Is "Shortcut" Joker completely overpowered.

[SOnions]

Just finished my first run and won trivially easily due to the shortcut Joker. With straights so easy to get I could pile on Saturn cards and win most rounds with the first hand I played.

I enjoyed the play-through but I cant unlock "Challenge Mode" without beating the game with 5 decks. Sadly, the though of playing another 96 rounds at that difficulty level is putting me off playing a second run.

Is the game super-easy or did I luck out with Jokers? Is challenge mode interesting enough to justify the grind unlocking it?

[Kadarus]

Well, you can try a higher stake and different decks now for bigger challenge.

But I think you lucked out, normally straights are a difficult build to pursue, especially on higher stakes. To make straights easy to get you needed a specific joker while other builds could just modify their deck and fill all slots with jokers that grant mult/chips/retriggers.

[Atomsk]

Shortcut is good but doesn't scale for endless, overall straights is worse than Flush decks by quite a bit.

[D3k0y]

Shortcut was the basis for my first win in the demo. Very solid beginner setup. Flush has more boosts available, but I feel you cannot get mega high Antes with Straights alone.

[Draco18s]

I've never gotten much luck with Shortcut (Four Finger is a lot easier to work with*), as it really only helps with the "never draw to an inside straight" problem.

It's nice, but it's not that nice.

*Two of a Kind and Flush? Why thank you.

[symphony]

yeah shortcut + four fingers is deadly. sadly I've only ever seen 4 fingers like two times

[Ronald Brain]

Originally posted by SOnions:

I enjoyed the play-through but I cant unlock "Challenge Mode" without beating the game with 5 decks. Sadly, the though of playing another 96 rounds at that difficulty level is putting me off playing a second run.

The condition to unlock Challenge is to beat Ante 8 five times with five different deck. You can start at White Stake and bulldoze through easily, no need to go for higher difficulty.