Balatro Tips for Beginners (& Advanced Players)

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Stack chips and go infinite with this thorough guide
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Balatro is a lot like actual poker: easy to learn, and very hard to master. Whether you’re looking to gold stake every deck and joker or you simply want to get past that pesky black deck to unlock something a bit more enjoyable, we’ve got the tips, tricks, hacks, and strategies you need to make it.

Balatro Beginner Tips

  • Lean into whatever deck archetype the shops give you and avoid forcing specific builds.
  • Any kind of flat mult will get you through the early game; begin looking for scaling in the mid game.
  • Track your money to ensure you’re earning interest and look for 1-2 economy jokers early on to supplement your income.
1

Build the deck the game gives you.

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  1. Don’t force your way into specific builds; take what Jimbo gives you. As much fun as it is to build a flush five deck with DNA and Brainstrom , you aren’t going to see these jokers with much reliability. If you get an early opening for a certain archetype early in the run, lean into it. This will give you the best odds of winning, since you’ll minimize the amount of wasted resources looking for key pieces in a build that may never come. [1]
    • For example, say you really don’t enjoy color builds, but the first shop offers you a Lusty Joker and you’re running the Checkered Deck that only contains spades and hearts. If you want to win, buy the Lusty Joker. It’s just too strong early on to justify wasting the money on something less optimal.
      • Say the next shop offers you a Smiley Face and Bloodstone . You really love face card builds. Guess what? Yep. You’ve got to skip the Smiley Joker and buy the Bloodstone. Again, it’s just too good with the Lusty Joker!
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2

Hold down “R” to restart a run.

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  1. A lot of players just don’t know this, but it will save you time. You may not need this now, but keep it in mind when you get to the higher chip stakes and your first three shops are populated entirely by eternal jokers with rental stamps five times in a row. Hold down the R button to instantly load a new run using the same deck and stake.
    • Does the mobile game have a hot button for restarting? Unfortunately, no. You’ll have to manually restart using the menu options.
3

Learn the main archetypes of the game.

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  1. It’s hard to build a good deck if you don’t know what to look for. There are dozens of general archetypes, and even more niche combos and synergies. If you know which jokers go well with what, you’ll have a much easier time crafting builds that can beat Ante 8. [2] Here are the most popular (& powerful) archetypes you may want to build around.
    • Face Cards: These decks turn kings, queens, and jacks into tanks. Look for Smiley Face , Scary Face , Sock and Buskin , Photograph , and/or Pareidolia .
    • Low Cards: This deck revolves around Hack . You want to buff and enchant all of your 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s. Then, look for Fibonacci , Walkie Talkie , and/or Wee Joker .
    • Flush: The Tribe , and all of the flush-specific jokers are awesome here ( Blackboard , Bloodstone , etc.).
      • The one exception is Four Fingers . It’s good in a flush build early, but after you’ve converted most of your deck to the right suit, it only takes up space.
    • High Card: The trick here is to buy tons of Plutos or to upgrade your hand with Burnt Joker over and over again. Then, look for jokers that use cards in your hand to buff the high card, like Baron , or jokers that don’t care about the hand type, like Stuntman .
    • Specific Card Builds: Cloud 9 for all 9s, Walkie Talkie for 10s and/or 4s, 8 ball for 8s, Scholar for aces, etc.
    • Two/Three Pair: The best early game joker here is Spare Trousers .
    • Vampire Combo: Look for Vampire and Midas Mask . Every face card becomes gold when you play it and then Vampire steals the buff to get stronger!
    • Mime/Baron Combo: This is widely considered to be the best “infinite” build. You look for Baron , Mime , and then DNA to make a deck full of Kings that buff your high card.
    • Photograph Combo: Hanging Chad , Photograph , and Brainstorm / Blueprint . Smiley is optional, but appreciated.
    • Build-Arounds: There are a handful of Jokers in the game that obviously set their own strategy. You can sort of tell what the goal of a deck would be just by reading the cards. These jokers include: Fibonacci , Steel Joker , Lucky Cat , and Hologram .
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4

Throw trash hands out if you’re on 0 discards.

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  1. Avoid playing “kind of good” hands and just hold your key cards. In Balatro, you’ll often find yourself holding cards that are 1-2 cards away from being a super good hand. If you have spare hands and no discards, click on your 5 worst cards in hand and send ‘em. You won’t score anything, but you’ll get 5 fresh cards!
    • Is it better to waste a hand or use a discard? It depends on how strong your deck is. If you’ll win the ante easily, use the discard since hands are worth money at the end of the round. If you’re also barely going to squeak by, preserve your discards unless you really need them to craft a usable hand.
5

It’s all about the economy.

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  1. Get your economy online early to afford buys in the shops. A lot of Balatro runs will die just because you run out of money and can’t afford to upgrade your deck or remove cards. The more money you have, the more you can dig in shops by rerolling to look for the key jokers you really need. More money also means more planet cards and more tarot cards. The list goes on! So yeah, get that paper. [3]
    • Economy jokers include: Mail-in Rebate , To Do List , Delayed Gratification , Business Card , Cloud 9 , and Rocket .
    • A note about Matador . While it is a rare joker, Matador is widely considered to be pretty unplayable. The only time it’s probably worth picking up is if you’re about to face a boss where you can easily trigger the effect and it’s not going to cost you a key Joker slot.
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6

Earn interest the smart way.

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  1. Treat $5 increments with careful consideration. Balatro doesn’t really do a great job explaining how interest works, so we will. You get $1 for every $5 you have at the end of a round. This caps out at a maximum of $5 (so nothing beyond $25 will count, unless you have the Seed Money or Money Tree vouchers, which raise the maximum cap). [4] In other words, pay attention to your money!
      • This doesn’t mean that you should never* spend all of your money.** In some runs, your money just won’t matter all that much after you find the right joker. In other runs, you’ll have so many good purchases at a shop that holding on to money is nuts. Everything is conditional; just be aware of the $5 levels.
7

A little mult is essential early on.

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  1. Even the worst mult joker is worth money early on. The base chips you get from your hands are enough to make you through the first boss or two, but only if you have a little bit of help in the form of some multiplier. Look to pick up a semi-acceptable mult joker in the first 1-2 shops to avoid an early loss. [5]
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8

Scaling is key to winning late game.

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  1. Scaling jokers are terrible early, but essential to beat Ante 8. Your deck’s ability to “scale” refers to its ability to continue growing in strength over time. The antes only get harder and harder on the difficulty curve, so your deck must also get asymmetrically stronger as the game goes own. Most winning builds have 1-2 scaling jokers by the end of the run. [6]
    • When do you buy a scaling joker? It depends. Some scaling jokers are so good to get early that it’s worth buying them even if they’re doing nothing early on (like Hologram or Wee Joker ). Others are only worth picking up later on (like Lucky Cat or Ancient Joker).
    • Examples of scaling jokers include: Yorick , Ride the Bus , Runner , Fortune Teller , Hiker , or Ceremonial Dagger .
9

Skip blinds judiciously.

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  1. Skipping isn’t always worth the loss of money or shop skip. At the bottom of each stake option, there is a little button you can click to get a “tag,” which does something special based on what you select. These tags can be very good, but remember that you’re giving up money (from winning the blind), money (from interest), and the opportunity to improve your deck with new jokers or effects (from the shop). This is a lot to let go of, so make sure you really want that tag before clicking it! [7]
    • Want to try something fun? Once you unlock the Anaglyph Deck, save up all of your double tags and wait for a negative joker tag. Is it a good strategy? Not necessarily. Is it fun? Yes.
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10

Your joker order matters a lot.

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  1. Jokers trigger from left to right, so arrange the jokers carefully. This is one of those little quirks of the game that takes a lot of players some time to pick up on. The interactions and combos between jokers may be obvious, but the nuance surrounding the order of the jokers is often overlooked. [8] Let’s look at some examples:
    • Smiley Face and Stencil Joker. Smiley provides +5 mult per face card, while Joker Stencil gives you 1x mult for each vacant joker slot, including itself. Say you have no other jokers and play a pair of queens with no planet cards on the books. With the Smiley face on the left, the score is as follows: 10 chips x 2 mult (for the base hand). +5 mult for queen 1 and +5 mult for queen 2. The queens also give +10 chips each. Then, all of it is multiplied by 4 for the Stencil Joker, so:
      • (30 x 12) x 4 = 360 x 4 = 1440
        • Now, let’s swap the order! Smiley is on the right and Stencil is on the left. That gives us:
      • (30 x 2 x 4) + 10 = 240 + 10 = 250.
        • In other words, always put your compounding multipliers to the right.
    • Vampire and Midas Mask . Here’s another example that has less to do with scoring. Midas Mask makes all played face cards gold. Vampire absorbs modifiers on cards to get stronger. So, here are two scenarios:
      • Vampire on the right and Mask on the left. When Mask goes first, the face cards turn gold. Then, the Vampire triggers and removes the gold. The face cards go back in your deck unmodified.
      • Vampire on the left and Mask on the right. When Vampire goes first, it checks the cards for modifiers and eats any it finds. Then, the Mask looks at the cards and turns the face cards gold. The face cards go back in your deck modified!
11

Your card order matters a lot, too!

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  1. It comes up less than joker order, but rearranging cards is big. Like jokers, the cards are scored left to right. There are a handful of situations where you really want to check the card order to make sure you’re doing things the optimal way. You can drag and drop the cards in your hand as needed before playing them. [9] Let’s look at examples:
    • Triboulet and Smiley Face . Triboulet gives kings and queens x2 mult when scored, while Smiley Face grants every face card +5 mult. Say you’re going to play a full house with 3 kings and 2 jacks. You’d want to put the jacks first because 10 x 2 x 2 x 2 is worth more than (2 x 2 x 2) + 10.
    • Any glass card and Even Steven . Glass cards give you 2x mult. Let’s say you have an Even Steven and you’re playing a flush five with 5 copies of an 8. However, one of the 8s is a glass card. You’d want to put the glass card all the way to the right to ensure you get the most mult.
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12

Flush isn’t that good.

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  1. It’s just not—stop trying to force it. There comes a time in every Balatro player’s journey when they think they’ve discovered an infinite hack to win every run. It’s flushes. They’re relatively easy to assemble, they have lots of support, and it’s fun to have a build where all 5 cards you play matter. Unfortunately, flush was nerfed some time ago. On top of that, they have really poor scaling support. They’re also prone to getting knocked out by boss jokers that just nerf your build’s core suit. Just don’t force it! [10]
13

High card really is that good.

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  1. Yes, it’s really as good as the best players make it sound. If you watch borderline-professionals play Balatro, you’ll notice they really tend to shoot for high card builds. There are a few reasons for this (you don’t have to dig for a specific hand, it opens up joker choices, etc.), but the takeaway is that high card is probably the best single strategy in the game. It’s hard to get it to work, but once you do, your scalability is really powerful. [11] Tips on building high card decks:
    • Always buy plutos! Upgrading the hand is essential. If you can get your hands on Burnt Joker , you’re really in business.
    • Buy a single solid chip joker. Stuntman works wonders if you can find one. Castle and Banner are also good.
    • Find as many X mult jokers as possible. Cavendish , Blackboard , Loyalty Card , etc.
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14

The blank voucher doesn’t do nothing.

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  1. You can unlock an additional joker slot voucher if you buy the blank. Balatro never explains it, but that blank voucher that says “Does Nothing?” when you hover over it? It doesn’t “do nothing.” Well, technically, it does nothing on its own, but it unlocks the ability to buy the Antimatter voucher later, which gives you an extra joker slot. [12]
    • It really cannot be overestimated how powerful an extra joker slot is, so if you have a spare $10 to buy the blank voucher, do it.
15

Always buy Brainstorm/Blueprint.

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  1. The duplication jokers are easily the strongest in the game. There is no real discussion here: these are the two best (nonlegendary) jokers you can buy. They functionally duplicate the strongest joker you have, so it’s sort of like owning two copies of whatever the best joker you can buy is. Even if it’s late game and you’re on the verge of Ante 8, you probably want to sell whatever your worst joker is for one of these. [13]
    • Blueprint * is technically* better than Brainstorm .** Blueprint copies to whatever is on the left, while Brainstorm checks the right. Since joker order matters, Blueprint has slightly more flexibility. They’re both GOATs, though.
    • You can use these cards to copy one another. Say you own a Blueprint, a Brainstorm, and a Throwback at x3 mult. You can put Throwback in the second slot, Brainstorm in the first slot, and Blueprint all the way in the fifth slot to copy Throwback 3 times. That’s x27 mult every hand!
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16

Every joker has a build that makes sense for it.

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  1. There are genuinely zero jokers in Balatro that don’t have a function. If you find yourself staring at a certain joker trying to figure out why you’d ever buy this thing, stare a little longer. Even the most fringe and niche cards in the game have some reason for existing, so don’t write anything off and study your shop jokers carefully.
    • If you look at a joker where the effect seems genuinely unusable ( Obelisk , The Idol , Séance , etc.), the effect is probably designed to help scale a deck that you haven’t built or discovered yet. The Idol, for example, is perfect in a 10s/4s Walkie Talkie deck after you’ve removed everything that isn’t a 4!
17

Planet cards are really good.

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  1. Upgrading the base score for your key hand is essential. It is certainly possible to win stakes without upgrading any of your hands, but it’s usually going to be harder than it otherwise would be. Even if it’s only upgrading your main hand to level 4 or 5, it’s worth spending the few dollars on the planet cards. [14]
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18

Destroying bad cards in your deck is huge.

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  1. Thinning your deck improves the odds you draw the good stuff. With a few exceptions, every Balatro game starts with 52 cards. You won’t need all of those cards by the end of the game, though. Say you’re building a face card deck. What do you need 2s, 3s, or 5s, for?! Deleting those unnecessary cards will increase the odds you draw the gas you need to win. [15]
    • How do you delete cards? The Hangman tarot card is the most common method. You can also “delete” cards with the Death tarot card by turning them into other cards. Glass cards also have a tendency to break. Beyond that, Immolate and Trading Card are your best options.

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      References

      1. ↑ https://www.thegamer.com/balatro-most-fun-best-builds/
      2. ↑ https://gamerant.com/balatro-best-strategies/
      3. ↑ https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Economy_Jokers
      4. ↑ https://www.ign.com/wikis/balatro/Every_Balatro_Voucher_and_How_To_Unlock_Them
      5. ↑ https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Mult
      6. ↑ https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Blinds_and_Antes
      7. ↑ https://gideonsgaming.com/balatro-review/
      8. ↑ https://gamerant.com/balatro-how-order-jokers/
      9. ↑ https://gameranx.com/features/id/496953/article/balatro-beginner-tips-tricks-guide/
      1. ↑ https://defector.com/it-is-in-fact-preferable-to-suck-real-bad-at-a-game-like-balatro
      2. ↑ https://gamerant.com/balatro-best-high-card-decks/
      3. ↑ https://www.ign.com/wikis/balatro/Balatro_Blank_Voucher_Explained
      4. ↑ https://youtu.be/crqfJFDffNc?t=1104
      5. ↑ https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Planet_Cards
      6. ↑ https://gameranx.com/features/id/496953/article/balatro-beginner-tips-tricks-guide/

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