• Updated version of Love2D (the engine) - this fixes an issue on Windows and Steam Deck causing poor/stuttery performance for some players

• Added VC++ 2022 redistributable as an installation requirement

• General performance improvements

• Added toggle for 'Reduced Motion', removing the swirly background, gyrating card motion, much of the 'juice' in the game

• Changed default fallback tarot from Fool to Strength (when all tarots are on screen)

• Banned top-up tag and Antimatter on Jokerless Challenge

• Changed Gold Stake random seeds - now ensures that the first Legendary Joker on that seed is a Joker that you have not won with on Gold Stake (For Completionist++ hunting)

• Changed ante scaling in white stake:

  • Ante 3: 2800 -> 2000
  • Ante 4: 6000 -> 5000

• Changed ante scaling in green stake:

  • Ante 2: 1000 -> 900
  • Ante 3: 3200 -> 2600
  • Ante 4: 9000 -> 8000
  • Ante 5: 18000 -> 20000
  • Ante 6: 32000 -> 36000
  • Ante 7: 56000 -> 60000
  • Ante 8: 90000 -> 100000

• Changed ante scaling in purple stake:

  • Ante 2: 1200 -> 1000
  • Ante 3: 3600 -> 3200
  • Ante 4: 10000 -> 9000
  • Ante 6: 50000 -> 60000
  • Ante 7: 90000 -> 110000
  • Ante 8: 180000 -> 200000

• Changed Orange Stake

  • Scrapped increasing pack cost
  • Added new 'Perishable' mechanic, Jokers have a 30% chance to have a 'Perishable' sticker, disabling them after 5 rounds

• Changed Gold Stake

  • Scrapped -1 hand size
  • Added new 'Rental' mechanic, Jokers have a 30% chance to have a 'Rental' sticker (stacks with eternal/perishable), making them cost $1 up front and $3 every round

• Changed eternal to apply to Jokers in Buffoon packs

• Changed Eternal/Rental/Perishable sticker location to be in the top left corner

• Made some non-retroactive scaling Jokers incompatible with 'Perishable' (Ceremonial Dagger, Glass Joker, Hologram, Ride the Bus, runner, constellation, green joker, red card, madness, square joker, vampire, rocket, obelisk, lucky cat, flash card, spare trousers, castle, wee)

• Changed the first shop in every run to always include a normal Buffoon pack as one of the pack options

• Upcoming blinds/tags can now be seen in the shop immediately after defeating a boss blind/cashing out

• Some Blinds are now be banned on challenge runs - banned Crimson Heart, Verdant Leaf and Amber Acorn on 'Jokerless' - banned Verdant Leaf on 'Typecast' - banned Verdant Leaf on 'Non-Perishable' - banned The Plant on 'Mad World'

• Buffed Saturn

  • Now gives +3 mult instead of +2 mult for Straights

• Buffed Neptune

  • Now gives +4 mult instead of +3 mult for Straight Flush

• Buffed Eris

  • Now gives +50 chips instead of +40 chips for Flush Five

• Buffed Ceres

  • Now gives +4 mult instead of +3 mult for Flush House

• Square Joker now has a square sprite

• Blue Joker sprite was fixed (2 out of place blue pixels)

• Changed Uncommon tag - Now makes the uncommon joker free

• Changed Rare tag - Now makes the rare joker free

• Negative, Polychrome, Holo, Foil tags all make their respective joker free

• Changed Investment to give $25 instead of $15

• Changed 8 Ball - scrapped old effect, new effect -> 1 in 4 chance to spawn a tarot when any played 8 is scored

• Changed Blue Seal - now creates the planet card of the final poker hand played during the round

• Changed both Mad and Clever Joker - scrapped 'contains 4 of a kind' effect, now applies instead to any hand that contains a 'Two Pair'

• Changed Yorick - scrapped old effect, new effect -> gains X1 mult every 23 cards discarded (starts at X1)

• Changed Magician Tarot - now applies lucky to 2 cards instead of 1

• Changed Midas Mask - now only applies Gold enhancement to scoring face cards, costs $7 was $6

• Changed Vampire

  • now only removes enhancement from scoring cards
  • gives X0.1 mult per enhancement instead of X0.2 mult

• Changed Madness - now only applies on small/big blinds, not on boss blind selection

• Changed To Do list - poker hand no longer changes on payout, always changes at end of round (won't get stuck on Straight Flush)

• Changed description of Shortcut to include a more apt example (10 8 6 5 3)

• Changed Ancient Joker - the selected suit is no longer able to repeat between rounds

• Changed Swashbuckler - Now adds sell value of all other Jokers to Mult, not just the Jokers to the left

• Changed Hanging Chad - Now retriggers the first played card 2 times instead of once

• Changed Runner - now starts at +0 chips and gives +15 chips per straight, was +20 and +10 per straight

• Changed Flower Pot - Now includes the base suit of debuffed cards when determining if it will trigger

• Changed Bootstraps to include current mult bonus in description

• Changed all 4 Sinful Jokers (one for each suit) - they now each give +3 mult per suit instead of +4 mult

• Changed Banner - now gives +30 chips per remaining discard instead of +40 chips

• Changed Fibonacci - costs $8 instead of $7, because Fibonacci

• Changed Square Joker - now starts at +0 chips, was +16 chips, now costs $4, was $5

• Changed Wee Joker - now starts at +0 chips, was +10 chips

• Changed Steel Joker - Now gives X0.2 mult per Steel card in full deck instead of X0.25 mult

• Changed Odd Todd - Now gives +31 chips per odd ranked card instead of +30 mult

• Changed Sixth Sense - Now uncommon and $6, was rare

• Changed Hiker - Now gives +5 chips to every scoring card played instead of +4 chips

• Changed Gros Michel - Now has a 1 in 6 chance to go extinct instead of 1 in 4

• Changed Seance - Now uncommon and $6, was rare and $7

• Changed Riff-Raff - Now $6, was $4

• Changed Vagabond

  • Rare, was uncommon
  • $8, was $6
  • Applies when you have $4 or less, was $3 or less

• Changed Cloud 9 - Now $7, was $6

• Changed Mail-In Rebate - Now $5 was $3

• Changed Reserved Parking - Now common, was uncommon

• Changed Lucky Cat - Now gains X0.25 per lucky proc, was X0.2

• Changed Trading card - Now costs $6, was $5

• Changed Campfire - Now gains X0.25 per card sold, was X0.5

• Changed Smily Face - Now give +5 mult per face card, was +4 mult

• Changed Golden Ticket - Now payes out $4 per gold card played, was $3

• Changed Bloodstone - Now has a 1 in 2 chance to proc, was 1 in 3, gives X1.5 mult, was X2 mult

• Changed Onyx Agate - Now gives +7 mult per club card, was +8 mult

• Changed Glass Joker - Now gives X0.75 mult per glass card destroyed, was X0.5 mult

• Changed Stuntman - Now gives +250 Chips, was +300, is now rare, was uncommon, is not $7, was $6

• Changed Invisible Joker - Now requires 2 rounds and costs $8, was 3 rounds and $10

• Changed wording on most scaling jokers to refer to 'this joker'

• Fixed bug where opening a booster pack with hand size of 0 was unskippable

• Fixed bug where the card generated by 'Certificate' was not being debuffed by the boss

• Fixed bug in the rate at which eternal/perishable Jokers were being generated

• Fixed bug where Buffoon Pack could show up in Jokerless challenge

• Fixed bug where debuffed negative Jokers being sold doesn't reduce the number of available joker slots

• Fixed bug where sticker seeding was shared between shop and booster packs

FAQ about Balatro

Q: Which platforms Balatro is available for?

A: Currently Balatro is available for Windows and Mac through Steam and also for console like Xbox, PlayStation and Switch

Q: Balatro on Android and iOS?

A: Android and iOS version of Balatro is already planned by the developer. It will be release soon. But in the meantime, you can use this tool to port Balatro : https://github.com/blake502/balatro-mobile-maker

Q: Linux Version?

A: Probably never because Balatro work fine with Proton. But, if you still want to run Linux natively. Here's a guide made by a Steam user : Guide.

Q: How to access source code of Balatro and modify it?

A: Just right-click the “.exe” file and open it as an archive file. Now, just open the “.lua” files, modify them, and save them. Here’s a video if you still don’t get it.

Q: How to mod Balatro?

A: Install any of these Modloaders: Steamodded (Recommended), Bala-Mods or Lovely (Please no). And now just download Mods for that Modloader. And Put it in the Mods folder-Balamod-Steamodded. Proper Guide if you are still confused.

• List of Mods
  • For Steamodded
  • For Balamods
  • For Lovely

Q: Can I create Custom Deck skin?

A: Yep, Here's a Guide made by a Steam user

Q: How to enable debug mode in Balatro?

A: Guide to enable debug mode.

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Official Links

• Official Website
• Steam Store
• Official Discord
• Twitter

Unofficial Links

• Wiki - Another
• Reddit
• Awesome Balatro
• Latest Patch Notes

Guides to get good at Balatro

• A Joker guide for crushing the first difficulty
• Balatro University YT series - Piped - Invidious
• High stakes strategy
• A boss guide for the jokerless challenge
• Basic Strategies or Tips and Tricks
• Still can't win? Just Remember, 99% of gamblers quit before hitting big.

---

Please give me suggestion that what more I can add in this FAQ or Small Wiki.

@twelverabbits@lemmy.world !

Hi everyone!

I recently finished the Completionist+ achievement (every deck beaten on every stake) after 119 hours played. I wanted to write a comprehensive guide to winning in this game (beating ante 8), as I don't think one exists. This guide is intended for those who have played a bit, so will assume you know the basics.

​

An Example of a Winning Build

As a preview for how to develop a winning build in Balatro, below is the High Card build that won my final gold stake (Black Deck).

!2

If you don't read any further in this guide, my biggest piece of advice would be to construct jokers similar to this. One joker focused on lots of chips, one or two jokers focused on +mult, and then jokers giving xmult. By getting all of your score from jokers, you don't need high scoring hands, which brings us to the next section...

​

The Flush Fallacy

Many newer players find themselves playing flush builds as their predominant strategy. This makes some sense; it's been mathematically proven that flushes are the highest expected value hand to play for at the start of a run, making flushes your typical ante 1 solver. Naturally, beginner players will keep playing this high value hand, looking for jokers to support it and Jupiters to scale it. Where does this fall apart?

There are 3 major issues with flush build:

1. Flushes are hard to find. Without a seriously manipulated deck (or Checkered Deck), it's unlikely you'll be able to play 4 or even 3 flushes in a round. If you're reliant on flushes to score points, this can be problematic, becoming increasingly so on higher stakes. Blue Stake's -1 discard and Gold Stake's -1 hand size are obvious examples. Orange Stake's "booster packs cost $1 more per Ante" also hurts a lot as it's harder to buy Tarot packs to manipulate your deck towards a couple suits.
2. Flushes are hard to scale. There are no jokers that scale specifically for playing flushes. The best way to scale a flush build is by finding Jupiters, which is up to variance outside of the telescope voucher (also hard to buy packs on Orange Stake+). Jokers that can scale with flushes such as Supernova (Adds the number of times poker hand has been played to Mult) are better scaled with an easier to find hand.
3. Flushes are vulnerable to boss abilities. Besides the run killing All \[suit\] cards are debuffed bosses, there are many other bosses that can ruin your day. The Water, The Arm, The Eye, The Pillar, The Fish, and The House also all make it harder to score points with flushes.

So, if not with a flush build, what's the best way to score points?

​

Scaling is King

To start this section, I'll show my stats for total completed rounds per joker.

!Scaling jokers are highlighted in red

As you may notice, 7/10 of these are scaling jokers, scaling either chips, +mult, or xmult. The other 3 are generic high tempo jokers (jokers that provide instant boosts to score), which should also be frequent purchases for any run. The top 4 here I believe to be, as common scaling jokers, the most important jokers in the game. Here's an overview of each:

• Supernova (Adds the number of times poker hand has been played to Mult): Easy to scale if playing a High Card or Pair build since you will find these hands on every or nearly every turn. Can gain +4 mult a round with 4 hands, meaning +12 mult per ante, which can mean 50+ mult late in a run.
• Green Joker (+1 Mult per hand played. -1 Mult per discard): If you're getting your score primarily from jokers, which a scaling joker helps reach, the discard side of this doesn't matter, since you can play any hand you see. Can also gain +4 mult a round.
• Square Joker (Gains +4 Chips if played hand contains exactly four cards): The only common chip scaling joker, which is extremely important since we want at least one high chip joker. If you're getting your score primarily from jokers, playing only 4 cards doesn't matter. Can gain +16 chips a round with 4 hands, meaning +48 chips per ante, which can mean multiple hundreds late in a run.
• Ride the Bus (+1 Mult for every hand played without a scoring face card. Resets to +0 Mult when a face card is scored): You probably know what I'm going to say here now. Good for the same reason as Green Joker, the downside doesn't matter for the same reason as Green Joker. Important to note that you can still play face cards as long as they don't score, such as with Ace high card or with any non-face pair.

Playing these jokers will naturally lead you to a build where you're scoring almost entirely from your jokers, which has many benefits over hand-based builds.

​

The Benefits of Scoring with Jokers

When people discuss the power of High Card/Pair builds, it may be confusing to those who primarily play high value hands, since these are the lowest scoring hands in the game! What they almost always mean are Joker-focused builds, using jokers such as those discussed above to score points. The benefits of a Joker build can be explained in contrast to the issues with a flush build.

1. While flush hands can be hard to find, joker builds care little for the hand you play. When playing a high value hand build like flushes, you will often have "off turns" when you play hands that score almost nothing to look for your high value hand. Joker builds get to score a significant amount on every turn, avoiding the variance inherent to high value hand builds.
2. While flush builds are hard to scale, joker builds scale naturally. The common scaling jokers come often and scale easily, helping you get the high scores needed to beat higher stakes.
3. While flush builds are vulnerable to boss abilities, joker builds can usually ignore them. Clubs debuffed? All good, even if we play one of them, our jokers will score. Cards flipped over? All good, just play one or use a not-valuable discard if riding the bus or playing pairs. No discards? I think we'll be fine.

While there are some scoring jokers that care about what hand you play, there are more that either don't care or would be more effective with a easy to play hand. Some of the highlights are discussed below.

• Stuntman (+300 Chips, -2 hand size): Potentially the best joker in the game and a gold stake player's best friend. Absurd amount of chips, which are premium, for a drawback that doesn't matter if we're scoring from jokers.
• Half Joker (+20 Mult if played hand contains 3 or fewer cards): Provides the same amount of +mult as the "Played cards with \[suit\] give +4 mult when scored" jokers, but with a much easier condition. A very strong tempo joker that gives you runway to scale other jokers.
• Ramen (Gives x2 Mult. Loses x0.01 Mult per card discarded): Will often just be x2 mult, since we usually don't need to discard.
• Blackboard (x3 Mult if all cards held in hand are Spades or Clubs): You may think this is a flush build payoff, but it's much more effective in Joker build. You just play whichever red cards you have, and keep holding the black ones. Very powerful.
• Card Sharp (x3 Mult if played poker hand has already been played this round): Benefits heavily from having an easy to play hand, spam High Card or Pair.

While all these jokers may sound great, with 150 total jokers in the game they can be hard to find. Sometimes you just won't/can't find them in a run, but you can increase your odds by prioritizing another key aspect to Balatro: money.

​

Don't Spend It All in One Place!

Balatro's interest system gives you +$1 at the end of every round for each $5 you have, up to +$5 in total interest. Getting money is crucial as it provides you multiple means of improving your build, via buying packs and buying/rolling for good jokers. It's important then to get as much money as possible, which means staying above the $25 needed to get full interest as long as you can. In the early rounds, you should really only buy high tempo (or premium scaling) jokers or maybe spectral packs until you're above that $25 mark. Side note that tarot packs are basically always great to buy (before Orange Stake) as long as they keep you above the $20 needed to get full value from The Hermit.

With strong enough tempo jokers early on, you can also buy good economy (money over time) jokers, helping you reach and stay above the $25 mark. Making money can also scale jokers directly through hoarding it for Bull (+2 Chips for each dollar you have) and/or Bootstraps (+2 Mult for every $5 you have). Some Jokers also scale by spending money, which are explored below. Note that these are usually only effective before Orange Stake.

• Constellation (Gains x0.1 Mult per Planet card used): Will scale quite fast if you have money to buy Celestial packs and Planet cards.
• Vampire (Gains x0.2 Mult per Enhanced card played. Removes the Enhancement): Scales well just from enhancements found in Tarot packs/cards in shop. Also extremely powerful when paired with enhancement providing jokers such as Vagabond or Midas Mask, giving Vampire use cases at Orange Stake+.
• Campfire (This Joker gains x0.5 Mult for each card sold, resets when Boss Blind is defeated): Very good scaling by just using your money to buy & sell consumables or even jokers from the shop. Absurdly powerful with an engine like Vagabond to provide consumables. This one also has an argument for best joker in the game.
• Hologram (Gains x0.25 Mult per playing card added to your deck): Scales well just with Playing Card packs. Also extremely powerful when paired with card adding jokers such as Marble Joker and DNA, giving Hologram use cases at Orange Stake+.
• Fortune Teller (+1 Mult per Tarot card used this run): Scales well just buying Tarot Packs, especially since there are The Emperor and The Fool to provide multiple tarot cards in one.
• Red Card (Starting at +0 Mult, gains +3 Mult when any Booster pack is skipped): The max interest of $5 basically covers one pack, and +3 mult a round is quite good scaling.
• Flash Card (+2 Mult per reroll in the shop): A bit expensive, but can still be effective with good economy jokers and/or the reroll for $2 less voucher.

​

Conclusion

Despite this being titled a thorough guide, a truthfully thorough guide would necessitate much more discussion. The "Joker build" framework discussed above is just the most consistent way I've found to win the game, though it is far from the only way. In fact, one of my gold stake wins was on a flush build, even without Checkered Deck! I found Smeared Joker, Ancient Joker, and Brainstorm to copy Ancient Joker, breezing me through the antes. That is to say there is certainly room for flashier play than scaling Green Joker one hand at a time.

I'll throw a tier list of all 150 jokers here for fun, though don't take this too seriously. I'm much more confident in the analysis provided above than I am in my estimation of power levels of every single joker in a vacuum. These are ranked in the context of beating ante 8 consistently:

!1

Thanks for reading and good luck with your runs!

by u/BoomMD on Reddit

• Source: Reddit

I was never able to pull off Obelisk before, but I had the perfect setup this time - the deck was mostly diamonds and clubs, and I got an early flush joker so I was playing nothing but flushes anyway when Obelisk showed up. Got up to 12 flushes before starting to play other hands.

obtained during typecast challenge, wouldn't have been possible without planet tycoon and astronomer

jonklers: blueprint | bloodstone | cardsharp | astronomer | satellite

seed: 2NFN355P

1. You can sort the cards in your played hand. If you want your Glass cards to trigger last, just drag them to the right on your played hand. The same thing applies to Jokers, so better put your X-Mult-Jokers at the end. (10+10)×2 will score higher than (10×2)+10
2. You can check the next Boss Blind under "Run Info" before you get to the boss, allowing you to sell/buy jokers.
3. You gain 1$ interest for each 5$ (capped at 25$) you have at the end of each round. This snowballs hard over a run and it is the main feature that will improve your gameplay. Many people that struggle to beat their first run don't do this.
4. Pay attention to the descriptions in this game. If a joker triggers "if your hand contains a two pair" it will also trigger on a Full House because it technically contains a two pair. The campfire joker that gives mult for each card sold works for planet cards and tarot cards, not just for selling jokers etc.
5. You can change the game speed in the settings. Once you figure this out you'll never play on the lowest speed again. (It is genuinely insufferable once you get used to higher speeds)
6. A debuffed hand can still score tons of points. If your cards dont contain seals, are no wildcards and don't some of your jokers then the debuff does not really matter that much. Having a Level 30 Pair will still score a lot, because the cards might be debuffed, but the base chips and base mult remain the same.
7. You can discard multiple cards at once. Yes I am just as shocked as you are, but there are people out there that for some reason didnt know this yet.
8. If you’re out of discards, you can still use your played hands to get rid of cards you don’t want. For instance, say you play a pair. You can add three cards you don’t want to that pair, and they’ll effectively be discarded, and you’ll draw five new cards. by @son_named_bort@lemmy.world
9. If you have opened a Tarot Pack and use a Judgment or Wheel of Fortune card and don’t get the result you want, you can quit to the main menu (before the window closes) and continue the game to go back to when you opened the pack.The RNG is fixed when you open the pack, but you can still pick a different tarot. by @TwigletSparkle@lemmy.blahaj.zone
10. Also, if the cards in your hand are face down, just play them; they will be revealed. Then, before the hand finishes scoring, you can quit to the main menu and continue from before you played the hand. The same goes for face-down Jokers; play a hand, see what triggers, then quit to the main menu before the hand finishes scoring so you can go back in and rearrange them. by @TwigletSparkle@lemmy.blahaj.zone
11. Long-press on R to restart the game. This is useful if you get bad tags at the first ante or just in general when you feel like the game is doomed. by @RenardDesMers@lemmy.ml

Also share your tips and trick for Balatro.