i dont remember bro sorry
i think high card and pairs are how to win but maybe they tweaked it

You don’t. You just reroll seeds till you get a decent opening. Ignore jokers that buff chips because they scale horribly. The only exception is Hiker

straights and flushes usually work

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Good question, I get real sick of my only Joker options being
>eternal superposition
>eternal egg
>perishable castle
I'd say reset until you can skip tag one of the first two antes, if it has "free rare joker" or "beating the boss blind earns $25". Focus big on money generation, and deck culling. Money is options and deck culling is reliability. High card is actually the best hand in the game, because it's guaranteed.

>>730875730
Hiker is godlike if you have hanging chad and a slim deck, but it's not the best. The best chips Joker far and away is Wee Joker. If you have a seltzer or hanging chad you can quickly get that thing giving out 400+ chips. Stuntman is also a great opener for high card/pair builds.

>>730875873
The free shop tag is also good early

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Good game, can be addicting even. My chief problem with it is that the early game is unexciting and almost always the same. Balance is not all there yet

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The game falls apart so incredibly hard at the higher stakes it's not even funny.
>dude High Guard and (Two) Pair lmao

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First time with erratic deck, going for a four of kind build was pretty fun

>>730876162
Everyone shits on castle but it's bretty good on checkered deck

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>tfw the plant on ante 7

>>730876162
The problem is that Wee Joker takes up a joker slot. Hiker is preferable in cases where you can get retriggers to boost a card to +100 or so chips and then dupe it. Sell Hiker and pick up a blueprint or something. Wee joker is fine if you just want to get to ante 12, but it scales badly vs the slot that it takes up.

>>730875573
The 'easy' way to win: keep resetting the first ante over and over and over until you get some scaling jokers in the first 3 shops. Get whichever of chips/multi/times# you have the least of over the rest of the run; usually win. Red seal steel cards are also extremely, extremely good.

t. gold stakes with all decks

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>>730877135
>ante 1
>brainstorm
>directors cut

>>730875573
If I could only give one tip it would be "good economy".
If you don't have enough money to engage with the shops, you're not winning. Simple as.
What counts as economy? Interest. Jokers that give you money. Gold cards. Gold seals. Hermit and Temperance tarot cards.
Having money is what lets you execute every other strategy.

>get a really good gold stake setup on plasma deck of two stuntman, bull, golden joker and some other scaling mult joker, easily clear all antes using all hands each time
>ante 8 is extra large blind, no option to reroll the boss blind was available, die
>erratic deck gold stake with swashbuckler and gift card
>die out due to temperance never showing up to inject cash necessary for jokers

Firstly, dont be afraid to take a joker if it means you will stay alive or better economy. Secondly, learn better when to skip, a rare tag small blind polychrome big blind is enough to win almost any game if you can snag them and still beat the boss on that round. Dont discount boss blind reroll effects. These will save you.

>>730877931
>get a really good gold stake setup on plasma deck of two stuntman, bull, golden joker and some other scaling mult joker, easily clear all antes using all hands each time
>ante 8 is extra large blind, no option to reroll the boss blind was available, die
If you can't beat Violet Vessel the setup wasn't "really good".
You fell for the "you only need chips on plasma deck" bait. Plasma is like every other deck, eventually you will need to pivot heavily into xMult, just you get an easy early game to enable it.

>>730875573
I usually do a couple of gold runs a day so that’s thousands of runs at this point, winning a large portion of them

The short answer is pair and high card, most games are just slop to be honest with this many hours where once you get the general strat you know it’s just number go up Skinner box shit but occasionally you do get sick games where you do win off of skill and strategy.
>>730877931
Yeah the number one issue with the game is the economy is really poorly balanced. There needs to be more sources of large cash injections to hit you to hermit levels. It’s basically just temperance and mail in rebate. One of the other issues is the steady value generators like purple seals gold cards etc all benefit pair/high card more than higher card hands

There honestly should be some Econ joker that doubles or triples the remaining hand bonus to help out something like early straight builds

>>730875573
Get chip up a little bit
Get mult up a Lotta bit
All there is to it. Steelcard max and get a +mult and a couple Xmults
I have no idea how the autistic psychos do shit where they get 1 trillion jokers and cards but I win pretty consistently

>>730877083
Castle is “ok” on every deck because it synergizes with pairs and high card, it’s main problem is that it’s too expensive

>>730875573
a source of scaling plus mult (usually a joker)
a source of scaling chips (can be jokers like bull or sqaure, but hand levels are your best bet)
as many sources of xmult as you can manage

>>730878773
To tag on, focussing Xmult can be a trap in the early game if you don't find out a way to either +mult or level your hands up. That said bad RNG can cuck you so if you see Xmult early you likely should still grab it.
Couldn't tell you how many runs have died where "Get X benefit when you open Y pack" only to not have Y pack (((conveniently))) not show up for 8+ rounds

>>730875573
Aim to transform your entire deck into nothing but Kings, using card purchases and tarot cards to clone/destroy. Then just smash 4/5 of a kind until you get the king joker, and then you can just break the game

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>>730879148
WAKEY WAKEY!

>>730878171
It was good enough to beat any other boss blind on gold stake since I hit the required score while dying to it, and it's not like I was planning on going further than ante 8.

>>730877485
>Wee joker is fine if you just want to get to ante 12
the game ends at ante 8 so yes beating the game is pretty good

>>730875573
Just play pairs. I'm serious. There's people who set up their runs so even high card gets them a pass.

>>730879492
Localthunk kinda retarded for deciding shit like full house should get a measily 2 fucking mult on planet

>>730875573
I just reset until I get one of these (I don't know the names)
>mult for playing 4 cards
>4 card straight
>straight can have gaps (2,4,5,7,9)
>gains chips for every straight
and then just play straights

>>730879608
The games easy enough to break that it's probably not worth a complete rebalance, but I've always felt like Pair leveling up should contribute to the scaling of any further hand that contains as much as a pair. The game gets really fucking stupid when a pair of 2s vanilla buttfucks a flush5.

>>730879825
Yeah probably. It’s pretty dumb how you’re better off never even unlocking five of a kind or even flush five in gold stake outside of mega insane runs. Better to just stick with four of a kind.

The funniest is accidentally losing because a lvl 1 straight flush ass fucks you on your 1 in 100 straight runs

Played this a ton, now I just play Pokermon in Pokemon-only mode (you can mix with the base jokers if you want), it's so much more content and cool new mechanics that add depth, totally recommended for anyone who feels like the base game is starting to get stale.

You pair spam once youre above orange stake, pretty boring

>>730880479
My issue with vanilla Balatro is how stingy it can be giving you the fun jokers compared to mod shit. I enjoy Cryptid+more Mario jokers+bunco+talisman, and pokermon

>>730879201
strong economy + reroll boss blind

localthunk you lazy fuck
just patch blue stake already

i never really had an issue going for full houses every game with every deck on every difficulty

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Who here has beaten the jokerless challenge pre-patch?

>>730883882
Joker less is pretty easy

>>730875573
>How do you win reliabl
Right this is why Balatro is gambling and training a lot of niggers into gambling

>>730883953
Nah, I love gambling, it's not the same. Vampire survivors scratches the gambling itch more than balatro

>>730884047
>How can I reliably win against this RNG
Is the pure definition of the sting gambling does on the brain

>>730884147
Its about as gamble-y as Elden Ring. You just see cards and your brain immediately goes to GAMBLING. Hell, I'd say Isaac has more gambling than Balatro

>>730875573
abandoned deck has the most reliability

40 cards and 4 hands 2 discards allows you to have a 80%ish chance to always draw a straight flush and will be better if you are not playing on blue or higher blind

with the initial higher consistency all sorts of cards like flush or effects for suits and other things work very well or at least prop you up for 4 - 5 rounds to find a better win condition

What do you think he'll do to change blue stake?

>>730884448
>25 percent chance of hand not scoring :^)

>>730879398
>the game ends at ante 8
You're not in the right mindset for this game if you genuinely believe this.

>>730880479
>Pokermon
Based. I unironically believe that mod is better than base Balatro

Speaking of mods, what's even the best place to find Balatro mods? I wanted to add more decks into my standalone pokermon install but I can barely find them, they're all fucking spread out online. Was thinking of porting cryptid's decks, but I refuse to believe that there isn't a way to download decks as standalones already

>>730875573
Early on you want to focus on beating blinds in as few hands as possible. Your first blind is almost a guaranteed win in 1 if you can get either a straight or a flush with decently high cards. Ante 1 can usually be beaten without a joker, so try to do that to build an economy. Even better if you get a cheap joker early on to help you cruise through those first few blinds. Start of ante 2 is when you should start buying jokers. Ideally you should buy jokers that synergize with each other and the planets and tarots you have. A good example is the always reliable photograph-hanging chad combo, which gives you a x8 mult when scoring the first face card you play in a hand. Don't focus on repeatedly playing the same hand over and over. Have a backup hand you can play if you can't find the hand you need or you get the eye.

>>730884559
Game says "You Win" after beating the ante 8 boss. Endless mode can be fun but there's only a few specific builds that can actually take it far.
>>730884783
https://balatromods.miraheze.org

Keep it simple. Strategies that need multiple jokers, cards and certain conditions will fuck you up most likely.
I usually play either high card or pairs. Focus on +chips and +mult jokers and making money early on, you want to max out your profits in order to afford those rolls in order to hunt for good jokers.
When you have money, +chips and +mult you want x mult, and big ones, learn the ones that can be easily pumped like throwback and hologram and abuse them. Getting the +1 hand voucher is useful too, and the joker that makes you lose all discards in favor of 3+ rounds, because if you are playing high card and don't rely much on upgraded cards.

At first I used to go for straights and flushes hoping for jokers that made them viable and I only started winning consistently when I started playing high card and pair.

>>730884347
>Its about as gamble-y as Elden Ring
It's not.
This is the third time I'll copy OP's summary on why it's gambling
>How can I reliably win against this RNG
If you don't understand why that's gambling I'll spell it out in simpler terms
Rolling a dice and getting a random outcome is not gambling.
Rolling a dice, while blowing on them, and twisting your wrist on the throw because you think that will make you NOT get a random outcome, but the outcome you want, is gambling.

>>730879224
>using all hands each time
You were struggling the whole way. If you'd gotten lucky you might've scraped a win, but it wasn't "really good".
It wasn't a case if you getting fucked by bad luck, it was a case if you not getting great luck to let you barely scrape a win.

>>730875573
Focus on easy hands like pairs or two pairs when starting out. Don't underestimate how powerful tarots and seals can be early on. Econ is supremely important and often neglected by newer players.

>>730885103
>just rolling the dice isnt gambling
Not true. Plenty of gambling games are raw chance where the user has no illusion of input
>blowing on the dice and thinking you can beat the RNG is gambling
That's every single video game, anon.

>>730885243
No, only gambling games tell you "ssss almost there buddy! If only you tried something else you could have won!"
This thread is filled with it "I tried this and won more, I tried that and won less"
That's why it's gambling, not other games (Outside gambling games) are like that

>>730885410
You're describing any game with player input anon. You can say NuhUh but without explaining how a build in balatro is any different from a build in any other game, you're just spinning your wheels and saying "CARDS AND RNG IS GAMBLING"

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dont be afraid to take a really good skip, like leveling a hand 3 times or especially getting 20 bucks early is probably better than taking a free holo joker
the biggest thing is having cash flow and using interest. you wanna be floating around 20 bucks, this way you get money even from completing small blinds. This makes you scale harder
dont be put off by perishable jokers because they still sell for full price, even the egg keeps its sell value while disabled

getting a shit ton of planet cards is just as reliable as getting a good joker because its mult and chips. so now things like steel and glass cards are stronger because they multiply stuff before jokers do
always get a strong base hand score to multiply. in this respect, try to prioritize three of a kind because it scales harder than pair and two pair, but its easier to spam out than full house and straight.
my most reliable way of winning is with scaling jokers like green and ride the bus, even square joker if you get it super early.

if you are super desperate for a win you can just try the good ol photochad combo, just remember to stack planet cards and always take the boss reroll voucher

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize the difference between +mult and ×mult and despite that i got every deck past like 3 or 4 stakes before i figured it out. Anyways i really want to try a lucky cat run but it feels way more rare than most other jokers.

>>730885527
You are discreetly bundling two players imputs
One of player imput on top of fixed variables
Another is player imput on top of RNG.
Another is player imput BEFORE those variables.
Forth time reposting:
>How do you win reliably at this?
With fixed variables (most games) YOU CAN WIN RELIABLY
I don't win sometimes in Elden ring and sometimes I don't. In the big run I always win. In 99% of games I can win reliably.
Trying "to win reliably" with RNG variables is what makes Balatro gambling you just don't like that statement, I did explain it, you just don't like the explanation
You do discreetly and possibly in bad faith try to bundle this type of games with all games
You can win reliably in 99% of games. On the games that you cant... that's gambling pal

>>730886071
>Anyways i really want to try a lucky cat run but it feels way more rare than most other jokers.
lucky cat won't show up in the shop until you have a lucky card in your deck

>>730886138
>imput
I can't take you seriously, I will not move passed "Imput"

>>730885527
stop replying to this retard
hes trolling you. nothing you say will be good enough.

>>730886193
Honestly every post should be scanned for the following
>i
>…
>lower case after period
If it has any of these it’s being made by an actual subhuman retard

Balatro is a great game, but it gets a bit boring when you find out how quickly your options can get restricted if you want a high run. Oh boy, another run with Kings and Glass and Hanging Chad.
And then all the janky weird builds either fall off a cliff or just arent viable unless theyre carried by the same old S tiers like Hanging Chad.
The fact that this game has been kept alive by modding and "challenge runs" proves its flaws.

>>730885841
how do you even get this set up

>>730886164
Yeah I'm pretty consistent about getting them because they're fun but the game has a special way of making sure i never get what i need or want.

>>730886451
Game needs to let us also reroll packs to bridge the connection between poorfag runs and billionaire runs

>>730886451
>you find out how quickly your options can get restricted if you want a high run
turns out if you want big numbers you have to use the things that give you big numbers

>>730886785
Jimbo giveth and jimbo taketh away
Still a million times better than Cloverpit

>>730886193
>>730886314
thank god he made spelling mistakes I was almost out of pivots...
Keke always the same with this retarbs
Well, I can honestly say that no people has ever quit gambling just because you point of they are gambling, so this was a fools errand anyway

>>730886820
How many times can you misspell input before it stops becoming a typo and starts becoming brown person brain damage

>>730886785
I guess I want more things that give big numbers because its either picking the same options over and over or hoping things line up for your Rue Goldberg Machine.

>>730886469
the build in the meme? using showman and invisible joker, probably even the anhk from a spectral pack early on. if you can clone a polychrome joker, you are in the money.
to do crazy stuff like that, you need a shit ton of money so you can reroll the shop a bunch and open every pack.

People who do insane runs like that usually just bypass rng and select a known seed where a legendary joker drops early, and they know how many rerolls it takes to get what they need.

>>730886937
Give us a VS lock/banish system to cut out all the "+6 chips if hand contains a pair and your name starts with a D" jokers

>>730887057
This is a good idea but I think Balatros a bit too small jokerwise for this as of right now.

Again, dont think Balatros a bad game, but it can feel kinda lame when you realise its easier to just do the same ol same ol to gold stake most of the decks, and that alot of the decks dont demand that different of a playstyle.

>>730887232
>This is a good idea but I think Balatros a bit too small jokerwise for this as of right now.
Have you tried any of the mods that add new jokers?

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>>730886164
Fuck me. Just ended up with a canio run and the lucky cat showed up polychrome in ante 8.

Crypid ruined me with other Balatro mods. Pretty much everything else is either vanilla+ or adds way too much useless shit. I think it's funny I say that and still rate Crypid as my personal best at the moment, but there are some mods out there that add way too much content like too many card modifiers.

>>730875573
People have always told me two pair, but I have far better luck with flush

>>730887950
Problem is that flush doesn't have any jokers that scale with it so it fails off later without a lot of work and safety nets.

>>730887950
flush is baby's first build

>>730887814
What version of Cryptid do you play?
Modest, Modern, or Madness?

>>730888375
madness

Bring back old gold stake
Rental and perishable jokers are gay as fuck

>>730888826
balatro newfag here, what was the old gold stake about?

>>730889016
-1 hand size which sucked for anything that isn't high card/pair.

>>730875573>>730887950
>>730888273
If you're playing anything but high card or pairs you should be building toward flush five

never build for straights

>>730890246
get a load of this poser

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The jump from the Ante 10 boss to Ante 11 is too fucking big. I've never beaten Ante 11 round 1 even once.

>>730891470
bro your baron mime???

How do you even play High Card? Even with a few level ups I can never get it to do pull above a pitiful three digits and just give up on it on the spot.

>>730891835
Red seal polychrome steel cards, preferably kings

>>730891835
When people say play high card they usually mean pivot to it once you get the required pieces for the engine. This starts with lots of steel cards to hold in your hand. You will want to put red seals on them, but you can also throw in a few blue seals to help level up high card early on. The cookie cutter high card build is Baron + Mime + a fuck load of red seal steel kings. This requires a ton of deck manipulation with spectral cards.

>>730891835
high card works best with card in hand effects, you want gold and steel cards and jokers like shoot the moon, reserved parking, mime, and baron. reserved parking is probably the most important for early game

>>730891934
poly doesn't really matter on a high card build

>>730892503
blue seals + mime = turbo high card scaling

>>730891835
High Card is basically code for "get your deck and jokers so fucked up that you can play any fucking hand you want", it's why saying "bro, just play high card" is a meaningless humble brag

>>730892889
From the other replies I can probably conclude this is absolutely correct. God I fucking hate the high stakes for cucking the player out of the actual fun hands so much.

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>the fish
yea just let me pray nigger

>>730875573
Early game priorities
More money
+Mult/Chips

Late game priorities
xMult

Try to not limit yourself to a hand type, also more hands equals more money as well as lives so take extra hands especially if your green deck

>>730877083
I have went plenty of checkered deck runs without even seeing castle, its good on checkered deck if you find it but it basically does nothing on other decks

>>730877485
+100 chips is not helping a lot when level 10 high card is already 100 chips and increasing planet level is easy

>>730877791
>Just make more money
>Proceed to complete 3 antes without a money card dropping
This is why yellow deck is best

>>730891835
Steel cards are the most essential part. You want to aim for Chariot and Death cards so you can get more. You want on-hand effects, even weaker ones like Raised Fist or more specific ones like Blackboard. Because you only really need one card played, you can treat the other 4 as a makeshift discard, and keep only what you need in your hand.

>>730891835
>>730895124
Oh yeah, stone cards help too. Since you can just slap 4 of them next to your actual high card.

>>730878110
>Secondly, learn better when to skip, a rare tag small blind polychrome big blind is enough to win almost any game
>Gets eternal rental polychrome banner
White stakes advice

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The game is fun, I only have 25 hours into it. I think I only win through luck. So far I have unlocked every deck now besides the ones that require you play on stakes difficulties, like whatever red stake is and so on. I will find out tomorrow.

>>730895207
but turning a card stone means one less potential steel card in your hand

>>730895478
>25 hours
>hasn't even beaten red stake
I mean more power to you if you're having fun but the early stakes are not that hard.

>>730883882
I beat it a long time ago

>>730895482
you can still turn it into a steel card later, the rank and suit is still there in a stone card, you just don't see it

>Get a photochad going early on
>Get a baron a little later while the antes are still low
>Game throws loads of plutos, deaths, strengths and even DNA at me
>Make loads of KoS
>Well on my way early on
>Lol plant

This game can be very cruel.

>>730885103
Never heard of craps you dumb faggot?

>>730895601
I was playing through each deck trying to win, and then I did, then I moved on to the next one, and the next. I've beaten them all on normal mode but to unlock the remaining decks it requires I play the game on the other stakes which I didn't know existed until now.

>>730895601
>>730895478
im 20 hours in and i just now finished all the decks that dont require you to play on stake difficulties and even did 300 mil on one of my runs which was fun. But in my defense i only go for strats that i consider fun i dont try to speedruns the unlocks or anything

>>730895478
>All club deck
Why did you go so far, spades is also black

>>730884347
No way. I play both Isaac and Balatro, Isaac is pure skill while Balatro will just fuck you up the ass with bad card draws, bad shops, bad bosses.

>>730895724
>KoS
>not red seal KoH
You fucked up here. Always go KoH. Don't discount the possibility of a bloodstone. Plus a red seal on top of the bloodstone with photochad and an oops all 6s nets you an impressive x81 mult on a level 1 high card.

Cryptid or pokemon which is the better mod for someone who has beaten vanilla and wants something new

>>730887057
I am so fucking sick of Superposition, Obelisk, Ride the bus, flowerpot, bootstraps, and Ramen wasting space.

>>730896568
if you want to fry your brains now then play cryptid
if you want to save that for later then I recommend any other "vanilla plus" styled mod like Bunco
I haven't played the pokemon mod yet

>>730875573
Did he release the update yet?

What's the highest score you ever got? I managed to get E26 with the Baron + Mime + Brainstorm + Blueprint + Steel Red Seal Kings build. I only lost it because I forgot to reroll the Plant, lmao.

>>730875573
Is there a balatro clone that does roulette?

>>730896638
superposition is the only bad joker in that list
Ride the bus can easily carry you
Obelisk is tricky to know when to take but also can easily carry you
the other ones are just okay. Nothing too bad, not too strong.

>>730896638
You vill ride the bus and remove all your kings

>>730896981
e15 with basically the same build as you except without the red seals

>>730896638
>hating on bootstraps
lol poorfag
>hating flowerpot and ramen
your smeared joker? your thief?

>>730896985
Clover-something? What was it?