How to play black deck better?

[omgjames]

title

[Vulture]

I found Tags were more useful with this one. Try to take advantage of them in the early game. Something like Coupon of the Investment Tag is well worth taking as you won't be making as much money as normal with the reduced hands per round and the right tag/s can kickstart a powerful set of Jokers and the like for the second-third ante onwards.

[Goblin]

Like Stitches said, you're losing out on $1 per round so money is harder to come by. So some tags are great, but a joker that gives extra money is also a way to make black deck runs easier in most cases, and you're more likely to see such a joker than one of the good tags.
Besides that, -1 hand just means you need to get a decent +mult and/or +chips joker ASAP, as you can't rely on scraping by with multiple hands as much as normal. Lategame you always want as much xMult jokers to the right of one good +mult one for any deck, and black deck just gets an extra one of those because of the extra slot, so usually that part shouldn't be an issue. It's just getting to late game in the first place that's hard.

[tim.]

Black Deck only seems good if the run is good. If you don't get synergies early on, you have 0 economy to carry yourself to the mid game. Even if a good joker shows up at that point, you'll have 0 money most of the time to even buy it. Really awful deck that is the most brutalized by such a heavy RNG game.

Just reroll runs until you get a joker tag on round 1 and hope it's not a garbage joker (spoiler alert, it will be).

[Ricey, Professional 70's Pimp]

Originally posted by tim.:

Black Deck only seems good if the run is good. If you don't get synergies early on, you have 0 economy to carry yourself to the mid game. Even if a good joker shows up at that point, you'll have 0 money most of the time to even buy it. Really awful deck that is the most brutalized by such a heavy RNG game.

Just reroll runs until you get a joker tag on round 1 and hope it's not a garbage joker (spoiler alert, it will be).

What blind skip rewards are worth taking in the first round for Black deck?

[Vulture]

Originally posted by Ricey, Professional 70's Pimp:

What blind skip rewards are worth taking in the first round for Black deck?

Coupon and Investment are probably the better one in my eyes. Rare, Top Up and Buffoon would also be something to take. If you can combine any of these with Foil, Holographic Polychrome or even Negative, I'd go for it.

[tim.]

Originally posted by Ricey, Professional 70's Pimp:

Originally posted by tim.:

Black Deck only seems good if the run is good. If you don't get synergies early on, you have 0 economy to carry yourself to the mid game. Even if a good joker shows up at that point, you'll have 0 money most of the time to even buy it. Really awful deck that is the most brutalized by such a heavy RNG game.

Just reroll runs until you get a joker tag on round 1 and hope it's not a garbage joker (spoiler alert, it will be).

What blind skip rewards are worth taking in the first round for Black deck?

I think the only ones that actually help get past the first few antes are buffoon, arcana, and the free initial shop tags. If none are present, roll hard for a Full House or Straight to get your $5 from the one hand.

Otherwise restart your run.

The rest of the tags are kind of useless unless you already have at least $10 since the Poly/Foil jokers are expensive, and Negative doesn't actively contribute to your run that early anyways and won't be relevant if you can't make it to the late game in the first place. And all of that is assuming they even hit a helpful Joker to begin with.

[Steve]

I just got a win with the black deck. I ended up just playing the first 2 blinds, and if I didn't see a strategy appearing, just restarting.

I won after getting the joker that upgrades the first discarded hand, and playing just pairs till the end. A lot easier once the economy got rolling, but it took a while.

[Descending Minor Key Line Cliche]

The black deck is weird because it's late game focused but forces you to play into a very beefy early game. Focus on high payoff cheap jokers early on until you can stabilize. If you see banana, ice cream, popcorn, raised fist, etc.... buy them instantly. Once you stabilize you should be good, because the extra joker slot is 100% worth the trade later on. It's my favorite deck.

[Winter Wolf]

Originally posted by i - V7 - bVImaj7 - V7b9 | V7:

The black deck is weird because it's late game focused but forces you to play into a very beefy early game. Focus on high payoff cheap jokers early on until you can stabilize. If you see banana, ice cream, popcorn, raised fist, etc.... buy them instantly. Once you stabilize you should be good, because the extra joker slot is 100% worth the trade later on. It's my favorite deck.

And if you never find any of these give up?

[Ricey, Professional 70's Pimp]

Originally posted by Winter Wolf:

Originally posted by i - V7 - bVImaj7 - V7b9 | V7:

The black deck is weird because it's late game focused but forces you to play into a very beefy early game. Focus on high payoff cheap jokers early on until you can stabilize. If you see banana, ice cream, popcorn, raised fist, etc.... buy them instantly. Once you stabilize you should be good, because the extra joker slot is 100% worth the trade later on. It's my favorite deck.

And if you never find any of these give up?

The only promise I've seen with this deck is the first skip or two before the first boss. If there is a potentially great lineup (all cards free) or something along those lines I'd take it. If not, restart. I've played probably 50 times now and haven't gotten far. I'm going to focus more on building heavily from luck at the beginning instead of trying to find a way to save money early or hope for a great joker in the early shops. That ♥♥♥♥ never works out.

[penis mann]

imo try to keep 4 scoring jokers 2 economy jokers as long as you can and keep 1 or 2 econ jokers until you feel strong, have a lot of money, or getting into ante 7/8 (non endless run) then you should sell them. black deck has slightly less economy but the extra joker slot can flip that into a lot more economy compared to other decks.