Balatro – Useful Tips and Tricks

This is a bunch of tips and tricks that might help you to understand gameplay and how to play better.

Tips and Tricks

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The strongest cards (and rarest) are the ones that raise base multiplier say from 1x to 3x. I’ve also found Flushes are the easiest “major” hand to hit but that may be leading me down a path to self destruction when I specialize in them rather then spreading out over multiple hand types.

• Try to ensure you win the first round in one hand, as it affects your payout (e.g., first shop visit with 10 gold instead of 9). try to play high-rank cards and a 5 card hand.
• Try to buy at least one score-increasing joker before the first boss blind. you can win without it, but it will help ensure you don’t lose immediately.
• Discarding a few times before playing your first hand is generally a good idea. try to assemble a good hand instead of playing a low-scoring hand.
• Don’t be afraid to skip a blind if the tag reward is good enough (e.g., getting the tag that makes all jokers and cards in the next shop is really good early on).
• The most reliable hands are generally full house, flush, and straights, but everything is circumstantial. play to the strengths of your deck and jokers.

• Try to focus on getting money, especially early on:
  • Take jokers that give increase your gold, and trigger them as much as possible (e.g., cloud 9 gives you gold for every 9 in your deck, so go out of your way to add extra 9s over the course of the run).
  • Always buy tarot card packs when you have roughly 15 gold or more, as the hermit can double your gold up to 20 at any time, and temperance can give you the sell value of all your jokers.
  • You gain interest on gold after a round, meaning it is not always a good idea to spend all your gold all at once. especially early on, it can be a good idea to skip the shop for a round to get more gold after the next one (assuming you can win the next round with your current setup).

• Sell jokers that are only useful for making money once your build is strong enough, and replace them with scoring-related jokers.
• Selling planet and tarot cards is just as viable as using them. for example, a planet card that increases the strength of a pair is often better sold.
• Don’t be afraid to reroll the shop. once you have a lot of money (generally 30+), a reroll is worth it. it gets more expensive each time but resets after a new round.
• Try to find cards that are scalable (i.e., that get better over the course of a run) early on if possible, and scale them (e.g., Hologram increases its multiplier every time you add a card to your deck, so buy as many standard packs/cards as possible).
• This sounds obvious but is worth stating – card rarity is often an indicator of the effectiveness of a card (i.e., you can expect uncommon, rare, and legendary jokers to have a greater impact on your run in general). you are generally less likely to win runs where you’ve only taken common jokers by the mid point.
• Position your multiplier cards (e.g., x2) to the far right of your joker list, and your regular multiple cards (e.g., +15) to the left (unsure if this is true, but I believe the consensus is that order matters and you want the multiplier to trigger last).
• Pay attention to what’s remaining in your deck when discarding cards so that you don’t take unnecessary risks. for example, if you have 4 hearts and are hoping for a flush, check your deck before you discard to see how many of each suit is left, to see if it’s a reliable bet.