Any tips on winning a game without playing a flush?

[Thomas Devlin]

So the flush is my bread and butter, more often than not it's the hand I build around, ancient joker is my favorite card, but I realized the other day I have actually never beaten ante 8 without playing a flush. I've been trying it lately to unlock the joker but it has been astonishingly difficult, like it is embarrassing the amount of games I've lost in a row at this point. Does anybody have any tips or good builds that don't rely on flush?

[Twelvefield]

Two Pair, to get to the Ante 8 Boss, is very strong, with several Jokers to support it. Getting Neptune Uranus a few times in your Planet cards will help. Don't forget that Jokers that support Pairs will generally also support Two Pair as well as Full House.

The advantage to Two Pair, apart from the Jokers, is that you only need to play four cards, so then hands are easier to build. You can also build a winning run around Pair and even High Card, but the Jokers you need to support that are not so easy to come by.

It's optimal to have a money Joker so that you build funds quickly, then you can use rerolls to get the Jokers that will really help you out.

EDIT: Uranus, not Neptune. I always get those two confused. I'm not Uranus retentive.

[malogoss]

To not play any flush, you'll have to try to play straights and full house in the early ante. Then, depending on what the game offers you in terms of jokers, if you go with the flow the game could go in any direction.

You could find an early Spare Trousers and there you go. If you build something half good around that joker, Two Pairs will carry you to a win.

You could find an early joker that scales with each hand played. Supernova, Ride the Bus, Green joker. In that case, the natural builds are High Card or Pair. It is important that you then find a source of +chips. Stone cards work very well with those small hands. Bonus cards can helps. But having a +chips joker can save your run. You could also find a Burnt joker. It's one of the best jokers to have, it can level up your Pair each round. Or Blackboard is a strong joker when you play small hands. I won't go through all pros and cons, but High Card and Pair are very reliable, you should never fail to play one. On the scary side, beware, the Needle is one boss that can be problematic if you are not well prepared. Worth noting that Burglar is a nice joker to have with Pair/HC builds AND it also hard counters the Needle. Or just be a bit lucky, never face the Needle, problem solved ;)

Playing straights can be strong too, but it's often tricky. You should still try if you get an opportunity, like a Runner joker, Shortcut, or a Trading Card to help you thin your deck. Bad draws can abruptly end a run so extra draws, a thin deck, bigger hand size, all those things can help a lot. There are ways to make it work. I'd say "high risk, high reward". But experimented players can make it work. Try it, see if you can make it work.

Else, it may sound weird, but 4 of a kind is a very solid build once it gets rolling. All you need is like a Strength tarot card, a Death card, DNA joker, Cryptid spectral card, things like that and 4 of a kind can work. So have as many 9's as possible, for example. Try to destroy other cards except maybe your 6-7-8's because those can become 9's with a few Strength cards. Something nice about playing 4oak is that each Mars planet card you find will help a lot, that hand scales a lot with each level. So much so that skipping a blind to give 4oak +3 levels can be worth it sometimes.

The following does not happen that often, but that's how fast 4oak scales. 1 hand kill on the last boss before any card or any joker scores:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3416982788
But in any case, whatever the deck/stake/hand:
economy rules, scaling jokers are often key, seals can help a lot.

That's it, roll with the jokers you see. Good luck.

[peto]

Other folk have good advice, consider also playing abandoned deck. Less cards to choose from gives you better consistency in picking up good hands.

[Chibi Life]

Originally posted by peto:

Other folk have good advice, consider also playing abandoned deck. Less cards to choose from gives you better consistency in picking up good hands.

Yeah but you also run through your deck very fast with 16 less cards so if you have to keep discarding to get what you need you likely won't have anything leftover to win the run.

Unrelated to that: use tarot cards and spectral cards to copy cards, rank up cards and change cards. Like you death a 2 into a 10, duplicate 10s, copy 10s, pick 10s from standard packs. Next thing you know you'll be making 5 of a kinds which are big points and scale fast with xMulti jokers.

[Last_in_line]

Yes, for me too, 99% of all games are played through a flush. Because this combination is sometimes even easier to make than one pair. And they give quite a lot of chips for a flush. Although yesterday, to unlock the joker, I completed the challenge to win without a flush.

I think the big problem with other combinations is the strong influence of randomness. Sometimes the game seems to deliberately not give you the cards you need, although the deck has a potentially high chance of dropping them. You look into your deck, you may have conditional five deuces, two sevens, you make a reasonable bet on a deuce to collect a combination specifically for it, and not for a seven, but the deuce still does not drop. I look again and again and see vertical rows of undropped cards in all suits, the value that I need for the combination

Advice. I don't know what to advise. Globally, if you can't get a strong combination of cards - get a strong combination of jokers. Sometimes you can get strong jokers that give a lot of points even if you play all sorts of trash from your hand.

[Ronald Brain]

There are a few viable strategies that I tend to use to forgo playing Flush, depending on what the seed RNG throws at me:
-High Card / Pair: Best used in combination with Green / Ride the Bus Joker.
-Two Pair / Full House: Spare Trouser + Square Joker combo, 2 Pairs are easy in early game but you can easily transition to Full House after enough deckfixing.
-3OAK / 4OAK: Might be tricky at first but a couple of Strength / Death or an Ouija spectral card and you will have a better chance at finding your combo.
-Straight / Straight Flush: This is the hardest hand to work toward but they're very strong and can carry the run with just planet cards alone. Shortcut is your best bet, 4 Finger helps too.
-Flush House / Flush Five: These requires heavy deckfixing but if you can work toward them, they score very well and can carry with just enhanced cards and one xMult Joker.

[:3]

start making use of Common jokers. jokers such as Square, Supernova, Bus, Green, Hanging Chad, Blue, are all scalable and in the shop frequently. You should be able to scale them up to an appropriate amount by ante 8. also, always pick up an xmult joker. everything else will be a breeze

[QuantuuM]

You're fishing for 5-card hands over and over, which means you're counting more on luck to get you through. If you play hands with lesser cards, you are much more likely to get to play them.

[Moray Eel]

Learn to love the power of high card with burglar, supernova, card sharp, and burnt joker.

[Carlos Spicywiener]

Straights and full houses. Straights work great with an extra card in hand and an extra discard

[Wheeze the Juice]

highly recommend not playing a flush!

[Carlos Spicywiener]

Originally posted by Wheeze the Juice:

highly recommend not playing a flush!

Unless you play the half hearts half spades deck

[peto]

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

Originally posted by peto:

Other folk have good advice, consider also playing abandoned deck. Less cards to choose from gives you better consistency in picking up good hands.

Yeah but you also run through your deck very fast with 16 less cards so if you have to keep discarding to get what you need you likely won't have anything leftover to win the run.

Deck thinning means you are less likely to draw dead cards. You don't end up drawing your whole deck because you hit a good hand faster. This is basic deck construction strategy.

[Chibi Life]

Originally posted by peto:

Originally posted by Chibi Life:

Yeah but you also run through your deck very fast with 16 less cards so if you have to keep discarding to get what you need you likely won't have anything leftover to win the run.

Deck thinning means you are less likely to draw dead cards. You don't end up drawing your whole deck because you hit a good hand faster. This is basic deck construction strategy.

I don't thin my deck 'that' much. I prefer to clone and focus on 1 or type card ranks and go for guaranteed full houses to 5 of a kinds. Even Flush Fives if I can manage enough tarots.

Death cards are one of my go tos.

I've had problems with the abandoned deck where I'm just getting 2 pairs before I even have anything available to boost 2 pairs so they aren't garbage chips.

Just cuz the abandoned deck starts off 16 cards thinned doesn't make it magically immune to chain drawing bad draws. It only makes it easieir to get what you want but isn't a magical solution to all problems and still requires deck fixing.

You're also out of any joker opportunities that use face cards so that is a limit on potential

[red]

i'd say to play full house (thats how i did it)