played 10 hrs, can't beat game once. please see my jokers list

[Shinviroz]

marble joker = adds stone card to deck - 18 stone cards worth 50 each
Riff raff = when blind is selected, create 2 common jokers +50 chips foil
abstract joker = +3 mult for each joker card (currently +18 mult)
splash = every played card counts in scoring +1 joker slot (negative)
banner = +40 chips for each remaining discard (5 discards = 200 chips)
jolly joker = +8 mult if played hand contains a pair

with these jokers i was getting a stone card or two in almost every held hand and was doing 12k to 15k per almost any pair, but then "The Arm" lowered the levels of my pairs like twice, and lowered my High Card level by 1.
I did not know the damage was permanent.
This seems unfair so im here to complain lol

i got to 7/8 ante and round 20 and cant beat the game not once yet. been like 10 hrs playtime.

seed: IQC3JQR2

thanks in advance

edit:
i won guys, i wasn't paying much attention to +mult and xmult and once i realized the difference, i still lost a couple times but managed to beat the game on the fourth try.

Blue joker - +2 chips for each remaining card in deck (currenly +110 chips) Negative
Green joker - +1 mult per hand played -1 mult per discard (currently +34 mult) (polychrome x1.5 mult)
Baron - Each king held in hand gives x1.5 mult (polychrome x1.5 mult)
card sharp - x2 mult if played poker hand has already been played this round
throwback - x0.25 mult for each blind skipped this run (currently x1.75)

Level 11 pair
Best hand: 157,248
most played: Pair (27)

is it worth playing endless mode?

[lordatog]

A few thoughts:

The Riff-raff isn't doing much of anything for you. It's just +50 chips, but you're already getting plenty of chips from banner and stone cards. You always want a balance of chips and mult and right now you're heavily weighted towards chips.

Marble Joker also isn't doing much. It's a long-term joker that doesn't really help you at all in the current round, and as soon as you reach a point where you're in danger of failing, you need to replace those.

What you really need is something scaling, something with xMult, or both. Scaling would be something like Fortune Teller, which gives +1 mult for every tarot card you've played all run, or Ride the Bus, which gives +1 mult for every hand you play, but resets as soon as you score a face card. Either of these could easily give 20+ mult over time.

xMult is something a lot of players don't intuitively understand at first, so just in case you haven't - most cards that increase your mult simply add to it. Your Abstract Joker and Jolly Joker, for instance, will add together and give you +26 mult together. Cards with xMult will multiply your mult instead. If that Jolly Joker were a Blackboard (x3 mult if every card left in your hand is a club or spade), then it would take your base mult from the hand, add 18 to it, and then triple that result. Much more powerful, even though the actual number is lower. (Jokers resolve from left to right, so make sure to move the Blackboard to the right of the Jolly Joker in this scenario.)

You haven't said anything about how your money was going. Whenever possible, try to hang onto some cash so you can earn interest, and so you can be sure to afford anything really nice that pops up.

[snakeskip]

Abstract Joker and negative Splash were fine for end game. Banner was probably ok with pairs. Otherwise you Jokers were a bit lacking. You should look for xMult Jokers to beat last antes. They will ramp up the score. Missing a chance to pick an xMult Joker can be costly.

Check out Balatro Universitys basics videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdNGt-ihEAcEY9VVwmqT4V80xWG9ZWA14

They're long but they're also thorough. Make sure you understand how the scoring works. And note that the order of Jokers (and cards in general) can affect the outcome. You want to have you xMult bonuses counted after everything else.

Bosses are "unfair". That's the point. Eventually you'll learn how to prepare for them. The Arm is nasty if you can't beat it playing only one hand.

[Goblin]

Since you were relying on stone cards, and had banner, keeping Riff Raff just for the +50 chips was a bad idea, should have sold it the moment you found a better joker to replace it with, preferably an xmult joker.
With relying on stone cards, splash didn't help much, but it was negative so no harm there. Just mentioning it for future reference.
Jolly joker probably should have been replaced with just about any xmult joker. In a sense, it was an x1.5 mult joker, except ignoring your hand's base mult value.

It's almost always better during endgame to have ONE good +mult joker and ONE +chips source, and get xmult for all other jokers. In fact, since marble joker adds permanent chips sources to your deck you can technically sell it for another xmult.
The above strategy is far from the only one that can win, nor even the most effective one for getting really far into endless, but it's a good general strategy to aim for. Just replacing a single one of the listed cards with a decent xmult joker would probably have won you the run.

And since just saying "decent xmult joker" isn't too helpful if you don't know the game well yet, here's some good ones you are guaranteed to have available:
Card Sharp, Hologram (if you keep the marble joker), Ramen (synergizes with banner nicely), Acrobat (you're bound to have unlocked this one after 10 hours, unlock req. is play 200 hands), Throwback, Driver's License (you unlocked that one this run, and it would have been great here, but isn't always good), and Cavendish but that only shows up if you broke Gros Michel.
Ones to avoid: Loyalty Card, Madness, probably Blackboard, Vampire may have worked but could also mess up your strategy, Obelisk probably wouldn't have worked well here, same for Flower Pot and Idol.
All other xmults are situational so I can't say if they would have been good or not for your run.

[snakeskip]

Played a game with that seed. White Stake, Red Deck. Won the game with best hand of around 146,000.

You definitely missed some xMult Jokers. Here's my final Joker list:

Fortune Teller (Foil, +50 Chip, +17 Mult)
Bull (+2xMoney Chip)
Smiley Face (+4 Mult for faces, created with Tarot after destroying a card for Verdant Leaf)
Green Joker (+36 Mult)
Abstract Joker (Negative, +21 Mult)
Card Sharp (x3 Mult with repeated hand)
Driver's License (Negative, x3 Mult)

My strategy was built around not using discards at all to make most out of the Green Joker which was on offer early in the game. The Arm couldn't touch me since I could beat it using level 1 High Cards only.

[Zouls]

Steam screenshots are flipping a bit right now but

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214335343

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214335431

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214335521

The jokers are :
Shared suit: heart and diamond is shared, spade and clover is shared
green joker: at about 28+ for played hands
supernova: (love this card) at 33 at the end
Banner: great value at 160 chips
Card sharp: 3x value if hand has been played this round

I got the shared suit early so i went for flush cards, got it running early, make sure to get gold to 25 ideally as needed, i played by swapping out cards for higher and higher values, such as starting with abstract joker but swapping with supernova later, or swapping the +50 foil card for the "2 chips per card left in deck" which was 90 chips, to banner which was 160 chips.

Got a telescope which guarantees your most played hand and got more planets, so i ended up with level 14 flush.

You have to understand the math, this is the most important, you cant keep stacking chips and you cant keep stacking low mulitpliers, you need both ideally, ideally to the point where you can beat it no matter what card you play.

For arm i sacrificed a flush and won by 2 highcards after.

If you were to take something like stone cards you would have to start stacking multipliers to utilize them as quick as possible. They could also go well with vampire joker that eats them for multiplier, or multiplier per card added, but you need to combo your deck.

[エロ音声作品学者]

The advice I have for you is simple: Learn when to sell your jokers.
Every single shop, ask yourself - are my jokers still optimal, can I replace any?

If you're a few blinds from the final boss and you still have a long-game joker like Marble, try and replace it with something more immediate like a Mult or xMult or even Chips joker, that will be useful during those final few blinds.

Additionally, you have no xMult - you almost cannot win without at least a little xMult, so make getting some a priority - reroll as needed, and if your only xMult options require a deck pivot, consider if you can make that pivot to make it happen. Again, here is where you might sell a slow-burn or weak joker to make room for some xMult

[S♥ShiMe]

i do think you should go ahead and read some guides and watch some youtube. The only reason you are losing is because you do not yet understand the synergy and decision making of this game.

you have a GODLIKE seed. EVEN starting hands for first two antes carries you into infinite interest with one/two hand wins.

your seed:
Ante 2:
FOIL RIFF RAFF + TRIBOULET????
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214436697

Ante 3:
HOLO STENCIL? HELLO?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214439387

i rage quit after this ante.

Edit: i also saw burnt joker somewhere in ante 4 i think.

[S♥ShiMe]

i am still mad at your seed!!

go back and re play your seed, although it does not unlock anything with seeded runs, you can have max fun with this seed..........

[DrunkBunny94]

Think in terms of X multi (or %) as i find its easier to value your jokers this way.

If you were playing pairs, by default those are 20 chips with 2mult, with your 2 cards and 3 stones lets call it 200 chips and 2 mult.

Abstract joker giving 18 mult takes you to 20mult, this is essentially 9x your hands score.

The 8mult from jolly joker is now comparatively only 1.4x your score. Its not really doing very much for you.

Marble joker giving 900 chips is a solid 4.5x taking your chips up to 1100.

After marble joker banners 200 banner and the 50 from riff raff is barely giving you a 1.25x.

For comparison a single steel card in hand is 1.5x.

You could sell Jolly, banner and riff raff and still hit 20k+ score just from playinga pair and 3 stone cards.

Generally speaking +chips and +mult are great early because they give a big jump in score but later on with planet upgrades their value diminishes. X multi is pretty bad early because its not as large an increase as +mult while typically being harder to score with and costing more $, but its essential for scoring later on.

So early you want enough + to survive to get your economy online (buy an economical joker and let your money build up to $25 for interest) a scaling +mult/chips joker is best because it'll remain useful later on, then you can look for X mult.

[S♥ShiMe]

can't sleep. went back to play again.

i was indecisive between Sock and Busin + Bloodstone + Triboulet or Mine + Baron, but ended up choosing bloodstone and failed miserably.

Really really really fun seed.

So many good advices/guides from the above posts, do take your time to read and digest them. i assure you will have a really fun time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214514959

[Goblin]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von S♥ShiMe:

can't sleep. went back to play again.

i was indecisive between Sock and Busin + Bloodstone + Triboulet or Mine + Baron, but ended up choosing bloodstone and failed miserably.

Really really really fun seed.

So many good advices/guides from the above posts, do take your time to read and digest them. i assure you will have a really fun time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214514959

Presumably OP doesn't have Bloodstone unlocked yet. Sock and Buskin maybe, but I'd wager not. Still an amazing seed, but gotta keep stuff like that in mind.

[S♥ShiMe]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Goblin:

Presumably OP doesn't have Bloodstone unlocked yet. Sock and Buskin maybe, but I'd wager not. Still an amazing seed, but gotta keep stuff like that in mind.

Yeah you are right, i only went back to play it again afterwards.
But OP definitely has burnt joker, Stencil and blueprint unlocked though, some other good +mult, xmult are in the early Ante too. ALSO TRIBOULET! at 10 hours?!? Fck i got my first legendary at 60+hrs!

Ursprünglich geschrieben von S♥ShiMe:

Ante 2:
FOIL RIFF RAFF + TRIBOULET????
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214436697

Ante 3:
HOLO STENCIL? HELLO?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214439387

[S♥ShiMe]

his seed is damn fun, i recommend people to try it!

[malogoss]

Play more and you'll learn that some jokers are really good early on, but you have to know when to get rid of them. Take Marble joker for example. If you had 18 stone cards in your deck, you picked it up early. That's great! Best time to pick that joker is early. But at ante 6, you have to ask yourself, does it benefit you to keep it? It does not provide a direct score boost. If you get rid of it, you keep the stone cards, but you can replace it with any joker that contributes to score.

Riff Raff and Jolly are good ante 1-2 jokers, they'll help you get started. But late game, they don't do much. Even if it's foil, that Riff Raff is not good once you have a full joker lineup.

Abstract is a very good joker. +18 flat mult on all hands is good for ante 1-5. You can keep it in your line up until the end, but at the same time, you'll usually want a joker that can provide more than +20 mult. So keep an eye open for jokers that scale up. Like Ride the Bus, Supernova, Erosion and many more.

Banner with 5 discard is very strong. That one should be kept until the end.

Unless a negative joker hurts you, you keep it. #1, it guarantees you won't find it again in shop/packs, #2, it makes the tarot card Temperance worth a lot more money. In your case, it also boosted Abstract as a bonus.

In your lineup, replace Marble and Jolly with any good flat +mult jokers, replace Riff Raff with a Xmult joker and suddenly, ante 7 is beaten by playing any random cards from your hand. It makes it possible to avoid playing pairs and still win, to not have pairs level lowered.

[Shinviroz]

i won guys, i wasn't paying much attention to +mult and xmult and once i realized the difference, i still lost a couple times but managed to beat the game on the fourth try.

Blue joker - +2 chips for each remaining card in deck (currenly +110 chips) Negative
Green joker - +1 mult per hand played -1 mult per discard (currently +34 mult) (polychrome x1.5 mult)
Baron - Each king held in hand gives x1.5 mult (polychrome x1.5 mult)
card sharp - x2 mult if played poker hand has already been played this round
throwback - x0.25 mult for each blind skipped this run (currently x1.75)

Level 11 pair
Best hand: 157,248
most played: Pair (27)

is it worth playing endless mode?