black deck tips?

[penguin]

I'm trying so hard, and have had so many runs with it that I thought would do good, but I'm just not getting anywhere, no matter how good my starting game is I seem to fail really early on.

Any tips you guys have on being better at using the black deck?

[Idlemind]

Same here, the joker that gives you two new jokers each round is a good option to get up to 6 jokers and you can sell the ones you dont want to keep for extra cash.

Cash is key for this deck, you literally need a straight or flush to beat the first hand (300) points in one round or you can't afford a joker so usually if I don't beat that I think about restarting, but dont because I'm stubborn lol.

Jokers that make you money and focus on multi is important.

Right now I'm sitting pretty on a current play through half way through with 3 polychrome jokers and a holographic joker and 2 empty spots for whatever I can get.

[tim.]

For rounds 1 and 2, it's important that you beat the blinds in as few hands as possible for money, so discard to try to build full houses or straights. If you get a free shop, buffoon, or arcana tag go for those. Ignore all other tags for the first ante. Rare and uncommon joker tags are tempting, but you'll almost always not have enough money to buy them.

Ideally you want a +X mult card by the second shop. Something that works on it's own is best. If you can't get a useful Joker by then, just restart the run.

If you can get 1000+ chip hands by Ante 2, you should shift to building econ - I had a lot of luck with a fortunate Polychrome Delayed Gratification pull. Negative, foil, and polychrome tags should probably be ignored until at least ante 3. Try to avoid passive jokers like +1 discard or +1 hand size until you stabilize or have synergies for that.

If you can get to Ante 4, you'll be pretty much set.

I probably restarted my run 20 times before i got a viable run, if you didn't know you can hold R to quickly restart, so that makes it a bit less tedious. I ended up getting an ante 10 with a pretty cobbled together deck, just making it to ante 4 will probably result in a win. But yeah, Black Deck is actually terrible and totally unfun and i hated all of my runs playing it.

[A bear]

Economy jokers are super important, and managing your money so you get interest is as well. The black deck gets a lot less consistent money early game because of the number of hand reduction so it has more reliance getting your cash flow going, or if you end up with a vagabond just enjoying the free tarot cards.

[Shot_Trip]

Yeah, don't underestimate econ jokers like Gold Joker - remember you have one less potential gold each round, after all - or Riff Raff. Stencil, Baseball card, and Abstract also have more utility in the Black Deck because of more slots.
I won because I abused Chaos and Flash Card for stupid-high mult but you can swing that in any deck, really.

[penguin]

I DID IT
GOODBYE BLACK DECK
I WILL MOST LIKELY NEVER PLAY YOU AGAIN

wow, this was insane, lol
this was probably the most "gambly" run I've had yet
I had a flush run with Bloodstone and the one that makes face cards retrigger
if I lost a roll on the Bloodstone ONCE more I could have lost

[penguin]

honestly, my real mvp was probably the glass queen of hearts I got near the end, having a x2x2 in my hand almost always lead to a win to whatever blind I was against

[Zeks]

black deck is not so bad once you've learned the game a bit. certainly harder than the rest but I've been able to win relatively comfortably with a three of a kind build rn. guess understanding what combos with what goes a long way, I've struggled with it quite a bit in the beginning

[Brob]

Got the game a week ago, beat every deck on white stake beside for this damm black deck. Same position I am trying different strategies for decks that I think are solid, good econ, and boom losing eerytime at 50-100k. Lost probably 10+ times on this damm deck and its getting frustrating lol

[doingwork]

Black deck only struggles in the early or if you get unlucky and dont get alot of buffon packs/jokers from the shop. Otherwise its pretty good.

My advice: always skip the first small blind for one of the "X joker is free in next shop" or "initial shop is free" tags (restart until you get one). You need to stack jokers ASAP as black deck. Especially getting a holographic joker alone can carry you all the way to Ante 3 by itself and by then you can easily have a bunch of jokers.