I have less than 10 hours in the game, 7 runs, only one success (with a blue deck).
The game is cool, difficulty really ramps up with the last 2 antes, but there are two boss modifiers that always kill me, especially when they are assigned to the last boss:
- the one that moves the target up to 300000 (instead of 100000) and
- the one that forces you to win in only one hand.
It feels like the game pushes you to be in a position where you can win in a single hand with a base target and that’s asking a lot on the basic difficulty when the player is still trying to understand all synergies and mechanics. I dunno, it feels these modifers should be unlocked at higher difficulty levels.
It doesn’t help that runs are so long (over 1 hour) and losing at the final boss with such a difficulty spile feels pretty frustrating.
Anyone else feels frustrated with these specific modifiers? How do I counter then? Is it a matter of “git gud” and just be more aggressive in Joker selection?
- Ante 1 just fish for flushes. Prioritize finding one scoring joker and one money joker in the shop.
- Until you’ve accumulated $25, don’t overspend in the shop unless it’s a good ROI.
- +Mult and +Chips are really good in the early game. *Mult is sorta useless until late game.
- Try to focus on one poker hand by ante 4. You should have a decent economy at that point so you can buy most booster packs.
- Hold on to tarot cards until you get a good hand for them. Tarot cards can be strong enough to save your from a difficult boss by boosting the hand right before you play it.
- Don’t skip except in rare circumstances. You probably won’t know what a good skip looks like until you’ve played a lot more.
- Always check the boss blind in the first shop of an ante so you can prep.
- Small poker hand builds (high card, pair) are good with “card held in hand” abilities. They also don’t require much discarding.
- Large poker hand builds require lots of discarding. There are some jokers that synergize by giving a bonus for each card scored.
You’re definitely early enough that you’ve got a lot more to learn. Your runs will get much faster as you learn the game better (and feel comfortable turning up the game speed in settings).
Some tips for dealing with hard boss blinds:
- you can see the next boss blind starting from the previous boss’s shop, this means you have up to three shops to adjust for it.
- boss blinds are designed to punish different strategies so the more you focus your deck on a single strategy, the more likely it is you’ll run into a hard counter. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t focus on a single strategy, but if you do, you need to try to prioritize getting a voucher or joker that lets you reroll boss blinds that counter you or have a way to work around it.
- The Needle (play only one hand) punishes relying on lots of low value hands. If you see it upcoming, drop +hands jokers for +hand size or +discards and try to level up your best hand or one with good scaling like Straight.
- The Wall (extra large blind) is supposed to punish saving up money without committing to a strategy by playing a deck that can barely get by, but it often just ends runs where you failed to get the pieces you need. When you see it upcoming, you need to make sure you’re committed to a decent strategy ASAP.
General tips:
- interest is important, try not to spend all your money for optimal income unless you need to.
- if you have jokers that gain stats when you play certain cards/hands (eg. Spare Trousers) and can easily clear a blind, consider playing some suboptimal hands to build them up more.
- early game you want to focus +mult because your chips will typically be higer than mult due to the value of cards. Late game when your hands are leveled up, *mult and +chips become more important than +mult.
Good points. I definitely focus one hand only: Two Pairs. It’s relatively easy to achieve and you get 4 cards that score chips. And you get +mult by Jokers that require you to have a pair in your hand.
My favourite Jokers so far are the one that gives you a +3 mult every time you skip a booster pack and the one that gives a +1 mult every time you play your favorite hand. Those are the jokens that really allowed me to reach ante 8.
One question I have: am I supposed to mess with the deck (e.g. suits) at this starting difficulty level? I’m talking about the tarots that allow you to change the suit of 2 cards, or the ones that create duplicates. I’m avoid doing that because I don’t want to skew the probabilities, but perhaps it’s required to do that since the beginning?
It’s probably easier to build towards higher-scoring hands like flushes, straights, straight flushes and beyond.
Deck manipulation is highly beneficial at all levels - not required early on, but a big boost.
If you want to invest a bit of time into improving, I suggest you watch Balatro University’s video series: Balatro Basics
Using that knowledge, I’ve gotten past Gold stake at this point.
Thanks for the link! I guess I need to study:P
I think it’s just “git gud” and I don’t mean that condescendingly. I’d consider this a rogue like because of the (relatively) short runs. I don’t think anyone expects you to be able to heat every run of a rogue like. Sometimes you just get bad luck. You can mitigate it with skill, yeah, but sometimes the cards just literally aren’t in your favor. I wouldn’t sweat it. Just enjoy the game and don’t worry about whether you “win” a run or not.
