does anyone else think Black Deck would have been better if it didnt have a downside?

[Stret]

Nearly every deck has a potent upside by itself, and most decks with a big downside have a gigantic upside.

Black Deck's upside is relatively small at high stake, and in exchange, it just has a gigantic, multi-faceted downside :
- one less hand so its harder to score and win the blinds
- one less hand so its harder to gain money *
- one less hand so its harder to farm things that involve playing things a lot of times *
- one less hand so its harder to throw away hands for gold cards, blue sticker cards, purple sticker cards, or anything of the sort *

* : all of these are directly stepping on the toes of the benefit of the deck

Sure, a downside-less black deck would be really powerful for new players in low stakes, but theres other decks like that, it would be fun and let them explore jokers better anyway. Meanwhile its upside already gets shafted hard in higher stakes where the rate of desirable or even usable jokers goes down massively during the early game

I genuinely believe this deck would have been plainly more entertainment™ if it had been made without the -1 hand downside

[ulzgoroth]

I admit I doubt I would have less fun with Super Black Deck. It'd probably be overpowered compared to other 'color' decks. To get the equivalent boost takes an upgraded voucher whose base form does nothing, whereas red and blue are equivalent to base vouchers.

Not sure what you mean about throwing away hands for purple sticker cards - purple seals are triggered on discard.

It does hamper a number of jokers, even aside from scaling ones - Sixth Sense and DNA both require making a play that's probably not a big scorer (unless you're a High Card booster I guess) and Card Sharp has fewer multiplied hands.

[revlayle]

I wonder if It could have been like the opposite of Painted Deck. Instead of -1 hand, -1 hand size (though I think -2 hand size is too much).

[Stret]

I admit I doubt I would have less fun with Super Black Deck. It'd probably be overpowered compared to other 'color' decks

that would be mostly only for lower stakes. In which case theres even not much to balance around as every deck becomes very easy to win once you know what youre doing, and in which theres a lot of OP decks anyway. Black deck would still be competitive or maybe still worse than the other 'color' decks in higher stakes

Not sure what you mean about throwing away hands for purple sticker cards - purple seals are triggered on discard.

uh yes, you use hands instead of discards, so you can actually find the purple sticker, and then you discard the purple sticker, because you didnt run out of discards.

[RazzberryMocha]

Counterargument: I genuinely love playing black deck on gold stake so your point is invalid.

[antipodeFabricator]

Balatro definitely seems designed unbalanced on purpose; Plasma Deck should be proof enough of that. I think Black Deck is meant to be a sort of "hard mode" deck.

You are right though; a Black Deck without its drawback would be fun to play, and not overly powerful. Would probably make it a little easier to get Gold Stickers on everything too!

[SharkPlush]

Take the 2 free jokers per round card and then sell most of the extras.

[Scrub]

"would the thing that comes with a downside be better without a downside?"

Yeah?

[Stret]

Originally posted by Scrub:

"would the thing that comes with a downside be better without a downside?"
Yeah?

well clearly the post was talking in terms of 'fun' less so 'power'

Originally posted by SharkPlush:

Take the 2 free jokers per round card and then sell most of the extras.

you cant depend on finding one single joker during the early game, after you unlock everything
you can technically do that with other decks

and theres other economy jokers too