Game balance and strategy for ultra-high scores

[Pawel]

I played 4 runs, and I can say this game is absolutely crazy :)) I was able to win on my 4th run. First two I learned, the rules. On the 3rd run I was close, my strategy was to spam pairs (got a lot of corresponding planets for pairs and there's almost always a pair on hand).

What happened on my 4th run blew my mind. This time I decided to go for flush combos. Initially I thought it's much harder than playing for pairs (as flush is harder to get), but I managed to convert a lot of cards in the deck to just two suits (hearts and diamonds) and started hitting flushes regularly. I also got a lot of planets for flushes in mid game.

I then realized the power of steel cards and meta-multipliers (dont know how to call this but I mean multipliers to Multi). That concided with getting a bunch of jokers with buffs to steel cards, re-triggering cards, and even more meta-multipliers. I was able to reach ante 12, with a record high of 66 million in a single hand.

I was like WTF, dude, 70k in the previous run and now hundreds of millions. I am now wondering if this game may have serious balance issues. Some joker cards are so weak there may be literally no strategy for buying them at any point of the run. Others are extremely powerful.

I also started wondering if flush combos are the "sweet spot" in terms of ultra high score strategy, as they're fairly easy to get and it's also easy to generate those meta-multipliers. If that's true (I played only 4 runs), then even more joker cards should be considered completely useless, and will only act as blockers while we're waiting for the "real" ones.

The game is a ton of fun, but it's difficult to say if I was just so extremely lucky with those joker cards, or I incidentally found a nearly optimal strategy (or just both).

[sab0t]

it sounds like you're a fast learner, but i definitely think it was just a particularly good run. generally speaking it's actually the reverse of what you experienced - playing pairs and high cards are usually the way to get absurdly high scores, and the mid-tier hands like flush / full house usually fall off a bit in the late game. although this isn't a hard rule obviously, just the trend i've noticed.

when i first started playing i thought alot of jokers were trash or generally useless, but over time i've found that basically every single joker serves a purpose and can be really good. some are designed to be temporary or disposable and therefore can seem 'bad'. for example i used to think 'Seltzer' (retriggers hand) was terrible because it only lasted for 8 or 10 hands or whatever it is, but as i've used it more i've seen it's actually an insanely good joker.

again there are some like "+50 chips if hand contains a pair" that are pretty unremarkable, but they are also super cheap at like $2 which makes it worth getting if you have the room.

[Deez_Noots]

just wait till you unlock the plasma deck, then you can reach trillions of chips

[0xxian]

The silliest run I had was getting a glass ploygraphic king with a red seal early enough with a dna blueprint the re triggger face cards joker and the legendary joker that duplicates consumables. Each round i would start with blueprint of the legendary joker create 2 death cards then move my blueprint to dna play the king creating 2 kings use the death cards i made with ther joker to make more of the kings and then put blueprint on the retrigger face cards and play a 5 of kind hand. I was creating 4 of the silly glass poly red seal kings a turn then losing on average 1-3 from glass shatter but i was scoring tin the 1.9 E 18 range died to rerolling the no face cards boss blind into a no hearts blind (the king i'd been duplicating was a heart). I'm farily sure a steel red seal king with baron, retrigger face and the mime card could go even higher if you could boost you hand size.