works.

 

[ShakeWell]

I haven't played yet, but I did buy and download. Excited to tear into the full game.

 

[YangusKhan]

I played this for 20 minutes tonight before starting dinner. I deem it: neat.

 

[YangusKhan]

I got as far as the Boss Blind of Ante 7 and lost; I was only like 6-7k points shy of winning though. The scoring curve is deceptively steep; it doesn't take many Jokers for the early Antes to be pretty effortless. So there's definitely a learning curve to figure out how good my strategy/deck needs to be to actually complete a run.

One thing I'm not seeing the value of is Tarot cards that modify 1 or 2 cards in your deck. With 52 cards it just seems like I can't really rely on the card mods they give me, especially if it's a Tarot card booster pack and I have to pick from a random subset of my deck.

 

[YangusKhan]

Okay well I cleared a run. My Boss Blind was "Verdant Green" which had "all cards debuffed until you sell a Joker." I didn't know if that meant like, you had to sell a Joker during the match or just anytime during the Ante, but also it didn't matter because I skipped both blinds anyway. My MVP was probably the Baseball Card Joker (Rare, gives 1.5x Mult for each Uncommon Joker). I see now that Mult-multipliers are pretty much required to clear Ante 7+. I'm also better understanding the power of Tarot cards re: my previous post; a single Tarot isn't that impactful on its own, but using a bunch of them over the course of a run does add up.

This is a good game.

 

[Mogri]

My first run in the full game got a setup that cleared boss blinds in one hand... and the contents of that hand didn't make a difference.

Spoiler

Bull: +2 chips per $. I ended with over $200.
Arcane Joker: +1 mult per tarot played. About 40. This could've been better, but anything providing a decent +mult would be sufficient here.
I forget the name of this one: x3 mult if the unplayed cards in your hand are all black. Extremely good.
Ramen: X2 mult, -0.1 for every card discarded. So I just stopped discarding.
The fifth one: I don't remember, but it also doesn't matter. Once you have +chips,+mult, and x mult, you're all set.

Play consisted of any red cards drawn. The amount of chips and mult generated by jokers drowned out anything the cards could do.

 

[ShakeWell]

Yeah, I love that the game feels designed to break it with stuff like that, if you can line up all the pieces.

 

[YangusKhan]

Just had my most awful win yet (3 wins now). I made it to Ante 8 but I knew my deck wasn't good enough to win. The boss was the Crimson thing which disables a random Joker each hand, so even more reason I wouldn't be able to win.

But as it happens, through playing the small and big blind, I got into a shop that had a combination of 2 Jokers: Mr. Bones (avoid death if you've got 25% of the score) and Luchador (sell to disable boss blind). You see, if I only took Mr. Bones then there would be a 1 in 5 chance that the boss disables it on my last hand and I would lose, so I had buy both of them to guarantee a win. In the actual round I think I ended up scoring 75k points, and I did not have to sell my Luchador to save myself after all.

 

[spines]

haha, i had a pretty ugly win today for my 3rd as well. i was playing the gold deck and was able to invest in some ramp early on, in particular i got the one that levels up the first hand you discard each blind...for some reason i decided to focus on 2 pair, which did work out, but in retrospect...that's a high card setup if i've ever seen one. and then around ante 2 i got the oujia spectral card and turned a ton of cards in my deck into 6s, and immediately afterward the "play a single 6 as your first hand, it trades for a spectral card" joker appeared, so...i decided to let this run turn into total chaos, which only deepened after i ran into the boss who makes you pay money to play cards and almost went into debt (which i assume kills you, unless you have the credit card, in which case you die at -$21 instead?). of course in all that i got the spectral that polychromes one of your jokers at the cost of all the others, and obviously using that implies selling your setup and pivoting again...which i did after i got enough money, and managed to bag a supernova for good measure. at that point my deck had distorted enough that some combination of pairs of k, 10, 6, and 2 (all cards i had extras of, at the cost of 1-3 of most other ranks) could get me there as long as i had a queen in hand. especially my steel one. but i still wasn't confident going into the last hand so i did one final shift and decided that 8 was probably going to be the end of the line, buying campfire and spending money pretty hard to seal the ante 8. of course, the next voucher was discount finally, so i was able to day trade through ante 9 before trying to save money too much to survive the small on ante 10.

was a fun game, and a hugely educational one for a win since i ended up trying so many jokers and little combos i never had before, and got way more seals than i've ever run with before to see the kind of power you get out of that, on top of the fully risky pivot midway through. got a much better idea of scope and what i can get away with, lol...

 

[Dark Medusa]

Going into debt thankfully does not kill you. And that's a really, really cool run, wow. Thanks for sharing!

 

[YangusKhan]

I've only seen the Ouija spectral card twice, and both times I wanted to pick it very much, but damn is that a daunting decision to commit to. Your run sounded pretty fun for sure! I think this is the first deckbuilder I've played where "embrace chaos" actually feels like a compelling decision vs. "absolutely not."

 

[SabreCat]

Folks on the Steam discussion boards are whinging that building Flush is the only way to win. Reading this thread... sounds like that's not even close to the case, ha.

 

[Mogri]

Flush is the most consistent, I think, and you can build Flush even if you're also building of-a-kind or Straight. As long as you can avoid the boss blind that debuffs your suit of choice (usually by building to a suit after you encounter that boss blind), there's no disadvantage to specializing in a suit.

I don't think Flush is even close to the only way to win, but I do think the game has more Flush incentives than any other strategy.

 

[YangusKhan]

I have found Flush to be very reliable in the early game before you even start getting into a build, fwiw.

 

[ShakeWell]

Yeah, Flush is reliable but definitely not the only path, those are folks who I think haven't discovered the joys of destroying cards or changing suits with tarot and stuff.

You see, if I only took Mr. Bones then there would be a 1 in 5 chance that the boss disables it on my last hand and I would lose, so I had buy both of them to guarantee a win. In the actual round I think I ended up scoring 75k points, and I did not have to sell my Luchador to save myself after all.

YOU SEE, JOKER, NORMALLY IF YOU WAS TO GO 1-ON-1 WITH A NORMAL BALATRO PLAYER, YOU GOT A 50/50 CHANCE OF WINNIN'. BUT I'M A GENETIC FREAK, AND I'M NOT NORMAL, SO YOU GOT A 25%, AT BEST, CHANCE OF BEATIN' ME. AND YOU ADD MR. BONES TO THE MIX? YOUR CHANCES OF WINNIN' DRASTIC GO DOWN...

 

[Violentvixen]

unless you have the credit card, in which case you die at -$21 instead?)

Nah, it just lets you keep spending until you get to -$20, normally once you hit zero you can't buy anything more.

 

[spines]

so i've mostly tried to climb with the ghost deck (start the game with a "hex" card, and a higher chance of getting spectral packs through the game). this is a very random deck that can highroll more than others but also has a lot of excruciatingly difficult starts. mostly i think it's interesting because the incentive is to latch onto the first joker you see no matter what it is and turn it into a focus of your build. i think this is really fun, even though a lot of the time it doesn't work; some games i've lost have kind of surprised me because i felt like i was so close to breaking through. i did win a game by polychroming walkie-talkie (10-4!) at the start, but my favorite round of this game i've had was one where the joker that appeared in the first shop...was the to-do list. i've tried using it before and it's usually like, kinda nice to pick up early, hopefully cash out a few times, then you get some target like straight flush or four of a kind and decide it's too much of a hassle. but coming up with something better than a 1.5x joker that sometimes gives you money is not that easy so i spent the whole game trying to farm with it, and it repaid me greatly, allowing me to buy a nice setup that wasn't too picky about which hand i played. (i don't remember exactly what it was now, i think it involved either bull or stone joker for chips.) a lot of the usual flow of this game is finding the hand that wins big on that run and fishing for it every round, so it was really awesome to play a game that reversed that so fully, and encouraged me to think about every play a little bit differently. "can i go for the hand now?"

maybe my favorite joker in the game from a fun standpoint. though the legendary one that cancels boss abilities is nice too

 

[Mogri]

I'm convinced that winstreaking at or above orange stake is basically impossible.

My own climbing attempts have been on Checkered Deck (your starting deck's black cards are all spades, and the red cards are all hearts), which guarantees you get past ante 1 even with no jokers. Past that, you'd better hope the stars aligned to give you some kind of econ plus reliable jokers. Ghost Deck sounds a good choice for climbing, but it's less reliable at lower stakes.

As for the early decks, I'm not convinced +1 discard is ever better than +1 hand outside of extremely niche cases. You can get rid of cards by playing them, after all...

 

[YangusKhan]

I have also been climbing difficulties with the Checkered Deck; I can see now where those Steam users would be decrying the power of Flush because, yeah, that deck has no problem getting through antes 1 & 2 so far even without getting anything meaningful. I'm stuck at Black stakes right now, which isn't really any much harder than the previous one, so it's still mostly a matter of getting and picking the right Jokers. (I know for sure I screwed myself over once buying the "Planets appear 2x more often" voucher when I didn't even have good Jokers yet)

 

[YangusKhan]

Okay so I wanna talk about a clumsy AF build I had that somehow managed to reach Ante 8 before losing to the boss that disables a random Joker. This was with the Checkered Deck, but my strategy took a weird pivot at some point I don't remember which Ante. My first Joker was the one where "if your first discard is 1 card then destroy it and get $3" and it was also Eternal (playing on Black stakes) so I was stuck with it (probably a terrible decision to buy it lol). I figured it would just build up to Face cards + Flushes, but that just kept not happening. At one point I got a Joker for "create a Stone Card every time you pick a Blind" and went with that, figuring that I would be deleting low-value cards and then adding Stone Cards and maybe that would help my chips scaling. However, the deck was struggling real hard for a while until I found the Vampire Joker (every time you play an Enhanced card, it gets x0.2 mult and removes the enhancement), and then pretty soon after that I found Blueprint (copy the right Joker). So I had all these Stone Cards built up in my deck that would be used for Vampire and would keep creating more Stone Cards and I could double its xMult, which was important because I don't think I had any +Mult Jokers at all. So I basically was leaning on a high level hand type for a base Mult and then getting like a x25 Mult on it. You can probably imagine how "disables a random Joker" would completely shut down my deck and why I lost.

 

[ShakeWell]

I've only managed two wins in the full version, and I blame there being TOO MANY Jokers in the full game. By which I mean, runs in the demo were more consistent, but the full game rules.

Also, I love that there are three fake Poker hands with their own Planet cards. I just won a run by going super hard on Five of a Kind with Planet X cards to upgrade. (The Joker that has a 1/4 chance of leveling up the hand you just played helped, too.)

 

[Mogri]

Here's my ranking of stakes by the amount they increase difficulty.

Spoiler: Don't click if you don't want them spoiled

-1 Discard: NBD
No $ from Small Blind: Annoying, but it's at most -$24 across a full run. They made this the first stake to teach you it's OK to skip blinds.
Eternal Jokers: This prevents you from buying stopgaps, which can definitely kill a run, but Eternal is not always a bad modifier.
-1 hand size: Easy to underestimate, but there's a reason this is the gold stake.
Packs cost $1/ante: This one really gets me. I want to put it at #1, but I suspect that's personal bias from how many attempts it took me to beat orange stake.
Increased scaling: This is a huge jump in difficulty, especially the second time around.