High Stakes

[Void]

Has there been any players, streamers, or anything who are able to clear high stakes (let's say purple or higher) with any kind of consistency? I've cleared all blues and I'm working on Purples, and it's just incredibly frustrating. The black deck feels especially Sisyphean. Is it just a get good situation, or was it really intended to be this luck-based? As it stands, I'm even doing challenge runs like they're nothing after high stakes hell, so I'm leaning towards it being the latter.

[malogoss]

Luck sure helps. Skill sure helps too.

Personally, I first unlocked all decks, the deck I climbed the highest stake for that was Abandoned deck. Then I beat gold with it. It was very rough, I was still playing poorly at that point. Then I beat green stake with all deck.

From there, I decided to climb to gold with each deck, one by one. After 3-4 I could feel I was getting better at it.

With about 6-7 decks cleared, I tackled the black deck. It was all good up to blue stake. Then a friend asked me how long it would take me to beat purple, orange and gold. My prudent estimation was that I would be done with 15-20 hours of playtime. If things went well, I said 10-12 hours. So I noted my total playtime and tackled purple.

Purple took me 2 hours of playtime.
Orange took me 2 hours of playtime.
For gold, I was a bit unlucky. By that I mean losing at ante 8, which is time consuming and depends a lot on the final boss. But gold took me 6 hours.

No, I did not take note of the playtime needed to clear my first gold with the Abandoned deck. But I can guarantee you it was at least as much as what it took me for black deck.

The main reason it went much better with black is that I wasn't playing the same way I was at first. Skills matter a lot. I'm still getting better at it. It's a very rewarding game because you actually feel your way of evaluating things changing. And the results are better, no matter good or bad luck.

Hope that made sense.

[Void]

I think I'd ultimately feel better about the higher stakes in general if it didn't feel like you had to spin your wheels so bloody hard just to get any sort of real run going. It makes losing suck that much more, since you know you're back to painfully attempting to get any sort of grasp on anything when it frequently drops jokers you can't really make use of or if it does, synergy, or the cash necessary to manifest it, just doesn't come.

It genuinely feels like the game wasn't designed to be played with these constraints, even though practically anything is possible with the right circumstances. It has one foot squarely in the realm of tedium.

[malogoss]

Some people can build win streaks on gold stake.

I can't do it. Skill issue.

You have a hard time with purple. Skill issue.

[dummy738]

Youtube: Balatro University

[KyrLu]

https://www.twitch.tv/lifecoach1981 is trying to achieve a 7 win streak on gold stake with yellow deck and will likely achieve it. He was a great Poker/Hearthstone/Slay the Spire player, he spends a lot of time on every decision, and it's quite impressive to see him take what feels like awful decisions and just win because of them. Like taking an eternal Chaos the Clown (1 free reroll per shop) or Golden Joker (+4$ each round) on first ante x)

[Void]

I can see that being possible for other decks, iirc I didn't have any issue clearing with the first 3 decks. Green was a pain, but Black is just hell.