Balatro surprised everyone with its easy to understand gameplay and deceptively deep mechanics. With itshundreds of gameplay possibilities, it has fueled endless theorycrafting and sapped hundreds of man-hours globally as people tell themselves ‘just one more run’.
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There are many ways to go about victory, and since Balatro is a roguelike, you never know which cards will lead you down that path. However, with eagle eyes and good gamesense, you can pick out the pieces you need to win big. If you want to graduate past setting up Flushes (not that there’s anything wrong with that), here are some fun builds to try out.
7
Small Plays, Big Pay
The best hands in Balatro consist of five-card sets, but don’t discount the humble Pair, Two Pair, and Three of a Kind quite yet. Yes, they don’t pay out much, but they’re trivial to make, and with the right Jokers, are a simple win condition.
The Psychic Boss Blind, which requires full five card hands to score, is difficult but not impossible with this setup. Winning or losing depends mostly on whether you have Duo, Trio or some other big multiplier to substitute.
Of course, you’ll want the relevant scoring cards for those hands, especially the multiplicative ones (Duo, Trio). However, this build hinges on the Half Joker, which gives you a generous +20 Mult on hands with three or less cards.
6
Four Card Victory
Arguably, Four Fingers is the most powerful non-legendary card in the game, allowing you to make normally five-card hands doable with four cards instead. Combined with Shortcut, you can make straights and flushes pretty much at will, like the Straight and Royal Flushes.
Stone Cards become more valuable in this build since they count as a fifth card kicker, not affecting the final result save for scoring you 50 more chips.
The value of this card skyrockets with some tweaks to your deck (or running Checkered Deck), since you can also make the high-scoring secret hands Flush House and Flush Five. The normally underpowered Wee Joker plays well in this deck as well, since most if not all your hands will be four cards. While waiting to get the key cards, you can also make the easy to make two pair work for you as well with the Uranus Planet Card.
5
Space Race
One of the most reliable ways to get yourself a win is to just pump up the value of your hands with Planet cards, something that isn’t countered by any particular Boss Blind except for The Arm.
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This setup makes that option even more lucrative, especially if you run the Nebula Deck which allows you to reliably pump up whatever hands you can make. Constellation and Satellite reward you further and Astronomer further boosts your economy by making the Planet packs free.
Space Joker has nice odds of spontaneously increasing your hand levels and if you’re lucky enough to get the Burnt Joker, you can even do it reliably. If you can’t get the above cards, Supernova is also a decent option if you’re playing favorites with your hands.
4
Seeing Faces
This build makes the many Jokers that interact with Face Cards much more reliable, thanks to the Pareidolia Joker, which makes all the cards in your deck count as face cards. The synergies allowed by it are so potent and versatile that finding one is a good reason to pivot your strategy.
If you use this strategy, keep a way to change the Boss Blinds in your pocket, since The Mark and especially The Plant will end your run immediately.
Even a combo of the Smiley and Scary Face Jokers, both of which are Common, are made much more powerful since you get their bonuses on all your scored cards and just one of these with Sock and Buskin doubles that value. If you somehow get the Legendary Canio Joker, consider your run won since any playing card you destroy now pumps up its value.
There are also a lot of economy Jokers that interact with Face Cards like Faceless Joker or Reserved Parking, ensuring Pareidolia’s value even in between rounds.
3
Lady Luck Is Smiling
If you like to gamble but love having your thumb on the scale, Oops All 6s will likely tickle your fancy. This Joker doubles all listed probabilities, making those cards much more liable to proc. Cards with ‘1 in 2’ chances are guaranteed outright, meaning Business Card, Reserved Parking, and Bloodstone are guaranteed to cough up the dough.
The most obvious use of Oops All 6s would be to stack your deck with Lucky Cards and watch as they pay out with much more frequency. This also synergizes with the Lucky Cat by steadily boosting its Multiplier.
Be aware, however, that it also doubles the chances of negative outcomes like breaking Glass Cards or the Gros Michel. Though you can even take advantage of this with the Glass Joker and making the Cavendish appear.
2
Small Stacked Deck
In most card games, you want to keep your deck slim so that you can control the odds. While this isn’t emphasized so much in Balatro, you can still take advantage of this with the Abandoned Deck, which doesn’t have face cards. With a compact 40-card deck, it’s much easier to get the cards you need, since, when you discard cards, you’re cycling through a higher percentage of the deck.
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You can further slim your deck down with the Hanged Man Tarot and control your draws even further by altering your cards with Tarot cards like Strength, Death, and the Tarot cards that transform suits. The Joker cards Ride the Bus and Erosion further optimizes this playstyle.
1
The Long Game
Less a build and more running into opportunity, this setup is reliant on getting cards that build in value early on so they pay dividends in the later Antes. Cards like Hiker and Runner get less valuable the further into a run you get, since you’ll have less chances to build their value. This is less of an issue in Endless Mode.
Cards like Constellation (increases value when Planets are played) and Hiker (increases the value of played cards) both increase in worth incrementally, so getting them late means that they’re netting you less chips. Pick them up early to snowball, otherwise, pass them up.
Balatro takes the classic card game of poker and adds roguelike gameplay, using Joker cards with various abilities to build your deck and attempt to defeat pesky blinds.
Strategy
Digital Card Game
Roguelike
- Released
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February 20, 2024
- Developer(s)
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LocalThunk
- Publisher(s)
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Playstack
- Engine
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LÖVE
- ESRB
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E For Everyone
- OpenCritic Rating
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Mighty