Balatro: The Poker Deckbuilding Roguelike Puzzle Game

[muteKi]

Watched someone win with two bus jokers (second one was spawned by way of the tarot card that duplicates the newest joker), one constellation joker, and a vagabond. vagabond kept producing tarot cards that were either sold or used to do stuff like remove face cards, hearts, and clubs from the deck. Involved buying lots of planets to upgrade the constellation joker.

 

[lincolnic]

Saw this was released on Mac today and snapped it up, and in turn it snapped up the next three hours of my life. I got a winning run though! I don't remember exactly how, but I somehow started with (or got very early on) a holographic Golden Joker that gave me x10 mult for every hand. I ended up building around Pair, but I also had some really synergistic Jokers. There was the one that let every card played count towards your score, the one that added +4 mult for every face card, Fibonacci, a late pickup on the one that adds a mult of every time you've played a particular hand (which only increases as you play the hand), and I don't remember what the other two were (I took a negative at one point that gave me an extra Joker slot). But I was able to buy pretty much every booster pack and voucher I came across and didn't have too much trouble sailing to the goal posts.

Even so, I know what I did isn't even close to some of the broken runs you can have. Looking forward to losing several more hours.

 

[Violentvixen]

Saw this was released on Mac today and snapped it up, and in turn it snapped up the next three hours of my life.

I'm going to stay on PC until the sync errors are fixed (if you started on PC switching over to Mac requires manually transferring your saves and is still buggy), but glad more people get to enjoy the game!

Fibonacci

This was my favourite joker in the demos and it was just available from the beginning. Having it unlockable makes way more sense as it's crazy powerful. I had one run where I combined that with Hack (retrigger 2,3,4,5) and had various bonuses on those low cards, it was fun.

They also added Steam trading cards! I think this might be one of the rare occasions where I bother to go for one of the badges.

 

[lincolnic]

Well, I've played about 8 hours between yesterday and today, so yeah...game good.

I'm very bad at it (only two wins so far), but still having a lot of fun. If anyone has any pointers I would love to hear them.

Also, the Arm: why the fuck are these debuffs permanent?! Seems like a guaranteed run-killer.

 

[Mogri]

Well, I've played about 8 hours between yesterday and today, so yeah...game good.

I'm very bad at it (only two wins so far), but still having a lot of fun. If anyone has any pointers I would love to hear them.

Also, the Arm: why the fuck are these debuffs permanent?! Seems like a guaranteed run-killer.

Used to be it could take them below 1.

I think it's easy enough to play around now that that's no longer true, and any run that really focuses on a certain hand type should be able to win in one hand.

 

[Violentvixen]

Also, the Arm: why the fuck are these debuffs permanent?! Seems like a guaranteed run-killer.

Yeah, it's a tough one, but also a good reminder to look ahead to what the boss is and plan. If you have two shop visits before to plan a backup or other hands to focus on.

 

[muteKi]

you seen some of the builds people have been doing to get score overruns? this game is fuckin nuts. I'll always be allergic to roguelikes but I find the strategy in it pretty fascinating

 

[lincolnic]

I think it's easy enough to play around now that that's no longer true, and any run that really focuses on a certain hand type should be able to win in one hand.

I mean, if you're good at the game, sure? If you're new and can't seem to figure out any strategy beyond "focus on the one thing", it's mega-fucked.

Also hi, I'm the person who can't figure out any strategy beyond "focus on the one thing". I spent basically my whole weekend playing and I feel like the only thing I can ever get off the ground is building around flushes. I have three wins, which feels way too low for the embarrassing amount of time I've put in so far. Without getting some busted Jokers off the bat I don't know what you're supposed to do.

 

[lincolnic]

Also also, it still feels wrong that the debuffs last for the entire rest of your run. Like, shockingly punitive for a game that seems extremely balanced otherwise!

 

[lincolnic]

Triple posting because I managed to make a four of a kind run work (my first with the yellow deck), starting from taking Walkie Talkie in the very first shop. It was a full house/three of a kind build for a while until I was able to duplicate enough 10s and 4s, but late in the game I got Jokers that gave me +20 mult and x4 mult for four of a kind and a bunch of whatever the relevant planet is (Mars?), so that managed to make it worthwhile. The joker that gives +1 mult for each Tarot card you use was also a big help since I needed as many of those as I could get my hands on. Ultimately the run gave out due to some serious bad luck in Ante 10, when I couldn't ever get four of the same card into my hand, but I was pretty pleased with it! I think I had seven or eight of both 10s and 4s in the deck, though what I really could've used (and never found) was some way to remove other cards altogether.

I think I also fell into the trap of sticking with just one deck to try and get a handle on the mechanics, which was probably holding me back from unlocking more stuff. From now on I'm going to keep moving onto the next deck as I unlock them. I went from a blue deck win to a yellow deck win, surely this streak will last forever!

 

[muteKi]

I cannot stand roguelikes but I love watching people break this game.

 

[ShakeWell]

I hate the Black Deck so much, the one hand handicap is worse than the benefit of an extra Joker. And I was about to finally get a win with it to shake the goddamn Albatross on my neck, but the stupid "Disable a Joker" Blind was the final boss, and it totally fucked me.

Also, I've been avoiding spoiling myself on various unlocks, but I did have to check about Legendary Jokers, because I still haven't gotten one after almost 30 hours of the full game, and it turns out you can only get them from a specific card in Spectral Packs, which is... kinda bullshit? It's fine, I guess, but that feels a little lame. Like a nesting doll of low odds.

 

[Violentvixen]

Black deck is definitely the toughest. I did a lot of holding down r to reset the first set of blinds until I had the free shop tag or the $15 boss blind one.

 

[YangusKhan]

Also, I've been avoiding spoiling myself on various unlocks, but I did have to check about Legendary Jokers, because I still haven't gotten one after almost 30 hours of the full game, and it turns out you can only get them from a specific card in Spectral Packs, which is... kinda bullshit? It's fine, I guess, but that feels a little lame. Like a nesting doll of low odds.

I am pretty sure it's not just in Spectral Packs. I've unlocked like 3 and I rarely ever buy a Spectral Pack.

 

[lincolnic]

Also, I've been avoiding spoiling myself on various unlocks, but I did have to check about Legendary Jokers, because I still haven't gotten one after almost 30 hours of the full game, and it turns out you can only get them from a specific card in Spectral Packs, which is... kinda bullshit? It's fine, I guess, but that feels a little lame. Like a nesting doll of low odds.

I've unlocked two Legendary Jokers and I'm almost positive I got the second one from an Arcana Pack.

Meanwhile, I've gotten a win so far with every deck up through Nebula. It's been very tough going, though. I feel like 95% of my runs die by Ante 3 because I can't find a single playable Joker, or because I find a good starting Joker or two and then never find any way to support them. Like earlier tonight, I managed to start out with two Barons, and then not only was I unable to find a way to duplicate kings, I never even saw another king in my hand again.

I really am trying to stay open to new strategies and combinations that I haven't tried before, but I feel like I still have the most success with either flush-based decks or by duplicating cards. The run I won tonight ended up built around the Flush Five after I was able to duplicate something like 25 mult-enhanced Ace of Spaces (Aces of Spades?) into the deck.

How about other folks - are you all struggling with the early game as much as I am? Am I just Doing It Wrong?

 

[Violentvixen]

How about other folks - are you all struggling with the early game as much as I am? Am I just Doing It Wrong?

You seem like you're doing fine? Just keep unlocking stuff.

Also remember a lot of us played two rounds of the demo before you even started, I'd played this for at least 20 hours before it actually came out.

 

[YangusKhan]

The key to early Antes is just getting some +mult stuff you can rely on. A lot of early blinds are low enough you can clear with a few hands if you can get even a small amount of mult. This starts to get more difficult as you increase the difficulty ranks, but it works.

 

[ShakeWell]

You seem like you're doing fine? Just keep unlocking stuff.

Also remember a lot of us played two rounds of the demo before you even started, I'd played this for at least 20 hours before it actually came out.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like you have more wins than I do, Linc, and I've got 40 hours in the full game plus 20+ in the first two demos. But I also admit that I have mucked some runs to unlock things or add them to my collection.

But yes, apparently the Legendary card CAN come from Arcana packs, but that's even MORE RARE than it showing up in Spectral packs.

 

[Dark Medusa]

I've unlocked two Legendary Jokers and I'm almost positive I got the second one from an Arcana Pack.

Meanwhile, I've gotten a win so far with every deck up through Nebula. It's been very tough going, though. I feel like 95% of my runs die by Ante 3 because I can't find a single playable Joker, or because I find a good starting Joker or two and then never find any way to support them. Like earlier tonight, I managed to start out with two Barons, and then not only was I unable to find a way to duplicate kings, I never even saw another king in my hand again.

I really am trying to stay open to new strategies and combinations that I haven't tried before, but I feel like I still have the most success with either flush-based decks or by duplicating cards. The run I won tonight ended up built around the Flush Five after I was able to duplicate something like 25 mult-enhanced Ace of Spaces (Aces of Spades?) into the deck.

How about other folks - are you all struggling with the early game as much as I am? Am I just Doing It Wrong?

The one thing that stands out to me here - especially on early difficulties, just look for one Joker (or two) that will get you past the first few antes, and use that momentum to build up money and snowball into interest. You don't need to find a "playable" Joker, you just need to find one that is good enough for the moment (basically, a restatement to what Yangus said).

 

[lincolnic]

The one thing that stands out to me here - especially on early difficulties, just look for one Joker (or two) that will get you past the first few antes, and use that momentum to build up money and snowball into interest. You don't need to find a "playable" Joker, you just need to find one that is good enough for the moment (basically, a restatement to what Yangus said).

Yeah, this is what I've been trying to do. But more often than not I seem to not find any usable Jokers until it's too late. Just bad luck, I guess.

I'm getting something like one win for every 3-4 hours of gameplay, which feels pretty low. I guess what I'm really wondering is if other people are in a similar boat? I have no idea what a good metric is for this game!

 

[Dark Medusa]

Like other people have said, we probably have some more time on you, but at the lowest difficulty I feel like every other run is a win? And higher than that if I'm piloting a deck I know.

I'm just curious, define to me what you think a "usable joker" is?

 

[Violentvixen]

one win for every 3-4 hours of gameplay

That seems good!

it sounds like you have more wins than I do, Linc, and I've got 40 hours in the full game plus 20+ in the first two demos.

Yeah, I just beat the black deck on Saturday, and just unlocked the final boss blind yesterday. I'll look up my stats in a bit.

at the lowest difficulty I feel like every other run is a win?

Now that I've unlocked all the stuff I'd say 1 in 5 is a win, but I'm often not really playing to win (which I assume means beating ante 8) every time? I'd say about half the time I realize I have some sort of cool engine starting to build and delight in seeing what happens even if I only die two rounds later.

define to me what you think a "usable joker" is?

Same question from me. I'm getting the impression that by ante 3 you only have 2 jokers sometimes and yeah, that'd be hard as hell to keep going. Just buy some then sell them when something better comes along.

Edit: Oh I guess the stats don't have number of wins, too bad. I thought it was deck stake wins but that seems to be the 120 combos of chips and decks.

But here are my stats and some of the jokers and consumables I use the most if that helps. Again, a lot of runs are just messing around but you can tell I like two pair and full house a lot.

I would like to get to ante 12 soon, as you can see I've gotten very close!

 

[Dark Medusa]

Here are my stats:

 

[lincolnic]

I'm just curious, define to me what you think a "usable joker" is?

Same question from me.

Something that gives an amount of chips or mult? As opposed to something like, I dunno, Marble Joker or Gift Card, neither of which are going to be very helpful on their own.

I got two wins today! With the Abandoned Deck and the Checkered Deck, both of which seemed super easy compared to other decks. The Checkered Deck run was pretty neat. I picked up Castle as my first joker and since there were only two suits in the deck, I was able to boost it pretty high. Another highlight was getting Cavendish for the first time, and then finding Blueprint to double it.

I've gotten to Ante 11 plenty of times, but I've never gone higher. The required scores just get so absurdly high at that point that it seems like you really need something broken to keep going. I have yet to put together a deck like that. Usually in a winning run I can put together a deck that can beat the Ante 10 boss in maybe two hands, but after that I just can't keep up.

Here's some stats from me too:

 

[lincolnic]

Had a very good Balatro session today. I discovered I was out of decks to unlock without turning up the difficulty, so I went up to the red stake (and back to the basic red deck). I managed to break into ante 12 for the first time, using a deck built around pairs of all things. The setup changed a bit as the run went on, but I had a lot of x-mult stuff going on (including a Blueprint copying a Hologram that I got early enough to pump up a lot). Sometime in the early-middle of the run I got the Joker that upgrades the first hand you discard, which the extra cards I added for Hologram helped a lot with.

After that one I decided to look at the challenge runs, and beat the first one on my very first attempt. I lucked into a spectral card that turned a bunch of cards into Queens very early on, and leaned hard into playing five-of-a-kinds. Had some good Jokers to help with the multiplier, this was a very fun run.

For my final run I went over to the blue deck (still on red stake) and ended up building around high card. Castle, Green Joker, Half Joker, and eventually DNA to copy some enhanced Aces all did a ton of work. This deck didn't have the numbers to go much farther after ante 8 (I think the run ended at small blind 10), but it was very satisfying to play one card and get hundreds of thousands of points.

 

[Violentvixen]

Had a very good Balatro session today.

Nice!

I really enjoy unlocking stuff/achievements than beating anything so I'm still just futzing around in most of my runs. It's silly but I'm having a good time.

I'm really intrigued by how many people (here and elsewhere) have success off the Ride the Bus one. I don't really get how to make that one work, although I think some of it is bad luck. I seem to pull it later in a run when I have a deck that will reset it too often.

 

[lincolnic]

I'm really intrigued by how many people (here and elsewhere) have success off the Ride the Bus one.

I managed to get that one fairly early in my winning run with the Abandoned Deck (no face cards). Turns out it's very good in a deck that literally can't make it fail! But yeah, I agree that you'd need a very specific kind of setup to make it work anywhere else. Although I can imagine it working in an Ace-focused high card build, since Aces aren't face cards and you're probably never playing anything else anyway.

 

[Mogri]

I pulled up my stats recently and was surprised to find that my most-used joker was Square Joker (permanently +4 chips if you play exactly 4 cards). On reflection, though, I stand by it being one of the best, most consistent jokers. The four-card restriction makes you lean into more consistent plays (usually Three of a Kind or Two Pair), and unlike Ride the Bus, you can drop the restriction as needed while retaining the benefit.

The actual best joker might just be Bull (2 chips per $1), especially if you can also find Bootstraps (+2 mult per $5), but neither shows up very often.

 

[lincolnic]

Fun fact: you won't reset Ride the Bus if you include a non-scoring face card in your hand. Good way to save yourself some discards if you need them for something else.

 

[ShakeWell]

Yeah, this is what I've been trying to do. But more often than not I seem to not find any usable Jokers until it's too late. Just bad luck, I guess.

I'm getting something like one win for every 3-4 hours of gameplay, which feels pretty low. I guess what I'm really wondering is if other people are in a similar boat? I have no idea what a good metric is for this game!

I've logged 50-ish hours and have 5 wins, so looks like you're doing better than me! But until today, I'd been pretty consistently bashing my head against getting a win with the Black Deck (I still don't).

Nice!

I really enjoy unlocking stuff/achievements than beating anything so I'm still just futzing around in most of my runs. It's silly but I'm having a good time.

I'm really intrigued by how many people (here and elsewhere) have success off the Ride the Bus one. I don't really get how to make that one work, although I think some of it is bad luck. I seem to pull it later in a run when I have a deck that will reset it too often.

I *did* get a win with the Abandoned Deck today, though, and it was largely thanks to big leveling on Two Pair, then having Ride the Bus, which can't go awry with the Abandoned Deck.

I pulled up my stats recently and was surprised to find that my most-used joker was Square Joker (permanently +4 chips if you play exactly 4 cards). On reflection, though, I stand by it being one of the best, most consistent jokers. The four-card restriction makes you lean into more consistent plays (usually Three of a Kind or Two Pair), and unlike Ride the Bus, you can drop the restriction as needed while retaining the benefit.

The actual best joker might just be Bull (2 chips per $1), especially if you can also find Bootstraps (+2 mult per $5), but neither shows up very often.

Furthermore, that win was helped by Square Joker. That seems like a pretty foolproof setup for a win with the Abandoned Deck, though it of course depends on your rolls.