The Best Common Starting Jokers In Balatro

Balatro, the hottest indie of 2024, has sucked away countless productive hours of gamers across the globe, even more so now that it’s arrived on mobile.

The Game of the Year nominated hit has quite a steep learning curve compared to its roguelite contemporaries. Knowing which common jokers are worth their asking price, what type of hand build they thrive in, and where best to position them is critical to surviving those early antes. Here are some great all-rounder cards to look out for in the battle against the dealer. The house doesn’t always win here.

10 Misprint

It’s All About Luck

• Add between +0 to +23 to mult
• Buy Price: $2
• Unlock Requirement: available from the start

Starting this list is a somewhat controversial card – Misprint. Like everything in Balatro, Misprint comes down to sheer luck and can easily make or break a run towards the mid-game. Early on, however, Misprint shines as, on average, the card will likely give a player at least +11.5 mult.

This alone can be enough to get a player through the early antes, although the unpredictable nature of this card leads it to become relatively weak in the mid-game.There’s nothing quite as heartbreaking as a player’s final hand falling just short because Misprint produces a +2. Still, at $2, this is a strong starter joker.

9 Riff-Raff

The Bottom Of The Barrel Might Come In Clutch

• Generates two random common jokers at the start of a blind
• Buy price: $6
• Unlock requirement: available from the start

Riff-Raff is known as a ‘utility joker’, meaning it does not directly affect chips or mult. Like Misprint, Riff-Raff is down to pure chance regarding its usefulness. It could produce two strong common jokers or two jokes that do not complement a player’s current build.

However, Riff-Raff truly shines in creating fodder cards for powerful scaling cards, such as the uncommon joker, Ceremonial Dagger, and the rare joker, Campfire, as both cards require sacrifices to ramp up. Getting Riff-Raff as early as possible is more beneficial as a player will need the space in their joker slots for the two cards it produces.

8 Business Card

It Even Has A Watermark

• Played face cards have a 1 in 2 chance to give $2 when scored
• Buy price: $4
• Unlock requirement: available from the start

During a run of Balatro, building up money, or what Balatro players call ‘economy’, is vital to a strong start. Getting lucky with powerful, uncommon, and rare jokers spawning in the shop is all good, but players need the money to add them to their collection. That’s where jokers like Business Card come in.

Although its contemporaries, such as Golden Joker and Egg, provide a flat boost to a player’s economy with no extra input, Business Card can be manipulated to generate larger sums of cash. As this joker requires face cards to be activated, players building decks that heavily favor jacks, queens, and kings will reap larger benefits over the previously mentioned economy jokers.

7 Credit Card

Breaking The Bank

• Go up to -$20 in debt
• Buy price: $1
• Unlock requirement: available from the start

Credit Card is a simple joker, allowing players to go up to $20 in debt. This, essentially, is free money and will enable players to purchase more packs and jokers while building up a substantial amount of money.

This can provide players with a solid head start if acquired early into a run. The only downside to this card is that if it is sold whilst a player is in debt, the debt won’t be wiped, and they’ll have to climb out.

6 Scary Face

Nothing To Be Scared Of

• Played face cards give +30 chips when scored
• Buy Price: $4
• Unlock requirement: available from the start

Like Business Card, Scary Face is a joker that benefits from a skewed/starter deck favoring face cards. Using face cards as a primary source of played hands is recommended because face cards innately have a higher value for chips.

The reason Scary Face works so well is that it can stack very easily using a variety of hands. For example, getting two pairs of Kings and Queens will net a player 120 chips. Although this is another card that falls off in later antes due to +Mult jokers being much more valuable, it’s a cheap, reliable joker that will help players through the initial antes.

5 Hanging Chad

Double Trouble

• Retrigger first played card used in scoring two additional times
• Buy price: $4
• Unlock requirement: beat a boss blind with a high card hand

Hanging Chad can be difficult to truly utilize and see the benefit of; however, this card synergizes exceptionally well with other scoring jokers, such as Scary Face. In Balatro, regular playing cards can be buffed with a variety of enhancements that provide the player with additional chips and mult.

If an enhanced card is played first, meaning it is the leftmost card in a played hand, Hanging Chad will retrigger the card and its effects twice. Hanging Chad synergizes best with glass cards, which will provide x8 mult, stone cards, which provide 50 chips, lucky cards, which will give a player three attempts to trigger its effects, and polychrome cards, which will provide x3.375 mult.

4 Ride The Bus

Tickets, Please

• This joker gains +1 mult per consecutive hand played without a scoring face card
• Buy price: $6
• Unlock requirement: available from the start

Coming away from face card builds for a moment with Ride The Bus, a joker that benefits from a player exclusively using numbered cards. This card can scale indefinitely and only comes to a crashing halt once a player scores with a face card. The main takeaway is that face cards can still be played, so long as they are not scored.

For example, playing Ace King Queen Jack will result in the Ace scoring as the high card, removing any unwanted face cards, and allowing the player to keep the stacks. If a player focuses on stacking this card as early as possible, it can prove to be an extremely powerful card in the late game.

3 Supernova

Reach For The Stars

• Adds the number of times a poker hand has been played in the current run to mult
• Buy price: $5
• Unlock requirement: available from the start

Typically, in a run of Balatro, players will get comfortable creating a particular hand and build their decks around one specific hand type. Supernova can be stacked indefinitely and benefits substantially from playing hands that can be easily created, such as high card, pair, and two pair.

Supernova’s indefinite stacking potential is very strong, and the earlier a player can pick up this joker, the better. This card can get players through the early antes whilst remaining relevant and useful in the late-game antes if stacked correctly.

2 Gros Michel

Big Mike

• +15 mult 1 in 6 chance this joker is destroyed at the end of the round
• Buy price: $5
• Unlock requirement: available from the start

Gros Michel is an early ante-beating machine, as +15 mult will almost guarantee a clear in one hand. As strong as this effect is, this joker has one huge downside: It has a 1 in 6 chance to destroy itself at the end of the round.

1 in 6 is still good odds, and there’s a high chance that a player will keep Gros Michel for at least 2/3 antes. This joker has a hidden mechanic when destroyed, granting access to the extremely powerful Cavendish joker.

1 Cavendish

Bigger Mike

• x3 mult has 1 in 1000 chance to destroy itself at the end of the round
• Buy price: $4
• Unlock requirement: will not appear until Gros Michel has destroyed itself during the current run

This joker provides players with an unconditional x3 mult at the end of the round, making it one of the strongest common jokers in the game and arguably the best joker entirely.

The only caveat is the chance of it ever showing up, as a player will need to jump through the hoops of acquiring Gros Michel, having it destroy itself, and then hoping that Cavendish spawns in the shop.Going through all that rigamarole and picking up Cavendish is peak Balatro and the kind of mechanic that’ll keep players hooked.