Teach me how to graduate from flush

[GDJ]

So I’m loving the game, 14/15 decks unlocked and beat at white stakes minimum, but how exactly do I graduate from basic flush decks and the associated jokers?

I realize the weight of RNG, but what am I hoping for to craft a good high card/pair deck? Those seem to be the mid-late game wicked decks, but I can’t seem to get anything going.

Basically, I’m stuck at orange stake and can’t unlock the final deck because I rely too much on flush decks and need some advice.

Have a great day, balatro bros and balatro babes.

GDJ

[Casual Pheasant]

The joker that adds +mult per time hand has been played and the 3x for playing the same hand (forgot the names). Other jokers are whatever fits your current deck.

Then just get enhanced aces, stone cards and High Card planets.
The voucher that gives most used hand in planet packs is very useful.

at least this is how I did it

Good luck

[Ronald Brain]

-Learn to use scaling Joker. Green Joker, Ride the Bus, Spare Trouser, etc... gets stronger the more hands you play.
-Eco on early game if you can win with 1-2 Joker. If a +4 Mult per suit shows up, grab it and then play through the first 2 Ante without buying anything. Getting to $25 early = more interest to spare each round.
-xMult Jokers are powerful, but can be risky. Hologram needs lots of booster pack, Constellation needs lots of Planets, Throwback requires tons of skips, etc... Take the xMult Joker that are easier to achieve, like The Duo / Trio, Card Sharp.
-Take the banana if you can, it unlocks Cavendish down the line. This is also risky, but worth it.
-Consider keeping one +Chips Joker around, it boost your score significantly.
-Temporary Jokers are useful to blow through early antes. Ice Cream, Popcorn, Seltzer are worth taking if they're offered early enough.
-DON'T take rare Jokers if they aren't doing anything immediately, as you may not survive long enough for them to be useful. Getting a single Blueprint in first blind is useless, you may lose the Big Blind given bad RNG.

[Amplify]

Very simply, stop focusing on jokers that proc on specific hand types. There's a few like "Runner" can can be good, I had one that granted 400 chips to every hand last night, but it depends on your deck.

It's a matter of learning which cards scale well and which don't. For example half joker and gros michel are fantastic early on but you can get better ones later, like the fortune teller or (with the abandoned deck) ride the bus.


You want one joker that just provides chips depending on what you can get and make work with your deck, some decent options include:
Banner, Ice Cream (early on), Hiker, Bull, Square joker, Runner, Castle, Stone Joker (with enough stone cards), Stuntman.
Alternately two foil jokers are an acceptable replacement. Stone cards are your friend.

You want one joker that just provides flat mult fairly unconditionally, some decent options include:
Joker, Popcorn, Half Joker, Gros Michel, Misprint, Raised Fist, Abstract Joker, Mystic Summit, Swashbuckler (all these for early on to get the run going), Fortune Teller, Ride The Bus (with abandoned deck), Supernova, Shoot The Moon, Bootstraps. Flash Card, Fibonacci can work but is situational.
Having a holo joker or two as well helps.

You want two or three jokers that just provide mult multipliers. Some decent options are:
Blackboard, Cavendish, Card Sharp, Vampire, Hologram, Baseball Card, Ramen, Campfire, Throwback, Driver's License, the legendary jokers other than Chicot.
Madness can work in the right deck on its own, or if all your other jokers are eternal. If Madness is eternal, you can dupe it. Baron or Joker Stencil can work for the right deck. Obelisk or Planetarium or Hit The Road if you're desperate. Acrobat if you don't have better options. Glass Joker if you have gotten a lot of glass cards for whatever reason. The Duo if you don't mind being locked into pairs. Steel Joker is good once you have a few steel cards.
More polychrome is always good, as well as more steel cards.

Utility joker(s). This is extremely situational and depends on what your options are, but always keep an eye out for and consider these depending on your situation:
Blueprint (must buy), Brainstorm, Invisible Joker, Criminal, Burnt Joker, Cartomancer, Showman, Certificate, Trading Card, To The Moon, Riff-Raff, Sixth Sense, DNA, Space Joker, Business Card, Hack, Delayed Gratification, Marble Joker, Four Fingers / Shortcut if trying to level up Runner,
Check your situation and decide based on that for if any would help you.

[Winter Wolf]

Campfire seems pretty awful since it resets its scaling every boss ante. What makes it good enough to include in that list?

[Zelakon]

Originally posted by Winter Wolf:

Campfire seems pretty awful since it resets its scaling every boss ante. What makes it good enough to include in that list?

It's easily one of the best jokers in the game, but benefits most from vouchers that make tarots and planets appear more often in the shop, so that you can buy 'n' sell several of those to buff it to >5x every round.

[Amplify]

Originally posted by Winter Wolf:

Campfire seems pretty awful since it resets its scaling every boss ante. What makes it good enough to include in that list?

The ability to get +0.5x mult that applies unconditionally to all hands on demand just by buying and selling something and it lasts the entire ante is strong. ESPECIALLY if you get the vouchers for cheaper shop items and re-roll discounts and then you can buy any tarot or planet for $1 and sell it for $1, getting the buff in the process. Even without those it will still get you through ante 8 which is all you really need and some of them like the Emperor and Empress can effectively be double sold.

There's other scaling mult multiplying jokers you can build your run around that will simply give you better and more consistent values, but Campfire is a great compliment for them or just on its own if it's all you can get. If you can get multiple jokers instead that each give 3x mult or better then sure go for those, but definitely don't sleep on it.

[Zelakon]

My way of graduating out of flush-reliance was to realise that the counter-intuitive gameplay of focusing more on cards *held in hand* (rather than poker hands you play) have a much higher potential score ceiling.

More specifically, trying to fill out your deck with steel cards seems to be the most OP method in general, especially if you're also playing glass cards on top. This alongside levelling up high card / pair and playing those instead of 5-carders. The best jokers to complement this play-style are Mime and/or Baron (if you choose to steel kings).

So if you really focus on buying arcana packs as often as possible and hunting for chariot, death and fool cards (plus the odd hanged man for thinning if you're duplicating too many), combined with the joker strategy @Amplify has mentioned above, you'll smash it for sure!

[GDJ]

So ironically I beat orange stake and unlocked Erratix Deck finally.

…using a flush deck, haha. Spades on spades with scaling flush jokers.

On to trying to figure out the Plasma Deck and low-card builds!

Thanks for the great advice, everyone.

[malogoss]

Originally posted by GDJ:

So ironically I beat orange stake and unlocked Erratix Deck finally.

…using a flush deck, haha. Spades on spades with scaling flush jokers.

On to trying to figure out the Plasma Deck and low-card builds!

Thanks for the great advice, everyone.

GG!

That's the thing. You still can beat orange and gold using flush. But high card and pairs are more reliable. Also, you need to invest much less in removing/transforming cards in your deck, so usually you have more money for other things.

Card Sharp
Hologram
Blackboard
Supernova
Bull
Burnt joker
Half joker
Banner
Splash
Acrobat
Stuntman
Campfire

Those jokers all work very well in high card/pairs builds. Others too, that's just a list made quickly, not meant to list absolutely everything good.