Thoughts on nebula deck?

[LogicCubeRL]

The telescope voucher is certainly powerful but i always find the one consumable slot so limiting, i feel like the nebula deck's modifier is a net negative but i could be wrong and i'm curious what yall think

[Coldflame]

it's better than it looks

if you plan around it, the guaranteed telescope from the start of the game lets you centralise your build early without being at fear of RNG, you can fish for a hand joker ante 1 and then hard commit to it with a steady flow of planets which is a fairly free, less joker dependent, ante 8 clear

loss of a consumable slot is definitely not ideal but can be played around in most cases

it isn't quite competitive with the best decks, but it's definitely far from a net negative

[AlphaGodith]

i rarely hold onto consumables for more than one round anyway, so it doesn't matter much to me to begin with, and being able to focus into one hand type is pretty great. it's not my favorite deck, but it's far from a 'net negative', imo.

[RazzberryMocha]

As with everything in Balatro, it depends. -1 consumable sucks quite a bit for a variety of reasons, main ones being the fool, emperor, and tarot generators are all significantly worse along with most tarots being slightly worse. Often it can force you to use a consumable at an inopportune time just to get value.
As for the starting telescope, it can be incredibly powerful but also a downside at times. It can accelerate the direction you are given in a run incredibly fast, but you need to acquire that direction early enough in the first place. Sometimes you find your direction too late or wish to pivot and the telescope becomes a detriment, making each planet pack contain effectively one less planet.

[ima]

Definitely one of the worst deck there is.

[JasonS]

Its strong for hands that you can hit consistently without too much deck fixing, like high card and Flush.

[kone]

Telescope voucher is incredibly powerful from the start. The world's your oyster. You can force any hand, have it scale fast when supplied with good economy.
I prefer Straights with Nebula Deck because the scaling really keeps up even in Gold Stake, carrying the early game too and you don't have to worry about chips ever.

[kripcision]

i like it for high card builds

[Ica]

It feels like a net negative to me too, but only very slightly. Even then it might just be a matter of playstyle.

I really like blue and purple seals, and with the Nebula deck there's very often times when I could get more than one card from the seals if only I had another consumable slot. Other negatives mentioned by RazzberryMocha apply too.

[doingwork]

IMO worst deck in the game. Definitely the one I have the most trouble with. I would take a deck with 0 modifiers over it 100% of the time.

Having 1 consumable is brutal, Emperor and High Priestess are now very weak, blue seals are weaker as only 1 will work for you now, taking only 1 consumable is difficult, it weakens thinks like Cartomancer since you need to have the 1 slot free, etc. Its a huge weakness.

Telescope is fine, but its absolutely not worth the loss of a consumable slot. IMO having blue seals on work on 1 slot can already offset the benefit of telescope alot of games. Telescope itself is kind of meh depending on what build you are running. Can be good can be bad, never feels essential.

[Ica]

Originally posted by doingwork:

IMO worst deck in the game. Definitely the one I have the most trouble with. I would take a deck with 0 modifiers over it 100% of the time.

Have you played black deck much? I think it's clearly worse than the nebula.

[doingwork]

Originally posted by Ica:

Originally posted by doingwork:

IMO worst deck in the game. Definitely the one I have the most trouble with. I would take a deck with 0 modifiers over it 100% of the time.

Have you played black deck much? I think it's clearly worse than the nebula.

Black deck is fine. Upper-middle IMO. Gotta skip the first blind. Black deck I think I beat orange and gold first try and most of my deep ante runs have used it.

[RazzberryMocha]

Originally posted by doingwork:

Originally posted by Ica:

Have you played black deck much? I think it's clearly worse than the nebula.

Black deck is fine. Upper-middle IMO. Gotta skip the first blind. Black deck I think I beat orange and gold first try and most of my deep ante runs have used it.

Black deck is objectively the worst deck in the game and it's not even close. After that it comes down to personal opinion. I'd personally say anaglyph is the second worse followed by erratic, magic, then nebula, though all decks besides black deck are strong.

[doingwork]

Originally posted by RazzberryMocha:

Originally posted by doingwork:

Black deck is fine. Upper-middle IMO. Gotta skip the first blind. Black deck I think I beat orange and gold first try and most of my deep ante runs have used it.

Black deck is objectively the worst deck in the game and it's not even close. After that it comes down to personal opinion. I'd personally say anaglyph is the second worse followed by erratic, magic, then nebula, though all decks besides black deck are strong.

Well when you play the subpar strategy of not skipping the first blind that makes sense. Black is weak early and you play a weak early strategy, I get it. I have 0 problems with black deck.

I legit think our brains just work differently for this game, like saying Nebula is better than Magic? Both give a voucher, then one gives 2 fools (arguably better than the $10 from gold deck in many runs) and the other gives you -1 consumable. Magic in VERY powerful. I've walked out of Ante 1 with $40 before if you find a hermit early. Nebula is very not.

[RazzberryMocha]

Originally posted by doingwork:

Originally posted by RazzberryMocha:

Black deck is objectively the worst deck in the game and it's not even close. After that it comes down to personal opinion. I'd personally say anaglyph is the second worse followed by erratic, magic, then nebula, though all decks besides black deck are strong.

Well when you play the subpar strategy of not skipping the first blind that makes sense. Black is weak early and you play a weak early strategy, I get it. I have 0 problems with black deck.

I legit think our brains just work differently for this game, like saying Nebula is better than Magic? Both give a voucher, then one gives 2 fools (arguably better than the $10 from gold deck in many runs) and the other gives you -1 consumable. Magic in VERY powerful. I've walked out of Ante 1 with $40 before if you find a hermit early. Nebula is very not.

Skipping the first blind is a fine strategy if you are only wanting to win a single run and nothing more (even though skipping the large blind is often way better of a decision), if you want to develop a win streak or have a decent win rate you should never skip the first blind unless if it's the $25 tag, which even then it's up for debate. I can guarantee you I probably have more success on black deck gold stake than you do even with my "subpar strategy." I have a 30-40% win rate on gold stake, and I'd estimate it'd drop to 20-30% on black deck, but I guess I'm the bad player here who is too blind to see that my proven strategy is actually bad because someone who can't win without the "optimal start" said so.
Black deck is objectively the weakest deck. The upside of +1 joker slot is fine, but not anything incredible. The downside of -1 hand is a massive runkiller since it massively impacts econ and point scoring, the two most important things in the game. The upside only comes into play once you get past the brutal early game the downside puts you through.