Non-flush strategies need more support.

[it's shoe]

I don't think Flush needs nerfed, as it's one of the only reliable viable strategies. But the most fun stuff about Balatro is what you do on the lowest stakes where you can experiment and see emergent ideas and neat deck types.

Once you start clearing stakes, you throw all that fun stuff out the window and start jamming flushes all day.

[Amplify]

I've said this so many times, but Flushes are massively overrated. They're good for the first two antes but fall off after that because any hand reliant on piecing together five specific cards every time isn't a good strategy for winning, and honestly 95% of your chips and multi should be coming from your combination of jokers that make it almost irrelevant what hand you play.

A Balatro beginner will tell you Flushes are the strongest hand.
A Balatro expert will tell you Pairs and High Cards are what dominate.

[Ronald Brain]

Dude, other hands all have good Jokers supporting them. Burnt Joker works best with High Card / Pair as they're almost always guaranteed to be present in your initial hand. Learn to build with what's available in the shop is your key to win.

[it's shoe]

I've cleared every single stake with flushes.

You don't have to like it, but they have way more support than most strategies. And "combination of jokers" isn't something exclusive to flushes. I've won with flush decks whose jokers are a subtheme of creating and consuming tarot cards, repeatedly leveling up the Flush rewards with Jupiter and ways to make planets, Bootstraps with a cash theme, Hack with low cards, etc.

And these are all infinitely easier to put together on a deck that uses a flush as a foundation, which is itself extremely accessible.

But hey cool, come into a conversation and just off-hand call me bad or something.

[Mr. Crowley]

The higher Ante you go , the lesser cards you ideally want to play to multi trigger extra mult from cards in your hand. That's why flush and straight decks are kinda bad in endless

[LoneHer0]

In general, you kinda are just going to be pushed to fish for stronger Poker hands (Straight, Full house, and Flush) at the start just to score with little to no modifiers on your side—it's just kinda part of it as those smaller hands just aren't going to cut it out without jokers/synergy.

Then you get into it with modifying your deck with Tarot/Spectral/Card packs to support other strats more consistently

[Pingoso]

Ironically, the strongest build possible is High Card with lots of steel Kings in hand. If anything, flushes are very weak compared to other builds, but they are easier to make and shape your deck around.

[it's shoe]

"Actually flushes are bad" and "actually high card is better" don't really answer the problem of other strategies needing more support.

[Amplify]

Originally posted by it's shoe:

I've cleared every single stake with flushes.

You don't have to like it, but they have way more support than most strategies. And "combination of jokers" isn't something exclusive to flushes. I've won with flush decks whose jokers are a subtheme of creating and consuming tarot cards, repeatedly leveling up the Flush rewards with Jupiter and ways to make planets, Bootstraps with a cash theme, Hack with low cards, etc.

And these are all infinitely easier to put together on a deck that uses a flush as a foundation, which is itself extremely accessible.

But hey cool, come into a conversation and just off-hand call me bad or something.

https://files.catbox.moe/kp74mn.jpg
I'm not calling you bad, I'm just informing you that pairs and high cards are far stronger than flushes will ever be. But apparently you're the one who knows what they're doing here and Flushes reign supreme, so you do you.

If you need advice I don't mind giving it.

[Pearlple]

I literally only managed to win playing 2 pairs lmao, Flushes ain't that op

[Pingoso]

I too beat gold stake with nothing but pairs and 3 of a kinds, with an eternal ripped joker. People severely underestimate non-flush builds.

[SpaceCat]

Flushes are honestly pretty terrible. Pair and High card are much better.

[J4MESOX4D]

I don’t even bother with flushes any more. Maybe in the first couple of ante’s just to get over the line in as few hands as possible but other than that, the scores seem remarkably low even with a few stacked buffs in play. Why burden yourself trying to get 5 specific cards when you can level stack pairs and two pair and get a far better score on far more achievable hands.

I actually think some of the better poker hands are scored way too low.

[BeautifulFlowerField]

no they don't. they're actually bad, you can't really play flushes in endless. i think flush scaling should actually be slightly buffed. it just has more jokers available so players find it easy to force. if you have any kind of sensible build whatsoever the game is pretty easy at least up until maybe black stake.

[OuttaChakra]

Originally posted by it's shoe:

I don't think Flush needs nerfed, as it's one of the only reliable viable strategies. But the most fun stuff about Balatro is what you do on the lowest stakes where you can experiment and see emergent ideas and neat deck types.

Once you start clearing stakes, you throw all that fun stuff out the window and start jamming flushes all day.

+2.

I agree. I really enjoy playing straight, two pair, RF and 3/4/5 of a kind. And though I can often play around a flush, it’s also my safe play if I can’t manipulate rng to give me one of the aforementioned hands.

[Papa Smurf]

There's a nice flow through the antes between mult, chips, multi-mult or Xmult, hands, and in-hand effects.
Different parts of a full run lean in different directions.
The early game benefits from having a default deck able to easily make a decent mult off of flush (or straight). Then something like four of a kind is better with just a few Mars once you can build your deck for it, but shortly thereafter if you have that much card manipulation you want to plan for tons of steel cards and small hands.

Its a nice curve.