White Stake, my absolute bane.

[Sasha]

So, I have played a bit of Balatro. I love it. I can't play it consistently for hours on end, but I love it. And more often than not, it really doesn't feel too bad when losing. However, I am starting to get a bit frustrated and discouraged by the fact that I have never made it out of white stake, and I have only once actually reached Ante 8. Most of the rest of the game is locked away because of that. I'd like to do challenges, or... whatever else it has to offer, but alas, I just can't make it, no matter how much I try.

Maybe I just don't get the game. Maybe I don't understand how it works. Or... idk. Is there some sort of definitive guide that I could maybe look up and learn? I want to keep playing because it's fun, but endlessly losing like that is starting to take a toll.

[CMDR Shven]

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

I don't know. I feel like this is weighing down my sanity. I don't understand how this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game works at all. People say "Yeah well just arrange your jokers left to right because that's how effects trigger, so put your +mult to the left of xmult". I did. But somehow it triggers xmult just randomly, I get +mult, then xmult, then +mult again. I try to arrange my hand so it also triggers properly but nah... the game still triggers effects willy-nilly.

I don't understand what cards work with each other, I don't understand a damn thing about how this thing even counts scores/hands/whatever, and after trying to read stuff only to just... be unable to actually put ANYTHING from there properly into practice, I'm really just too close to banging my head to a wall and calling it a day.

The game absolutely does not trigger anything willy-nilly. Everything always executes in a very predictable, prescribed order. If you're not well versed in the game it can definitely be overwhelming trying to predict how things unfold. But as a general rule, effects on cards trigger one by one as they're scored, any relevant joker effects trigger as a response to each card being played in turn as well, then after all cards are scored jokers trigger their passive effects from left to right. Then after that any in-hand effects like steel trigger.

I'd definitely recommend watching some streamers playing either on gold stake or doing high score runs. See how they arrange their cards, what jokers the avoid, how they play, etc. Even after playing on gold stake exclusively for probably 100 hours I started watching streamers and still picked up little things that hadn't occurred to me before. The game is easy to pick up but the curve to high optimization is very steep.

And don't neglect your economy. Money is king. Regardless of your build you should be prioritizing making at least $2-3 per round in interest. Don't buy vouchers in the small blind shop, save them for the next round after you've gained more interest off your $10+ principal. Having even a few extra dollars per shop is a huge game changer.

[Sasha]

Nguyên văn bởi malogoss:

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

Next blind, 7.5k. Easy. I made more before. Well, 5 hands and 4 discards later, 5k, game over.

What type of hand were you mainly playing and what were your other jokers aside from Chicot?

I was still trying pairs/two-pairs/three of a kind stuff. As for the Jokers, I actually really forgot after getting so pissed off, I remember I had Stencil and that one Joker that gives 30 chips for pairs, and... I don't know what else. Oh, and the one that gives 0.25 xmult for every card added to pack. It was at x1 mult.

I really didn't find anything better but I needed some Jokers so I planned to swap out Stencil for something else when I got a better option, but never got to. Shop kept throwing money Jokers at me but I wasn't doing bad with money.

[Sasha]

Nguyên văn bởi CMDR Shven:

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

I don't know. I feel like this is weighing down my sanity. I don't understand how this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game works at all. People say "Yeah well just arrange your jokers left to right because that's how effects trigger, so put your +mult to the left of xmult". I did. But somehow it triggers xmult just randomly, I get +mult, then xmult, then +mult again. I try to arrange my hand so it also triggers properly but nah... the game still triggers effects willy-nilly.

I don't understand what cards work with each other, I don't understand a damn thing about how this thing even counts scores/hands/whatever, and after trying to read stuff only to just... be unable to actually put ANYTHING from there properly into practice, I'm really just too close to banging my head to a wall and calling it a day.

The game absolutely does not trigger anything willy-nilly. Everything always executes in a very predictable, prescribed order. If you're not well versed in the game it can definitely be overwhelming trying to predict how things unfold. But as a general rule, effects on cards trigger one by one as they're scored, any relevant joker effects trigger as a response to each card being played in turn as well, then after all cards are scored jokers trigger their passive effects from left to right. Then after that any in-hand effects like steel trigger.

I'd definitely recommend watching some streamers playing either on gold stake or doing high score runs. See how they arrange their cards, what jokers the avoid, how they play, etc. Even after playing on gold stake exclusively for probably 100 hours I started watching streamers and still picked up little things that hadn't occurred to me before. The game is easy to pick up but the curve to high optimization is very steep.

And don't neglect your economy. Money is king. Regardless of your build you should be prioritizing making at least $2-3 per round in interest. Don't buy vouchers in the small blind shop, save them for the next round after you've gained more interest off your $10+ principal. Having even a few extra dollars per shop is a huge game changer.

Yeah, I don't know, but I kept trying to mess around with the card/Joker placement and I couldn't figure out why at times it just kept triggering xmult BEFORE +mult even though xmult was pretty much the last Joker to the right. Even after arranging my cards so that the card that should trigger xmult was aaaaall the way to the right, too. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but...

As for the watching streamers thing? Sadly, I'm not really the guy who watches things and learns anything. Like I said, I tried reading stuff, I tried watching guides, but the most I understood of it all is "xmult to the right of +mult" and I can't even make THAT work properly.

As for the economy part, that's the only thing I'm doing alright with. BUT, the massive problem is that I just struggle until I manage to actually get the money because I have to avoid buying anything early game and then as the blinds go up I end up not having enough stuff to pass them.

[CMDR Shven]

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

I really didn't find anything better but I needed some Jokers so I planned to swap out Stencil for something else when I got a better option, but never got to. Shop kept throwing money Jokers at me but I wasn't doing bad with money.

If you can take more money jokers without hurting your score, even for one round, it's usually worth it. More money next round even if only for an additional reroll.

[Goblin]

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

Yeah, I don't know, but I kept trying to mess around with the card/Joker placement and I couldn't figure out why at times it just kept triggering xmult BEFORE +mult even though xmult was pretty much the last Joker to the right. Even after arranging my cards so that the card that should trigger xmult was aaaaall the way to the right, too. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but...

This is the order things trigger in:
-Initial hand score based on level
-Boss effect triggers (if any, mainly matters for the halving chips/mult boss)
-On Hand X played jokers activate effects (such as DNA, or Ride the Bus' scaling/reset for instance), but don't score yet (that happens during Unconditional below)
-Each card in the hand is scored, and possibly triggers jokers saying "when X is scored" like Bloodstone in order from left to right. (If there's multiple jokers trigerred by one card, those activate left to right)
-Held in hand effects trigger, both steel and jokers (Baron, Raised Fist), in left to right order based on the cards held in hand themselves
-Unconditional jokers trigger, as well as their editions, left to right

So for the most part, you only need to learn to not rely on unconditional +mult if you're trying to use scored or held in hand xmult. Photograph doesn't benefit from Ride the Bus, for instance. And when using Photograph, putting your first face card in a hand to the right of possible +mult cards is important. This needs to be done manually, since default sorting usually puts face cards on the left of the hand.

[malogoss]

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

I was still trying pairs/two-pairs/three of a kind stuff. As for the Jokers, I actually really forgot after getting so pissed off, I remember I had Stencil and that one Joker that gives 30 chips for pairs, and... I don't know what else. Oh, and the one that gives 0.25 xmult for every card added to pack. It was at x1 mult.

I really didn't find anything better but I needed some Jokers so I planned to swap out Stencil for something else when I got a better option, but never got to. Shop kept throwing money Jokers at me but I wasn't doing bad with money.

I'll try to explain why you lost. It's kind of crucial you get an idea of why you lost at ante 4. If you don't, you'll just repeat the same pattern and lose until end of time.

You lost because of a bad/weird/low scoring joker mix. Let me explain.

Chicot generates 0 point.

Hologram is a VERY good joker, I'd even say in general, think twice before skipping a Hologram when offered one. That said, yours was still at 1x. So it also was generating 0 point, just like Chicot.

+50 chips for a pair is the kind of joker you'll sometime grab at ante 1-2, but ignore anywhere else in a run. Basically, you want to get rid of it ASAP. There are many better chips generators, if you want a chip generator at all.

Stencil is an awkward joker. In your case, it was your 4th or 5th joker. If it was your 4th, then it was acting as a x2 joker. That is not a lot. When I said your +50 chip joker was not good, you have to understand that a x2 Stencil contributes about the same amount to your hand score. x2 to mult, applied to a low level Pair without any +mult joker is really bad. Maybe it was a tiny bit better than that if you had +4mult enhanced cards, but it's still not great.

If your Stencil was your 5th joker, then it was a cosmetic joker that did nothing good for you. Exactly like your Hologram, no contribution to your score. In this case, you had another joker you don't remember, but it was not enough to save you.

So you were bound to lose. It's just the reality of things. Two xmult jokers at 1x each plus a legendary joker that does not contribute to score may have a decorative value, but not much else. I guess they make Temperance worth a bit more if you use one, but that's pretty much it.

More money is ALWAYS good. At ante 4 you should have an economy joker in your lineup if you were ever offered one. It lets you reroll to see more jokers if you need some. It lets you buy arcana packs to shape your deck. It lets you buy standard packs to get blue seals, gold cards, purple seals, which are all high value when found early. I'd say skipping early economy jokers is a bad play, even if you think money is not an issue. You would have found something good by spending that money, something to replace the +50 chips joker, or maybe found a stone card that is the equivalent of that joker but leaves a joker slot free for other jokers.

At ante 4 you probably want something like a +chips joker, one or two +mult jokers, an economy joker and whatever you find to fill the remaining slots. You can even carry a joker that generates no direct score and no direct money, especially at ante 4. Something like Cartomancer for example. Or the clown that gives a free reroll. Or Certificate to get some seal cards. I won't go through all the possibilities, but many jokers can help at ante 4.

Lack of scoring jokers made you lose. Stencil with a full lineup is not much help. No +mult jokers is never good, no matter what ante you are at. When people try to help by saying to place xmult jokers on the right, they are all assuming you have at minimum a +mult joker to make the xmult worth something.

One of the toughest challenges in the game is one where you can't have jokers. You pretty much tried that challenge, given what your jokers were. If you want an easier time, don't neglect scoring jokers. Which often starts by not neglecting economy jokers, that give you the money needed to buy whatever you need, and keeping a $25+ bankroll to generate interest every single round.

Better luck next time. Hope you can see what you could have done differently.

[CMDR Shven]

Nguyên văn bởi malogoss:

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

I was still trying pairs/two-pairs/three of a kind stuff. As for the Jokers, I actually really forgot after getting so pissed off, I remember I had Stencil and that one Joker that gives 30 chips for pairs, and... I don't know what else. Oh, and the one that gives 0.25 xmult for every card added to pack. It was at x1 mult.

I really didn't find anything better but I needed some Jokers so I planned to swap out Stencil for something else when I got a better option, but never got to. Shop kept throwing money Jokers at me but I wasn't doing bad with money.

I'll try to explain why you lost. It's kind of crucial you get an idea of why you lost at ante 4. If you don't, you'll just repeat the same pattern and lose until end of time.

You lost because of a bad/weird/low scoring joker mix. Let me explain.

Chicot generates 0 point.

Hologram is a VERY good joker, I'd even say in general, think twice before skipping a Hologram when offered one. That said, yours was still at 1x. So it also was generating 0 point, just like Chicot.

+50 chips for a pair is the kind of joker you'll sometime grab at ante 1-2, but ignore anywhere else in a run. Basically, you want to get rid of it ASAP. There are many better chips generators, if you want a chip generator at all.

Stencil is an awkward joker. In your case, it was your 4th or 5th joker. If it was your 4th, then it was acting as a x2 joker. That is not a lot. When I said your +50 chip joker was not good, you have to understand that a x2 Stencil contributes about the same amount to your hand score. x2 to mult, applied to a low level Pair without any +mult joker is really bad. Maybe it was a tiny bit better than that if you had +4mult enhanced cards, but it's still not great.

If your Stencil was your 5th joker, then it was a cosmetic joker that did nothing good for you. Exactly like your Hologram, no contribution to your score. In this case, you had another joker you don't remember, but it was not enough to save you.

So you were bound to lose. It's just the reality of things. Two xmult jokers at 1x each plus a legendary joker that does not contribute to score may have a decorative value, but not much else. I guess they make Temperance worth a bit more if you use one, but that's pretty much it.

More money is ALWAYS good. At ante 4 you should have an economy joker in your lineup if you were ever offered one. It lets you reroll to see more jokers if you need some. It lets you buy arcana packs to shape your deck. It lets you buy standard packs to get blue seals, gold cards, purple seals, which are all high value when found early. I'd say skipping early economy jokers is a bad play, even if you think money is not an issue. You would have found something good by spending that money, something to replace the +50 chips joker, or maybe found a stone card that is the equivalent of that joker but leaves a joker slot free for other jokers.

At ante 4 you probably want something like a +chips joker, one or two +mult jokers, an economy joker and whatever you find to fill the remaining slots. You can even carry a joker that generates no direct score and no direct money, especially at ante 4. Something like Cartomancer for example. Or the clown that gives a free reroll. Or Certificate to get some seal cards. I won't go through all the possibilities, but many jokers can help at ante 4.

Lack of scoring jokers made you lose. Stencil with a full lineup is not much help. No +mult jokers is never good, no matter what ante you are at. When people try to help by saying to place xmult jokers on the right, they are all assuming you have at minimum a +mult joker to make the xmult worth something.

One of the toughest challenges in the game is one where you can't have jokers. You pretty much tried that challenge, given what your jokers were. If you want an easier time, don't neglect scoring jokers. Which often starts by not neglecting economy jokers, that give you the money needed to buy whatever you need, and keeping a $25+ bankroll to generate interest every single round.

Better luck next time. Hope you can see what you could have done differently.

A+ good advice. Particularly on the dead jokers. None of the legendary jokers inherently contribute anything to score, aside from Triboulet, which only works with Queens and Kings. All of them require some setup to help your build. Chicot is arguably the worst legendary because it never contributes to score and most boss blinds are easily mitigated with smart playing anyway. Legendary jokers look nice on your belt but if they're not helping then they're not helping. I'll admit even as much as I've played the game I still get complacent sometimes with a shiny joker roster and forget to actually get stuff that scores points and lose.

[RiptheBlood]

For the first 1 or 2 Antes, its tempting to save money and be stingy, but its more important to not lose. The sooner you can get ANY Joker that adds multiplier, even the really bad ones, the faster you can start saving money to boost your economy. The basic +4 Mult Joker is enough to save money the first 2 Antes with maybe 1 other random chip/Mult Joker, you just need high Mult hands like Full House or flushes. You can always sell later, but early on you need that push to snowball yourself. More often than not, the voucher with -1 Ante really helps Even if you feel like you're in a good spot, its a tremendous power boost (especially on Ante 1, going to Ante 0 is stupidly easy)

Otherwise you have 2 main goals, get a Joker that can give you money, and find the first Joker with a xMult instead of a +Mult. Additive won't get you far, you NEED multipliers. Once you find one, thats your playstyle. Whether it be buying a ton of planet cards, adding cards to your deck, or enhancement cards, the early you can find one the better because once you hit Ante 6, theres not much time left to make them good enough.

Otherwise keep an eye out for any Joker that gives bonuses when a card is played instead of a flat bonus. +4 per card is better than a flat +4. There aren't any multipliers for chips, so I usually sell Jokers with chips later on or keep just 1 since multiplying scales so much higher. Do not forget planet cards. Once you found your playstyle, leveling up that hand does wonders, but I usually get planets mid-game around Ante 4 or 5 after I start making a lot of cash.

[Sasha]

Well, guys, after reading all your helpful comments, and with all the due thanks for all your help, I am happy to report I am out of the white stake! I WON!

On top of having Balatro here, I also have it on my phone. I played a decent amount of time there too. Well, today, I start a run while on break at work.

I get offered Riff-Raff after the first blind, so I take it. On the Boss Blind of Ante 1, my Joker line-up was full and okay-ish for Ante 2. Meanwhile, that also saved me a bit of coin, which I invested into some money-doubling tarot cards, which very quickly put me up at around 50-ish dollars.

By Ante 4 I was juggling the economy, keeping it steady while buying out the shop, doing one or 2 rerolls decently, and began swapping out the random jokers offered by Riff-Raff with others, starting out with Riff-Raff.

Quickly enough, my efficiency was high enough that I was pulling about two times the score on each blind, all the while still searching for better Jokers, upgrading my hands using some very tricky juggling between planet cards and tarot cards that give you the last planet card you played, a few Wheels of Fortune which did not work, and a LOT of enhanced cards through tarot. By the game's end, more than half of my deck was enhanced cards.

I mostly played Full House, which was my most upgraded hand too, sitting at 7, while the rest varied from 4 to 7.

I also got a few vouchers along the way, an extra discard, a couple of other things, and by Ante 8, my line-up was as follows:

1. Abstract Joker

2. Even Steven (Foil)

3. Blue Joker

4. Jolly Joker

5. Driver's License.

And, lo and behold, I BEAT the Ante 8 boss blind within 2 hands.

I tried my best to follow some of the things you all have pointed out and it worked. It probably isn't nearly an optimal build, and I will try to see how far along the endless run can I go, but... I won!

This was all done with a red deck, by the way.

So, thank you all for all your help, honestly, and for the patience! I'll do my best to keep following your advice into the Steam game and hopefully win here as well!

[ulzgoroth]

Not what I'd call a great build - you will likely get much stronger setups as you go on - but good enough to win is good enough to win! Congratulations, first clear is the hardest.

(Blue is pretty decent at what it does assuming your deck isn't thin, Abstract is unimpressive but solidly okay, Jolly is rubbish, Even Steven probably can do something strong but you'd need tricks to get more out of it. Nothing bad to say about Driver's License though.)

[Sasha]

Nguyên văn bởi ulzgoroth:

Not what I'd call a great build - you will likely get much stronger setups as you go on - but good enough to win is good enough to win! Congratulations, first clear is the hardest.

(Blue is pretty decent at what it does assuming your deck isn't thin, Abstract is unimpressive but solidly okay, Jolly is rubbish, Even Steven probably can do something strong but you'd need tricks to get more out of it. Nothing bad to say about Driver's License though.)

Well, hey, Jolly Joker worked okay given that I was doing Full House with some Two Pair/Three of a Kind/Four of a Kind sprinkled in. I prolly could've gotten something way better but eh, as you say, good enough to win is good enough to win.

[CMDR Shven]

Congrats. Riff raff is surprisingly good very early. Worst case scenario it's generating two jokers for you to sell every round. (If they're not points-scoring and you don't need them make sure you sell them before you play your last hand because it might bump you up to a higher interest tier.)

[malogoss]

Nguyên văn bởi Sasha:

Well, guys, after reading all your helpful comments, and with all the due thanks for all your help, I am happy to report I am out of the white stake! I WON! (...)

GG!

Riff-Raff is an A+ joker at the start of a run, glad you could turn that into a win.
Your end lineup is good enough, my main comment would be to try to have at least 1 scaling joker. You had a decent economy, usually that means you can find a scaling joker pretty fast. And things snowball from there.

In your case, with all those enhanced cards, that means a Fortune Teller would have been great. And it's one of those jokers that scales even before you buy it, which makes it very, very good.

Your +mult jokers were not that great for ante 8, but hey, a win is a win, and that final lineup had 5 scoring jokers, that's improvement :D

Well done, good luck with other decks and higher stakes!

[Xan Calderilla]

Happy to hear you made it, hope i can too soon.

[Sasha]

Nguyên văn bởi Xan Calderilla:

Happy to hear you made it, hope i can too soon.

Don't give up, friend! And take the advice of the people here, they know what they're talking about! Good luck!