Amber Acorn - I don't understand this blind

[wakasm]

Hi, sorry, I've only played a few games. I fought Amber Acorn for the first time. It's description is something like:

Flips and Shuffles Jokers Every Hand

The 5 jokers I had, as far as I am aware, were not really dependant on order. 1 gave chips, 3 gave +multi (I was usually hitting somewhere around 300+ per turn), and one gave x-multi. They were also all foiled in (I forget the one that gives 10x name) in some way.

This boss had an ante of 100k, and up until this boss, I was getting routinely 75,000-125,000 per hand pretty much no matter what I played and I had a all spades/clubs deck that basically drew flushes every turn.

Then all of a sudden, with this boss, I wasn't. I was only getting like 8k-10k per hand, even with full flush hands.

So what exactly does this power do? I thoguht it would just change the order of the jokers, but keep the same jokers.

It threw me off because I read it, didn't consider I could lose, but then I did, so I forgot to even screenshot.

Maybe I misread the boss power?

[Goblin]

Usually, xMult is the important bit when it comes to order. Jokers mostly trigger from left to right, so you want the xMult on the right.
Imagine you play a pair with 5 mult due to levels, and get +10, +10, and x2 mult from jokers. That's 5+10+10=25, multiplied by 2, is 50 multiplier.
Now imagine the joker's on the left. That's 5 x 2 = 10, +10, +10 = 30 multiplier total.

Exception is jokers that give xMult when a card triggers, like Photograph (x2 on first face card). There you want to drag the triggering card as far right in your hand as possible (for instance 888KK instead of KK888) though it only matters if you have other things that add mult per the earlier cards, for instance Even Steven in that 888KK example. In that case the joker order wouldn't matter.

[wakasm]

Ok - so I guess it's the multi order that killed me and I interpreted what the boss power actually did, but maybe under estimated it. Thanks.

[Ronald Brain]

Originally posted by wakasm:

Ok - so I guess it's the multi order that killed me and I interpreted what the boss power actually did, but maybe under estimated it. Thanks.

While the Jokers are faced down, you can still see the effect they trigger. A neat trick is to slow down the game speed, play a single hand, then determine which Joker is which, then reorder them as they originally were. This boss blind won't shuffle your Joker for the second time, so once you restore everything back to normal, your run should be safe.

Ex: You have Lusty (+4 mult), Throwback (x2.5), Fibonacci (+8 mult), Odd Todd (+30 chips), and Juggle (+1 hand size)(Unimportant)... During your hand, check and see which faced down joker trigger "x2.5 mult", that will be the Throwback, so you can move it to the right side for maximize score again.

[Shot_Trip]

Ronald more or less gave out the killing strategy with this boss. If you know your jokers well enough, you'll be able to get them back in order. Beware if you have cards like Blueprint or the joker who relies on "sell price to the left", as well as Brainstorm - it can be hard to tell where these are and what your setup was optimally. Stay calm, watch the triggers, and play slow.

[Shedletsky]

Originally posted by Ronald Brain:

While the Jokers are faced down, you can still see the effect they trigger. A neat trick is to slow down the game speed, play a single hand, then determine which Joker is which, then reorder them as they originally were.

That's so tedious I would rather lose. How is this in the game.

[gwelty]

I just won a run with Ronald Brain's advice on this Boss Blind, and it was amazing! (Not tedious at all, since I didn't have to slow down the game for my particular configuration of Jokers.)

Crazily, I got Flush up to level 16, and only played flush hands through utilizing discards (maximizing number of heart cards throughout the run). So I'd only play one kind of hand, heart flush, for the entire game.

On the last possible hand in Amber Acorn, I had only 4 hearts, and no discards left. It looked like end of run, game over.

But wait! What is this I see? One of my previous discards had a purple seal, and in the corner of the screen I see the Tarot card it gave me, which just happened to be Lovers, which let me change a card to heart, and I got the flush!

Apart from that Tarot card on the very last hand, I would have lost the run. But I won it by the skin of my teeth.

[duayned]

Originally posted by Shedletsky:

That's so tedious I would rather lose. How is this in the game.

Ok, then try this instead:
For anyone just now coming to this thread, here's another way to help defeat this boss flipper: As soon as you select the Acorn blind, quickly click and hold your cursor on your most important joker, usually the far right one (as previously explained). It will flip over, but hold its position, so you do not have to worry about where it went.

[anomalis]

Originally posted by Shedletsky:

Originally posted by Ronald Brain:

While the Jokers are faced down, you can still see the effect they trigger. A neat trick is to slow down the game speed, play a single hand, then determine which Joker is which, then reorder them as they originally were.

That's so tedious I would rather lose. How is this in the game.

This is what the game is about... If you don't like this solution to the boss blind it seems like you wouldn't enjoy the rest of the game either. Strategy to overcome chance and circumstance is all the game is.

Like boss blinds that make some of your hand cards face down.. you can reorder by rank and suit and get a decent idea of what you have. Or the one that deals face down after each hand you play, you can just discard those and it'll deal face up cards. Solutions like that are part of the game, it's not a workaround.

Also I'm not meaning to be insulting, I was just surprised by your comment because what you're objecting to seems to me to just be Balatro in general.

[malogoss]

Originally posted by anomalis:

(...)

Not sure replying to someone 10 months later will change anything for that person, but who knows?

[ulzgoroth]

For the love of Jim, why did this need to be exhumed?

[Twelvefield]

Because Jim loves us all.

[Xaelon]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

For the love of Jim, why did this need to be exhumed?

I don't understand why people necro threads either.

The most common reason I see is out of boredom, or to stir up drama for steam points or attention. Otherwise they just can't be bothered to check the date of the last reply or simply don't care.

I've given up trying to explain why people shouldn't necro threads. If anything giving necromancers attention will just make them do it more so I find it's just best to not reply.