how to beat game with black deck?

[Soutalgon]

I struggle so much having 1 less hand to play

[raichudoggy]

On White Stakes, it's not too unreasonable.

Antes 1/2 always focus on building whichever of these hands you're closest to getting: Full House, Flush, Straight.

You don't gain an Advantage using the black deck until you're actually utilizing the extra Joker slot, so it will be weaker than all other decks until you do so, at which point the extra Joker can tip the Black Deck stronger than all the others.

If a skip in early Antes gives you 2 Common Jokers or Mega Buffoon Pack, take it. Don't take any other kind of skip early. Use the extra rounds you play to build the reservoir of $25 for the $5 interest each round just like you would any other deck.

Otherwise, Black Deck plays a lot like Blue / Red, and the direction the deck goes depends on the jokers you're getting just like those decks. It's actually quite fun once it gets rolling. It doesn't get as much money since you get less money from remaining hands, but on the lowest difficulty that's offset by the small blind giving you money to work with.

I hate playing the black deck on any higher difficulty though, it makes it that much harder for the deck to get off the ground. But if you just need to beat White stakes to unlock one of the other decks, it shouldn't take too long.

[Astroooooooo]

I guess my tip would be: pay attention to the first two vouchers. You really want one to be next shop items free and at least something like +10 base joker.

[loganjamesalex]

glad to see it wasn't just in my head that this deck is hard! Beat red blue and yellow and I thought I should do black next but it is so hard to get started

[malogoss]

Black economy is weak. That -1 hand will cripple you on the long run if you do nothing about it. It's -$1 every round from remaining hands, and it adds up fast, even more so if you factor in the resulting lower interest.

So my main tip would be to do something about economy as soon as possible. The best scenario would be something like beat the first Small Blind, get a +mult or +chip joker from the shop. Then either beat Big Blind and get an economy joker from the shop, or skip BB for $15 after ante 1 boss.

I say "something like" because it's not the only scenario that works.

The main thing is, carrying an economy joker or even two of them (!) is a lot easier because of the extra joker slot Black deck comes with.

Once you get your economy going in this game, everything feels a lot easier. Don't forget to pile some money to earn max interest on top of your economy jokers' income.

Good luck!

[Joeynator3000]

By crying, suffering, and raging.
...
That's how I managed on the normal stake. lol

[phantom]

Originally posted by raichudoggy:

at which point the extra Joker can tip the Black Deck stronger than all the others.

Thing is that is pretty much never relevant. how strong you are in endless is largely rng and how many risks you could take. something that the black deck doesn't help with. You can even use analog deck and get a ton of negative jokers.

and again that is only relevant in endless. An extra joker slot does not justify a weaker early game for beating ante 8.

[Frenzy85]

Early Stuntman combined with +3 hands lose all discards

An example of busted early game that can clear any deck, Black Deck included, of course.
But yeah, Black Deck is probably the worst deck of all for Gold Stake... maybe all Stakes.

But in general, you want 1 slot for an income generating Joker for Black Deck, as -1 hand means less economy
The 2 random common Joker per round is probably the best for that early when your slots aren't filled, since it gives income through selling unwanted jokers and *some* power

And as with every other deck, early FlatMult is pretty much required
Not just for clearing the round, but to minimize hands used for economy

[Preacher JLU]

Originally posted by Soutalgon:

I struggle so much having 1 less hand to play

I beat it mostly by luck, thing is with this game is that your run is way way to depended on rng. I am not sure why this is called a deck builder when you really have very very little control of your deck, especially at the start and you cannot pick and choose what you have in your deck. You can try doing this, if you have a good run going copy your save to a different location before you make a change to your run, that way if you screw it up you can just overwrite the new save created by the game and try it again. Hope this helps.

God bless

[Scrub]

Originally posted by Preacher JLU:

I am not sure why this is called a deck builder when you really have very very little control of your deck, especially at the start and you cannot pick and choose what you have in your deck.

A "deck builder" is different from a game where you build a deck before playing.

"Deck builder" is a game where you build a deck every run or session. Dominion, Puzzle Strike, Slay the Spire, etc

Other games like Netrunner or Magic the Gathering, require you to create a deck separate from the game itself.

Unclear wording but very clear definitions

[Donathan Cheadledge]

Yeah -1 hand is bad in gameplay *and* bad for the econ - then you get no benefit if you don't somehow manage to run 6 jokers (which is hard because the econ). Least favourite deck by miles