Summary
- Duplication increases valuable cards and stacks odds favorably.
- Adapt to cards dealt and choose duplication methods wisely.
- Use DNA Joker for strategic duplication; beware of bloating the deck.
Duplication is one of the most effective ways of adjusting a Balatro deck. It can increase the number of valuable cards, stack the odds in the player’s favor and interact beautifully with the right Jokers. This often means that players may seek new and interesting ways to incorporate duplication into their deck. Duplication is incredibly important in overpowered and versatile high card decks.
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Opportunities for duplicating cards can be difficult to come by. Therefore, making the most of every opportunity and adapting to the cards that are dealt is crucial to implementing any duplication strategy. No one approach works for every run, but there are a few tips that can steer players in the right direction.
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Be Selective & Adaptable!
Choose Your Approach
It’s a boring one to start off with, but it’s probably the most important thing to remember when attempting any deck alteration in Balatro. Not every run can be a duplicate heavy run. Sometimes the conditions simply don’t line up.
Incredibly experienced players may be able to find a way to any strategy with just about any deck. But it can be just as rewarding to treat each run like an elaborate puzzle that needs to be solved. Adapting approaches rather than trying to slam puzzle pieces together is much more productive.
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Methods Of Duplication: Cryptid Spectral Card
Found In Spectral Card Packs
The Cryptid spectral card is one of the easiest ways to duplicate a card, with little cost, apart from the potential of the other cards in that spectral deck. It is, however, difficult to come by. Spectral packs are rarer than Standard, Buffoon, Arcana and Celestial packs, meaning that their appearance in the shop presents a tantalizing opportunity to get that elusive Cryptid card.
Spectral cards can’t be duplicated by the Fool card, so once that creepy little card has been used, it’s gone. Players can buy the Omen Globe voucher to make it possible to find Spectral cards in other card packs, and it is definitely worth the money if it appears in the shop.
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Methods Of Duplication: DNA Joker
Rare Card Transforming Joker
The DNA Joker is an incredibly useful card that can inform the structure of an entire deck and the strategy for a whole run. It duplicates a card of the player’s choosing from their hand during play, but it comes at a cost.
The player must spend their first turn playing the card they wish to duplicate, and that card alone. That means that as the player is getting started, one wrong move could be disastrous as they may need to use every played hand to its full point potential. That having been said, if a player is lucky enough to duplicate the effect of DNA with a Spectral Omen card, the effect of stacking multiple DNA effects is one of the best combinations in Balatro.
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Methods Of Duplication: Death Tarot Card
Left Card, Into The Right Card
The Death tarot card can be found randomly in the Arcana Packs sold at the shop and is another method of duplication that comes at a cost. The player effectively replaces one card with another. This can have the dual positive effect of creating more desirable cards and eliminating cards that are not useful.
However, players need to make sure that they are not limiting their deck too much. Boss Blinds can throw a major spanner in the works if not properly accounted for. A perfectly crafted five-of-a-kind deck could easily be destroyed by an inconvenient Blind.
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Hands For Duplication
Playing The Cards
The hands that players should focus on depending on the Jokers and Planet cards they are dealt are initially the pair, three-of-a-kind, full house and four-of-a-kind. But this is Balatro, so players are not limited to the confines of conventional poker hands.
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Five-of-a-kind is one of the impossible or secret hands that Balatro’s duplication system allows. Players can also achieve a lucrative flush house and even a flush five, which is the ultimate goal for many using a heavily duplicate reliant deck.
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Complimentary Planet Cards
Level Up Your Hands
Planet Cards, which are found in Celestial packs, may not seem immediately useful to new players, but mid run the cumulative effect of using Planet cards can be the difference between a hand that obliterates a boss and a series of hands that don’t quite add up to the total needed.
Planet cards that players need to look out for when using duplications to their fullest effect are cards that provide big bonuses for multiples of the same card. Mars, which is four-of-a-kind, and the three secret Planet Cards, Planet X, Ceres and Eris, are particularly desirable in duplicate heavy decks.
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Complimentary Hand Specific Jokers
Targeted Bonuses
Understanding that the benefits of Jokers come in different forms is essential in employing any deck building strategy in Balatro. The Sly Joker and the Clever Joker provide blue chip bonuses for pairs and two pairs respectively, whereas the Jolly Joker, the Mad Joker and the Zany Joker add bonuses to the multiplier for two or more of a kind in a played hand. A balance of blue and red chips is desirable to make the most of these Jokers.
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Potentially even more desirable for those playing a duplicate heavy deck are the Jokers that multiply the red multiplier. The Trio, The Duo and The Family provide this bonus for duplicates of a kind. Make sure to position these to the right of any Jokers that simply add bonuses to the score.
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Card Specific Jokers
Jokers That Work With Cards Of A Kind
Another advantage to duplication is that it allows players to make better use of card-specific Jokers. Cloud Nine, for example, provides bonuses based on the number of 9s in a full deck. Other card-specific Jokers reward keeping unplayed Kings (Baron) and Queens (Shoot the Moon) in the player’s hand.
Jokers such as Triboulet (Kings and Queens), 8 ball (8s) and The Scholar (Aces) provide bonuses for playing their respective cards, which vary in usefulness. 8 ball for example, only has a 1 in 4 chance of creating a tarot card. This produces highly unpredictable results, which isn’t great if players are looking to eliminate variables.
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Thinning The Deck
Take A Card, Leave A Card
One of the dangers of duplication in Balatro is accidently making a bloated deck. Most strategies rely on minimizing the risk and stacking the deck in a way that delivers reliable results. Essentially, players are trying to create a semblance of order from disorder. Simply adding more cards to the mix is only half the picture.
Destroying cards using the Hanged Man tarot card and the Trading Card Joker allows players to more carefully and deliberately build their deck to maximize their chances of success. It’s an important step in avoiding drawing a hand that the player has not optimized and leveled up.
