Are Face Card builds a trap?

[AlWrite87]

The Plant: All face cards are debuffed.
The Mark: All face cards are drawn face down.
2 Bosses that hard counter your bread and butter. What's the point in building around face cards?

[RazzberryMocha]

Face cards have some very powerful synergies with jokers such as photograph or sock and buskin, along with some nice supportive pieces such as smiley and scary face. Also, you start out with 12 face cards in your deck, which when combined with how vague face card synergies are is a good start for draw consistency and deck fixing. Scoring 10 chips is also a minor, yet impactful bonus.
For the boos blinds, the plant is the only one worth worrying about, as it will shut off a build entirely reliant on face cards, but a good pivot in the shops will be able to save you if you know your outs. Unless if you're doing a combination of face cards and straights, then the mark isn't that bad.

[HeraldOfOpera]

It's definitely risky, but there's hard counters to pretty much anything you can build. In particular, Baron shenanigans are probably the most realistic way to get high antes.

[Ica]

They're a risk. If your deck relies on a strategy that can be countered easily, get the boss blind reroll voucher or Luchador if either one is available. Sometimes there's also a tag. You know the next boss blind immediately after beating the previous one, so you have three stores time to prepare.

If you don't 100% rely on face cards, you can probably still get some points without them. Maybe you'll need to use all your hands instead of beating the boss in 1-2 hands. This should be an option if you don't have Pareidolia and you haven't done a lot of changes to your deck yet.

Alternatively you could just try to ignore the debuffs if you've upgraded your hands and have at least some jokers that don't care about card type. People beat Verdant Leaf all the time without selling any joker and the same idea applies here.

Face down cards aren't always a huge issue. Tarot cards can reveal a face down card, and often I just select a bunch of face down cards and hope that there's a pair there. This seems to work more often than not. Might work less well though if you rely on 4-5 card hands.

[AnonTwo]

You have options

1. Obviously you can do the deck without relying on face cards. But it 'will' be weaker because both the core notation builds rely on a face card (Baron for mime deck, Photograph for chad deck)

2. If you get the boss reroll voucher, then you can just reroll plant

3. Mark is easy to play around, because most decks will be built around high card anyway

4. Honestly if you have the core of this build, unless you're late into it you usually have a slot for luchador who can disable it

It has RNG even then, but there's no real reward for reaching the notation levels so obviously it takes RNG to get past the part of the game that was planned around.

It's worth mentioning that unless you get the setup for this build nice and early, chances are there are far more reliable builds if you're just trying to do ante 8. Burnt Joker is my beloved because even on a high card it's basically +1 mult per round and has high consistency. Also it's one of the few ways to build mult that also transitions into notation builds.

[Python Trench-coat]

None of the build options are traps, you will occasionally have boss debuffs that shut certain builds off thats why theres re-roll options through some items and tags. Additionally unless you have on played trigger effects like card enhancements, or +mult as your primary win strategy you likely can be shut down by that type of boss. If your build gets its points from static effects like +chips, +mult, xmult as applied by jokers after cards are scored you can likely still win even with an entirely debuffed hand/hands. I'm completionist+ and i've used every hand type to win in gold stake runs they all work.

[CMDR Shven]

Face cards have some of the best jokers associated with them and multiple options for x mult so they're higher risk, higher reward. But also the mark is generally not that much of a debuff unless you've been only leveling a specific hand type like full house that requires five specific cards. Even then as people have mentioned you can use a variety of tarot cards to reveal information on face down cards. And the plant, like any of the debuff boss blinds, can be brute forced with a high hand level and some generic good quality jokers.

If you're finding yourself running a face card build from early on you need to have a contingency plan for the plant, whether it be the reroll voucher, leveling up an easy hand type like pair or three of a kind, or grabbing jokers that confer x mult or decent base + mult without being dependent on cards scored. Sometimes it won't be enough and the plant will get you but you can do quite a lot to minimize the risk even if you're all in on face cards.

[ulzgoroth]

You frequently won't see the plant, and may need to scramble if you do and don't already have a boss reroll available.

The mark? A strongly developed face deck probably can beat the mark by playing faces without being able to see them. (If you're not set up for just a high-carder, you could try playing flushes that include face cards.)

[AlWrite87]

Some good advice ITT. I won't 100% build around face cards the next time I get Pareidolia.

[Twelvefield]

“A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”
-WOPR/Joshua

I'd argue that the entirety of Balatro is a trap. You can't win, and the time you put into it is gone forever. But Balatro does give you the opportunity to be cleverer than the top of the IQ bell curve.

I just completed a heavy face card build which was fun and successful, up until Violet Vessel. About half my cards were face cards: the best I could do and the most I've ever engineered the deck. No multX jokers, though, not a single one, nor much in the way of financial jokers either.

Showman gave me four of the sunny-face Jokers, though. If I had better Jokers, I feel I would have scored through VV. But if I had better Jokers, I probably wouldn't have gone for a face card build. Damn you, Showman, for being holographic and the first Joker I am dealt.

[RazzberryMocha]

Originally posted by AlWrite87:

Some good advice ITT. I won't 100% build around face cards the next time I get Pareidolia.

I wouldn’t recommend building around face cards because of pareidolia, in fact I’d consider it one of the 2 bad jokers in the game along with Mr. Bones. If you open tarot packs and use strengths/deaths and open card packs you can get a high amount of face cards without needing to dedicate your build around a weak alternative.

[Goof]

if you hit it on ante 7 or 8 it might be difficult if you cant pivot away from face cards, however, you should always try and have a backup plan
planet cards focusing on a single different hand type might help if you have xmultipliers

[Malum]

Originally posted by RazzberryMocha:

"In fact I’d consider it one of the 2 bad jokers in the game along with Mr. Bones."

Mr Bones helped me win my first gold stake run by sacrificing himself. I think he's a bro.

[malogoss]

Originally posted by Malum:

Originally posted by RazzberryMocha:

"In fact I’d consider it one of the 2 bad jokers in the game along with Mr. Bones."

Mr Bones helped me win my first gold stake run by sacrificing himself. I think he's a bro.

Absolutely. If too many jokers were equivalent of Mr Bones, we'd just win every run, that simple.

[RazzberryMocha]

Originally posted by Malum:

Originally posted by RazzberryMocha:

"In fact I’d consider it one of the 2 bad jokers in the game along with Mr. Bones."

Mr Bones helped me win my first gold stake run by sacrificing himself. I think he's a bro.

Undeniably he is a pretty chill guy but is not good outside of cheesing a few ante bosses. If your run is too weak to pass a blind, then chances are one shop visit won't help you pass the immediate next one.

[revlayle]

I used a Mr. Bones like I would a Luchador, I'll grab if I think I can make it thru the ante, but I can maybe still build some strength if I see the right items in the next ante shop.