The game feels very weighted towards Flush decks: Am I poorly prioritizing?

[HealingMind(Free Palestine!)]

I've won a few runs of the standard difficulty, but it feels like every winning deck ended up just gravitating into a flush deck for massive points, usually involving stacking cards into 1 or 2 suits to proc a huge suit joker multiplier.

In contrast, trying to go for anything else feels like it needs very specific setups and jokers that make it feel inflexible, and even when a similar setup happens, it doesn't exactly pan out as well despite being more specific.

Am I playing it wrong, or is the game in its' current state just very focused around flushes?

[bkcshah]

Hmm, having won on gold stake with pair and orange with 2 pair, I will say that you are partially wrong. In the early difficulties, flushes are very easy (especially with certain decks), but they are not very consistent with smaller hand size and fewer discards. They still work, but they are not as strong late as early game ime.

[sab0t]

i don't think you're doing anything 'wrong' at all. flushes are extremely strong and are probably the most flexible / easy to setup build on the lower stakes (maybe higher stakes as well, i can't say yet). i would say that other builds are alot more viable than you may feel, but as you've suggested, it of course depends on how your run starts.

[Pythéas骆意渴]

Originally posted by sab0t:

i don't think you're doing anything 'wrong' at all. flushes are extremely strong and are probably the most flexible / easy to setup build on the lower stakes (maybe higher stakes as well, i can't say yet). i would say that other builds are alot more viable than you may feel, but as you've suggested, it of course depends on how your run starts.

Flushes are the most stable builds to reach Ante 8. That's also strong in higher stakes, checkered deck is the first one I won gold stake with.

[HealingMind(Free Palestine!)]

Originally posted by bkcshah:

Hmm, having won on gold stake with pair and orange with 2 pair, I will say that you are partially wrong. In the early difficulties, flushes are very easy (especially with certain decks), but they are not very consistent with smaller hand size and fewer discards. They still work, but they are not as strong late as early game ime.

Do you happen to remember any peculiar setups that let Pair/2 Pair hit Ante 8? So I could look for stuff that'll go well with them that I may not be thinking of.

[Zeks]

flush is a bait, you do it in ante 1-2 then navigate awy from it ideally for something that is easer to get in the hand. THe thing is: you're not really getting that much more points by playing 5 cards in a flush to trade consistency of a high card or a pair for it

[bkcshah]

so, flushes are strong in a deck build specifically to make flushes.... I am shocked. :D

Flush builds at higher difficulties are fine once you've taken out the associated boss or have a way to re-roll. Otherwise, they tend to snap lose. Similar to how pair builds often die to Needle, Wall or Vessel. Anything is OP in White as you basically have unlimited resources with any ok Joker early.

[bkcshah]

Originally posted by HealingMind:

Do you happen to remember any peculiar setups that let Pair/2 Pair hit Ante 8? So I could look for stuff that'll go well with them that I may not be thinking of.

The first constellation voucher to build levels consistently from packs, then something like Bus/Green Joker/The Starry one. Card Shark is solid as well as any other x2+ cards (Pair, Hologram, Constellation, etc.). Any economy joker works early/mid game. So that's the ideal base 4 jokers. building multiplier, x2+ multiplier, coin, economy, flex (usually a fixed Multiplier early (popcorn/half joker/banana).

Economy, leading to no shop control, tends to be the hardest part in higher stakes.

[A bear]

Small easy to make hands are the only way I have found to win in the high stakes. You either need very consistent hands or not to care what your hands are, since you get so little economy on gold it is pretty much impossible for me to manipulate my deck enough to make flushes consistent.

[Sins]

i have more consistent success with two pair focused builds. A Flush is really strong when you have no jokers, and you can absolutely build on it and make it your whole deck, but making the deck work at higher stakes/antes tends to require some higher rarity jokers to keep pace whereas there's other builds that can clear ante 8 with basically nothing but garbage.

[Ronald Brain]

Originally posted by HealingMind:

Do you happen to remember any peculiar setups that let Pair/2 Pair hit Ante 8? So I could look for stuff that'll go well with them that I may not be thinking of.

Scaling Jokers are incredibly good for weak hands, of those Pair and 2 Pairs are the best to scale as you get a lot of chances to play them even in early blind. Some of the Jokers I'd recommend to grab instantly includes:
-Burnt Joker (level up first discarded hand), paired with Blueprint or Brainstorm = free +2 level Pair every blind (Minus the Boss Blind that starts with 0 Discard)
-Space Joker (25% chance to level up played hand). RNG-dependent, but can help you level up Pair in early games if you get it early enough.
-Half Joker (+20 mult with 3 cards or less hand). This guy will carry you through the early ante easily, and you can replace him later down the line.
-Green Joker & Ride the Bus: Both +1 Mult each hand played, scale quickly with Grabber/Nacho Tong for extra hands. Matching these guys with Burglar and you can scale easily as long as you don't discard and play Face Cards.

Jokers that +chip, +mult and x mult for Pair are also commonly found in shop, so of course grab them whenever you can.

Economy Jokers like Golden, Delayed Gratification, Trading Card, etc... are also useful in early games to give you easy money, so spend and you shall receive.

[ROORnNUGZ]

I've played around 8 hours so far and the only time I've beat ante 8 so far was with a flush deck. I got the joker that makes club/spades and heart/diamonds the same thing. Paired with some other jokers that gave + and x mulitiplers for using particluar suits. I'm not even sure how to do a different strategy really. Guess maybe I should watch some videos or something.

[Zeks]

the thing about flushes is that with a good combination of jokers you won't need the pittance of chips that extra 2-3 cards played give you, but consistency will be much better. It typically comes down to either receiving a good chip joker or raising simpler hands level with planets. flushes *can* work and sometimes they do, but it's harder to build a viable flush deck for sure as it becomes really inconsistent at higher antes unless it synergizes really well

[Thindler's Lisp]

Flushes are good, definitely one of the best to focus on when you have good jokers for it. But I found that Full House might be even better. Riskier but benefits greater off of Planet cards.

[bkcshah]

Here was an orange stake pair run I just succeeded with, the end joker line up was..
Sock and Buckets (repeat face) / Scary Face (+30 coins) / Money Boot (2x per $5) / Supernova (x per hand played) / Brainstorm (copy left).

I was doing ~70k per pair (only level 8 Mercury, but good multiplier from early nova and high bank due to gold seals). Beat Ante 8 with double glass Q that I saved Death/Justice combo for boost. It's just a different way to play.

[Draco18s]

Originally posted by HealingMind:

Do you happen to remember any peculiar setups that let Pair/2 Pair hit Ante 8? So I could look for stuff that'll go well with them that I may not be thinking of.

Half Joker and the three Jokers that +chip, +mult and x mult for Pair
After that, Mercury, the Jokers that benefit from Tarot cards used, Planet cards used, Stone, Stone Joker, (Half Joker + Pair gives you a third slot you can shove a Stone card into for +50 chips. Oh and you can Stamp and Holo/etc stone cards for extras*).

This is actually how I got my first win.

*You can safely change their suit and rank (it has no effect, but it is a valid target if you want to use a tarot card but not on any of your other options), but you can't enhance them any other way (mult, bonus, wild, glass, etc).