What To Know About Endless Mode

What To Know About Endless Mode



So, you’ve beaten Ante 8 in Balatro and decided to push your limits in Endless Mode, but now you have some questions about the difficulty curve and what it takes to overcome those seemingly impossible boss blinds. Endless Mode in Balatro serves as a victory lap after the main game, offering a challenging and rewarding experience that truly tests your deck-building skills.




While Endless Mode can keep you engaged for hours, you’ll need to prepare for increasingly difficult challenges. Understanding what to expect in this mode will help you craft an equally powerful deck as the Ante rises.

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What Makes Endless Mode A Challenge Worth Pursuing?

Steep Difficulty Curve That Challenges Your Deck-Building Skill

Showcasing the Endless Mode screen in Balatro

The Endless Mode in Balatro offers incredible replayability once you’ve beaten Ante 8. This mode pushes you to think outside the box, forego conventional poker strategies, and fully exploit the game’s bonus systems — such as Jokers, Glass Cards, and Polychromes — to maximize your score. If you’re eager to test the limits of your deck-building skills, Endless Mode even allows you to aim for the mind-boggling “infinity” score, making it the ultimate challenge for seasoned Balatro players.


If you’ve recently completed the main game and unlocked Endless Mode, here’s what makes it truly endless:

  • Exponential Difficulty: After Ante 8, the difficulty curve in Balatro escalates dramatically. Each new round introduces tougher boss blinds, demanding constant deck optimization and strategic adaptation.
  • Strategic Depth: As the stakes rise, the Endless Mode encourages innovative strategies like leveraging Negative Jokers, upgrading powerful poker hands, and sometimes even destroying weak cards from your deck.

Limitations Of Endless Mode In Balatro

Repetition, Difficulty Imbalance, & Limited Deck Lifespan

Showcasing the Boss Blinds in Ante 12 in Balatro

While the Endless Mode in Balatro pushes the boundaries of deck-building strategy, it also reveals certain gameplay limitations over time. These shortcomings become increasingly apparent the longer you play, and the mode offers minimal incentive to keep going. Here’s how Endless Mode in Balatro serves as a double-edged sword, delivering both excitement and monotony:


  • Steep Difficulty Curve: The main game in Balatro, up to Ante 8, has a forgiving difficulty curve that requires you to score 100,000 chips to win the game. However, Ante 12 and higher will demand you to score in the billions and even trillions to climb up the ranks. This steep difficulty curve can make the Endless Mode seem unfair, compelling you to rely more than just on strategy: luck.
  • Limited Deck Lifespan: Given how quickly the difficulty escalates in Endless Mode, a well-performing deck may soon become obsolete as the higher Antes may penalize you for playing your favorite hand or debuff certain suits. These gameplay mechanics can get frustrating if you have invested a serious amount of time and effort in optimizing your deck.
  • Not Technically Endless: The steep difficulty curve may often prevent you from progressing consistently beyond a few Antes post Ante 8. You’ll soon realize that to progress through to the higher Antes, you must rely on brute force strategies like relying on powerful cards and luck.


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Tips For Conquering Endless Mode In Balatro

Strategies That Achieve Incredible Scores In Endless Mode

Scoring a high multiplier in Balatro with Glass cards

Despite being a post-main game mode, success in Endless Mode ultimately hinges on how well you optimize your deck leading up to Ante 8. While this mode may seem daunting at first, with the right strategies and a solid understanding of the game’s bonus system, you can push your limits and overcome even the most challenging boss blinds. Here are a few tips to help you thrive in Endless Mode:

  • Start With Powerful Joker Cards: Each time you start a new game in Balatro, the game randomizes the rewards, allowing you to instantly earn a Rare or Polychrome joker for skipping the early boss blinds. Rare Jokers like DNA allow you to duplicate cards, while Polychrome variants add a 1.5X multiplier to your base score.
  • Thin Out Your Deck: Consider destroying low scoring cards like 2s, 3s, and 4s with the Hanged Man and Death Tarot cards and thin out the deck. A thin deck makes it likely to influence the card drawn with each hand played or discarded, so you can score big by playing powerful hands like the Flush Five.
  • Unlock All Jokers: Joker cards are the lifeblood of a run in Balatro, and there are a total of 150 jokers to unlock in the game. Some of the most powerful jokers are unlocked after you meet specific conditions in the game, such as playing a Soul Spectral card, earning $400 in a single run, and scoring 100,000,000 points in a run. These jokers can be game changing in influencing the outcomes in Endless Mode.
  • Try Different Decks: Not all decks in Balatro are the same. Some of them, like the Erratic Deck, can be great at influencing card arrangements in the deck, allowing you to leverage powerful cards or suits.


Balatro Tag Page Cover Art

Strategy

Digital Card Game

Roguelike

Top Critic Rating:91/100 Critics Recommend:100%

Released
February 20, 2024

Developer(s)
LocalThunk

Publisher(s)
Playstack

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