Getting that first winning run

Some tips to help those who are having trouble getting their first wins.

What's in this guide

This guide is intended for people who have played some of the game, but are having trouble getting wins. You should have a general idea of how the game works, but might find yourself losing your runs in ante 7 or 8.

I'll be giving you general advice on how the game works, concepts to think about when you're choosing how to play. Some of it you might know, some of it might be new to you, some of it might not make a whole lot of sense right now. You don't need to understand everything, but even learning one thing here should help you get some wins.

The guide is organized so that the most important things are earlier in the guide.

How scoring works

tl;dr: If you don't want to read all of this, just read the IMPORTANT paragraph and the last 2 paragraphs.

There are two components to scoring: chips (in blue) and mult (in red). To get your final score, your chips and mult are multiplied together. In the image here, 160 is the chips and 9 is the mult for the hand.

If your base hand gives you 20 chips and 2 mult, and you play cards that total up to 30 chips, that will give you a total score of 100: (20 + 30) x 2.

From here on out, I'll use the notation AxB for scoring, meaning A chips and B mult.

There are many sources of chips and mult:

• Each poker hand has its own hand level, and increasing the hand level increases both the chips and mult for that hand.
  
• Each card that scores adds a certain amount of chips.
  
• Jokers can give chips or mult.
  
• Cards and jokers can be enhanced to give chips and mult.

IMPORTANT: There's also xMult, shown in-game as X2 rather than +2 for regular mult. xMult will multiply your mult when it occurs. It's very important to note that X2 and +2 are two completely different things! If you have 20 mult and get +2, that's 22. If you have 20 mult and get X2, that's 40.

If your hand is 30x5 and you have a joker that gives X2, that means your score will be 30x5x2, or 300 total.

Let's give a full scenario. You're playing a level 10 Three of a Kind, with a base value of 210x21. Let's say your played cards don't score, maybe because of a boss debuff. You have a Zany Joker (+12 mult if the hand contains three of a kind), Wily Joker (+100 chips if hand contains three of a kind), a Banner (+30 chips per remaining discard) with 3 discards remaining, a Gros Michel (+15 mult), and a joker that doesn't give you any points. All together, that's 400x48, for a total score of 19,200.

Now let's replace Gros Michel (+15 mult) with a Ramen (X2 mult, decreasing when you discard). You haven't discarded since you picked it up, so Ramen is still X2 mult. Now you're scoring 400 chips, 33 mult, and then X2 mult for a total of 66 mult. Now your total score is 26,400.

Quick, but important, aside here. Jokers trigger their effects left to right, and you can rearrange the order of your jokers. Make sure any xMult is on the right of your regular mult, to maximize your points.

Let's say you also replace Zany Joker (+12 mult) with a second Ramen. Your mult is now 21 x 2 x 2, a total of 84. Now you're scoring 33,600. Those X2 mults are much better than those regular old mults.

If you ended up with the base score of 210x21 and then five X2 mults, your score would be a whopping 141,120, much higher than any of those previous scores.

In general, xMult is the most powerful scoring tool.. The reason for this is simple - a X2 will double your score. In order to double your score with chips or mult, you would need to double your chips, or double your mult. In the last example of 210x21 and five X2 mults, in order to match the value of one of the X2s you would need to get +210 chips or +21 mult from a single joker - possible, but there aren't many jokers that could do that.

The general way to look at scoring is like this - you want 1 source of chips, 1 source of mult, and then as much xMult as possible. The source of chips and mult could be as simple as leveling up the hand you're playing, or it could be your playing cards or jokers having chips or mult enhancements, or you could have a joker for each of those. You won't always want this kind of a setup, but you generally do.

Re-order your cards

All of your cards - your jokers, the cards in your hand, and the cards you're playing - can be reordered by dragging them left or right. There are multiple effects this can have on your scoring:

• Re-order your jokers so that jokers that add mult are placed to the left of jokers that multiply your mult. This will make the additional mult from the left jokers get multiplied by the right jokers.
  
• You should re-order the cards you're playing so that cards that add mult like holographic cards (+10 mult) are to the left of ones that multiply mult, like glass cards (x2 mult) and polychrome cards (x1.5 mult).
  
• Cards you hold in hand can also have relevant ordering due to effects like Shoot the Moon (Each Queen held in hand gives +13 Mult) and Baron (Each King held in hand gives X1.5 Mult).
  
• Jokers like Photograph (First played face card gives X2 Mult when scored) and Hanging Chad (Retrigger first played card used in scoring 2 additional times) will apply their effects to the left-most card that you play that fits their criteria.

For example, if you play a Flush that scores using the cards 5 7 8 King Ace, all five cards will score. If you play them in that order, the Hanging Chad will retrigger the 5, and the Photograph will trigger when the King is scored. If your 5 has no enhancements but your Ace is Holographic (+10 mult), you're missing out on points. Moving the Ace to the far left means the Hanging Chad would retrigger that +10 mult - giving you +20 mult - and the Photograph would then multiply that +20 mult because the King will be scored after the Ace. In this case, you should move your Ace to the far left for more points.

Or, depending on how the rest of your score lines up, you might be better off moving the King all the way to the left. This will score the King three times total, and give you the x2 multiplier from Photograph 3 times - that's a x8 bonus. This will most likely end up with a higher score than either of the previous setups, even if the +10 mult doesn't end up getting multiplied by Photograph.

Economy is key

One of the biggest keys to winning runs is getting more money. More money means you can afford to buy more packs, more vouchers, and can afford to reroll the shop more. All of those are very important for building a winning run.

You earn $1 of interest per $5 you have at the end of a round, up to $5 of interest when you have $25. This means that, in general, you want to hold on to $25 at all times.

There are a few exceptions to this:

• If you're not going to win the next round, of course spend your money. There's no use holding on to money if you're going to lose.
  
• Powerful jokers are always worth buying (what's "powerful" will vary, and something you'll be able to evaluate more as you play).
  
• Jokers that make you money can get you back to $25 pretty quickly.
  
• Vagabond (Create a Tarot card if hand is played with $4 or less) requires you to have less money in order to use its effect.

Note that the Green deck doesn't earn interest, so with that deck you can freely spend your money.

Always play 5 cards (except when you shouldn't)

You can play cards that aren't part of your poker hand. They won't score, but you can get rid of them freely by including them in the hand.

For example, 5 5 5 gets you three of a kind, but you can throw in two other cards with it - 5 5 5 K 7 is also three of a kind, but now you've also gotten rid of two cards that might not be useful.

Use this to get rid of cards you don't want and help you build towards the next hand.

There are some exceptions, though:

• Some jokers won't work if you do this, like Half Joker (+20 mult if played hand contains 3 or fewer cards). Make sure playing extra cards won't do anything bad with your jokers.
  
• Some jokers (like Shoot the Moon [Each Queen held in hand gives +13 mult]) and card enhancements (like Gold [+$3 if held in hand at the end of a round] and Steel [X1.5 mult when held in hand]) take effect based on cards held in your hand. It can sometimes be worth holding on to more cards in order to get more of these effects.
  
• The Serpent boss effect is this: After playing a hand or discarding cards, you always draw 3 cards. There's generally no point in getting rid of extra cards against this boss.
  
• The Psychic boss effect forces you to play 5 cards. If you don't play 5 cards, your hand won't score - be sure to play 5 cards! Even if your current situation would benefit from playing fewer cards, you cannot score points against the Psychic unless you play 5 cards.
  
• The Tooth boss makes you lost $1 for each card played - even if those cards don't score. Sometimes it's still useful to play extra cards with your hands, in order to get rid of cards you don't want. For the final hand you play, you definitely don't want to play any extra cards though!

Bigger hands aren't always better

You might think hard-to-build hands, like straight flushes and four of a kind, are better because they score more. Generally, they aren't. The reason for this is that those hands are very unreliable because they're hard to make. A level 50 straight flush doesn't mean anything if you can't make a straight flush.

This also applies to jokers - you usually want to favor jokers that work for easy-to-build hands, at least until you've stacked your deck enough to support hands like four of a kind, five of a kind, flush house, etc.

Weaker hands also have the benefit of using less cards. For example a pair requires only two out of the five card slots, meaning you can throw in up to three extra cards you don't want. You also have the benefit of being able to hold more cards in hand when you only play two, letting you get more effects from Shoot the Moon (Each Queen held in hand gives +13 Mult), Steel cards (x1.5 Mult while this card stays in hand), and more.

Those tough hands also require reworking your deck using tarot cards or jokers - something you don't need to do if you're playing a simple hand. When you need five of a kind, you need a lot of cards of the same rank in your deck. Getting those cards takes time, money, and effort you could put towards something else.

In general, you'll want to aim for the most powerful hand that's easily achievable. High card, pair, and two pair are all pretty safe to build for as a baseline, and you can consider building towards other hands as the run progresses.

Don't start with a build in mind

For the most part, having a strategy in mind when you start a game doesn't help. If you tunnel vision on to a particular strategy, you'll pass on jokers that could easily win you the game. Always look at what you're offered and consider if it will help you win, even if you have to do something like pick up pair-focused cards on the Checkered deck.

A successful run starts with picking good jokers, not picking jokers that fit with what you want to play the most.

Thinner is better

If you've played other card-based roguelites, you're probably familiar with this concept: A thinner deck is better. If you have 10 good cards, you're more likely to draw those cards when your deck is 20 total cards, as opposed to 50 total cards.

Technically what you want is a higher percentage of good cards. You can get that by either removing bad cards (which is usually easier) or adding many good cards. For the most part, you can consider any "regular" cards to be "bad" - a card with no special effects and no synergies with your jokers will generally only be useful for making specific poker hands. You'll still need to be able to make the poker hand you're building towards, so be mindful of the suits of the cards you're adding/removing if you're playing Flushes for example.

In some cases, a "good" card might be very specific - if you're building around a certain joker like the Lucky Cat (This Joker gains X0.25 Mult every time a Lucky card successfully triggers) in which case you want as many Lucky cards as possible.

Sometimes a "good" card is any card you add to your deck, because you're using Hologram (This Joker gains X0.25 Mult every time a playing card is added to your deck).

Sometimes all of your cards are bad and you want to remove a lot of them because you have Erosion (+4 Mult for each card below the deck's starting size in your full deck).

And then sometimes your "good" cards are good specifically because you want to destroy them for the legendary joker Canio (This Joker gains X1 Mult when a face card is destroyed).

When in doubt, it's hard to go wrong with removing random non-enhanced cards from your deck. When you eventually start enhancing cards, you're more likely to draw those with your pre-thinned deck.

One thing to be careful of, which can come up later in a run after you've destroyed a lot of cards, is that you do need a certain amount of cards in your deck in order to actually play hands. If you're playing a Flush build and have 5 Hands, you need at least 25 cards in your deck in order to play all 5 of those flushes.

Ways of destroying cards include:

• Immolate Spectral card (Destroys 5 random cards in hand, but gain $20.) - This is both a great way to thin your deck as well as a good way to get money. One of the best Spectral cards, and it's almost always a good decision to use.
  
• Hanged Man Tarot card (Destroys up to 2 selected cards)
  
• Death Tarot card (Select 2 cards, convert the left card into the right card) - requires you to have a good card to convert a bad one into, but it's effectively -1 bad card and +1 good card.
  
• Trading Card joker (If first discard of round has only 1 card, destroy it and earn $3)
  
• Sixth Sense joker (If first hand of round is a single 6, destroy it and create a Spectral card)

Ways of adding cards include

• Familiar Spectral card (Destroy 1 random card in your hand, but add 3 random Enhanced face cards instead.)
  
• Incantation Spectral card (Destroy 1 random card in your hand, but add 4 random Enhanced numbered cards instead.)
  
• Cryptid Spectral card (Creates 2 exact copies (including Enhancements, Editions and Seals) of a selected card in your hand.)
  
• Standard packs - remember that you can skip taking cards, if none of them are good or you're looking for something specific.
  
• DNA Joker (If first hand of round has only 1 card, add a permanent copy to deck and draw it to hand) - like with Standard packs, you want to make sure you have good cards worth copying.

As you can see, Spectral cards are really good at both destroying cards and adding enhanced cards. Spectral cards also happen to have a lot of effects for enhancing cards, which makes them great for making "good" cards.

There are a couple downsides for Spectral cards. First, Spectral packs give you one fewer option to choose from compared to Arcana packs - Spectral packs are higher risk, higher reward. Second is that their effects are less controlled - random cards destroyed, random cards added. If you already have a lot of good cards, Spectral cards become less useful.

When effects activate

This is a little more advanced, but is really important for helping to understand some jokers and card effects.

There are multiple phases of scoring:

• Playing the hand
  
• Scoring the played cards
  
• Held-in-hand effects
  
• Scoring the jokers

1) Playing the hand

Some jokers take effect when a hand is played. For example, Supernova reads "Adds the number of times poker hand has been played this run to Mult". This means that the hand you've just played will count when determining how much mult Supernova gives.

Another example is Vampire, which reads "This Joker gains X0.1 Mult per scoring Enhanced card played, removes card Enhancement". This happens when the hand is played - that means that it will remove card enhancements before those enhancements can be triggered.

2) Scoring the played cards

Next up, each card in the hand you played will be scored. They are scored from left to right, and this matters for some jokers. For example, Hanging Chad reads "Retrigger first played card used in scoring 2 additional times" - this will happen for the first card (on the left) of the scoring hand.

You can change the order the cards are scored in by dragging them around. If you have a really powerful card you want Hanging Chad to retrigger, then move it to the left of your hand!

This also means that some jokers that give xMult - like Photograph - aren't quite what you may think they are. Photograph reads "First played face card gives X2 Mult when scored", which means it takes place during this phase. That also means it happens before your jokers are scored - if you have some Spare Trousers giving you +100 mult, that won't get multiplied by the effect of Photograph. That doesn't mean Photograph is bad, but you want to get as much mult as possible before the Photograph is triggered in order to maximize its effect.

3) Held-in-hand effects

Some jokers and card enhancements care about cards in your hand. This is when they're done, and they are also done from left to right.

For example, Shoot the Moon reads "Each Queen held in hand gives +13 Mult" - this will happen at this point in scoring.

You can also change the order cards in hand cause their effects by moving them around. If you have Shoot the Moon and Baron (Each King held in hand gives X1.5 Mult), you want your queens to the left of the kings so that you get the mult from the queens multiplied by the xMult from the kings.

4) Scoring the jokers

Last, your other joker effects happen. These also happen from left to right, and you can also move your jokers. Like everything else, you want your mult added before the xMult multiplies it. Any jokers that simply give you chips, mult, or xMult will be scored here, such as Clever Joker (+80 Chips if played hand contains a Two Pair) or Abstract Joker (+3 Mult for each Joker card).

Using Tarot cards effectively

Tarot cards have various effects when used. Some have an effect that applies to your run in general, like Hermit which doubles your money. Others affect the playing cards in your deck. This section is going to be about this type of cards.

The following Tarot cards have effects that are applied to the playing cards in your deck:

• Magician - Enhances 2 selected cards to Lucky Cards
  
• Empress - Enhances 2 selected cards to Mult Cards
  
• Hierophant - Enhances 2 selected cards to Bonus Cards
  
• Lovers - Enhances 1 selected card into a Wild Card
  
• Chariot - Enhances 1 selected card into a Steel Card
  
• Justice - Enhances 1 selected card into a Glass Card
  
• Strength - Increases rank of up to 2 selected cards by 1
  
• Hanged Man - Destroys up to 2 selected cards
  
• Death - Select 2 cards, convert the left card into the right card
  
• Devil - Enhances 1 selected card into a Gold Card
  
• Tower - Enhances 1 selected card into a Stone Card
  
• Star, Moon, Sun, World - Converts up to 3 selected cards to a particular suit

First, it's worth noting that many of these affect more than 1 playing card - you don't need to use them on multiple cards, but it's usually best to do so. You probably already know that, but just in case.

It's possible to get Tarot cards in your consumable slots (the ones next to your jokers) in various ways, such as the Emperor Tarot (Creates 2 random tarot cards). These can be used any time your hand of playing cards are present on the screen.

You can use these Tarot cards during a battle against a small blind/big blind/boss blind, which you probably already know. Some Tarot cards are best used here - for example, if you're doing a Flush build it can be useful to hold on to a Lovers, Star, Moon, Sun, or World Tarot card in order to changes the suits of cards and create a Flush where you didn't have one before.


The less obvious place to use Tarot cards is when you've opened a Spectral or Arcana pack, as in the image above. Both of these packs bring up a random hand of cards for you to use the contained Spectral and Tarot cards on. If you have Tarot cards in your consumable slots (or even a Spectral card), those can also be used here.

For example, in the image above you can use the Strength card in the consumable slot on any of the playing cards while you're looking at this pack. So if you wanted to turn 2 of those Jacks into Queens, you could do that right here.

It's important to note that you need to use your consumable slot Tarot/Spectral cards before the ones in the pack, because once you use 1 card from the pack (or 2 from a Mega pack) you'll be taken back to the shop!

If you find yourself getting more Tarot cards than you can use during a shop, you'll want to make use of Spectral/Arcana packs in order to use those cards. Fill up your consumable slots with Tarot cards, then open a Spectra/Arcana pack. Use your consumable slot Tarots, and then you'll have space for more.

It's often still best to use Tarot cards while you're playing against a blind because you can make use of their effects immediately. But if you're rolling over Magician, Justice, Hierophant, or other Tarot cards in the shop because your consumable slots are full - open Spectral/Arcana packs and use your Tarots there, then buy more! This becomes more important later in the run, when you have enough money that you'll be rerolling the shop more.

Scored vs. Played

Some jokers care about cards being played, while others care about cards being scored.

A card is considered scored when it is part of the poker hand that you made. For example, 2 2 2 4 6 is three of a kind - all of the cards that make up three of a kind (the three 2s) will be scored. When a card is scored, it will add its chips to your chips total, and trigger a lot of joker effects.

Some hands will always have all of their cards scored - five of a kind, for example, will always score all five cards you played, because five of a kind uses all five playing cards.

A card is played when you play it as part of a hand, whether it scores or not. If you play 2 2 2 4 6 for three of a kind, the 4 and 6 have been played even though they have not scored.

For example, Square Joker reads "This Joker gains +4 Chips if played hand has exactly 4 cards". This does not mean that you need to play Two Pair or Four of a Kind just because those hands score with four cards. Square Joker cares about the number of cards you play, not the number of cards that score. 2 5 7 9 will only be a high card hand, but because it played exactly four cards it will buff the Square Joker.

By contrast, most jokers care about cards scoring. For example, Smiley Face reads "Played face cards give +5 Mult when scored". That means the face cards have to be part of the poker hand in order to provide that +5 mult bonus.

This is very key with jokers like Ride the Bus, which reads "This Joker gains +1 Mult per consecutive hand played without a scoring face card". Because Ride the Bus loses its bonus when you score a face card, that means you can freely play face cards as long as they don't make up your poker hand. A hand of 5 5 5 K Q for three of a kind will not reset Ride the Bus, because the K and Q will not score.

What do Stone cards even do?

When you first saw Stone cards, they probably didn't seem very useful to you. Here's what they do:

+50 Chips
No rank or suit

They don't seem particularly useful on first glance. After all, they don't help you make better poker hands.

First, as mentioned above, you don't always want to build for bigger poker hands. If you're playing for Flushes, Stone cards are actively bad - they can't be used to make a flush (or full house, or straight, or...). Absolutely do not add stone cards to your deck if you're making 5-card poker hands.

Where Stone cards really shine is when you're playing simple hands - high card, pair, three of a kind. Two pair as well, but less so. Each of those hands has one or more cards in the hand that won't score. As mentioned above, you can use those spots to get rid of playing cards you don't want in your hand. Another use for those slots is to play Stone cards.

You see, the benefit of Stone cards that isn't immediately obvious is that Stone cards always score. They're +50 chips each for any hand that plays them. That can be a significant amount of chips for a high card/pair hand, since the base chip values those hands get is really low.

There's also another use for Stone cards, and it's with the Tower tarot card. The Tower converts 1 card to a Stone card. In addition to the +50 chips capability, there's another use here - removing the rank and suit of a card. Since Stone cards have no rank, they don't count as face cards when determining whether the Ride the Bus joker will reset. Boss blinds that debuff face cards or suits don't affect Stone cards, either. Converting bad cards into Stone cards is a way to make them useful.

Having no rank or suit can be a downside, though. Take, for example, the Blackboard joker - X3 Mult if all cards held in hand are Spades or Clubs. The problem here is that the Blackboard specifically required all cards in your hand to be Spades or Clubs - Stone cards are not either of those, so having one in your hand will stop this joker from giving you X3 mult. There are various other jokers that require certain ranks or suits in order for their effects to happen, and Stone cards can block those effects.

All that said, I wouldn't call Stone cards great. I'm not likely to take them from a Standard pack. I'm not clambering for the Stone Joker, which adds Stone cards to your deck. But they can be quite useful, especially early game when you might be lacking sources of chips.

Is vs. Contains

There are two different ways jokers refer to poker hands:

• Hand is X, like in To Do List (Earn $4 if poker hand is a [Poker Hand], poker hand changes at end of round)
  
• Hand contains X, like in Spare Trousers (This Joker gains +2 Mult if played hand contains a Two Pair)

These are two different things. If a joker says "hand is" a certain poker hand, then it must be exactly that poker hand. If the To Do List says it wants a Pair, it must be exactly a Pair. Not Two Pair, not Three of a Kind, just Pair.

If a joker says hand contains a poker hand, then it doesn't need to be specifically that hand. For example, Spare Trousers powers up whenever the played hand contains two pair. That means you can level it up with a Two Pair hand and also a Full House - a full house of 9 9 9 8 8 also contains the two pair of 9 9 8 8.

This is especially important for jokers like The Duo, which gives you X2 Mult if played hand contains a Pair. As mentioned previously, xMult is extremely powerful, so X2 mult for any hand that contains a pair is extremely easy to do and very powerful.

[Critter]

Nice summary!

[zirune]

@Xfilayer F-16 Keep at it! A lot of it is just learning over time - what jokers are good, how to spend your money, that sort of stuff.

@Myrrhb It is called Hanging Chad in English (and some other languages), and more generic things like "invalid vote" or "voter card" in other languages. I assume you're playing it in a language other than English.

[Myrrhb]

Great explanation! This helped me win my first run, especially with the reordering the jokers and cards - I hadn't realised how much that did, and I wasn't aware that you could reorder your hand.

I have a question about bulletpoint 4 in "Re-order your cards"; I don't remember a Joker called Hanging Chad, the description makes me think you mean Ballot? Did the name maybe change?

Anyways, thanks again!

[Xfilayer Narwhal]

Guide's still not helping, I think it's solely because I'm super unlucky. Haven't even made it to ante 8 yet

[Xfilayer Narwhal]

Yeah idk if it's my luck or what, but even following this guide isn't getting me any wins. I've been consistently stuck at ante 5 or 6

[zirune]

The Tooth isn't the most impactful boss in terms of playing extra cards, but I can include a bit about it sure.

[kero_pudding]

for the section about trying to play 5 cards , why have you not mentioned the tooth(lose $1 per card played

[biggerdrodo]

what

[Kratum]

the XMult bit was very helpful.. that makes that rare joker with 1.5 xmult make a lot more sense lol

[zirune]

Of the decks you might have available without any wins (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Black), Black is the most difficult. Blue is generally better than Red, and Yellow is good as well. Green is usually worse than Yellow.