Wait, no Balatro?

The Game Room
21

This is the hardest thing to figure out, and the ease with which he (and other top players) does it is ridiculous.

The rule of thumb seems to be 1 “scoring joker” per ante, with the rest going towards “value” jokers (which could be cash or could be tarot generators or other ancillary benefits). And being very willing to “let it ride” for the first few antes just to get the interest flowing or the value-generation building up. No packs until you have $25, unless you absolutely have to have a scoring boost to beat the next blind (via planet or joker packs).

Watching a few videos also really reinforced that I was just playing way too many hands, and skipping way too many blinds. I’m doing much better by using discards to find the one or two hands that will be enough to score, and basically never skipping a blind.

What was the build? Random seed? I almost never see the Legendary jokers so these crazy numbers are impossible. I finally got Ante 12 with a Sock & Buskin + Photo + Chad build with a very trimmed down deck and lots of Steel cards, but without the Perkeo madness I’m not sure how NaNInf is possible.

22

AFAIK there are 2 ways to hit naninf without perkeo.

  1. Multiple Chicot legendary + manacle boss permanently increases hand size. Get that early enough and you’re golden.
  2. There are ways to get a lot of discards, and then you get the serpent boss to increase handsize.
23

Always a random seed - I don’t really see the point of doing a run if I can’t earn a new stake or something. I think I had Blueprint/Mime, and 2 Barons. There was another scoring joker in there once my economy was okay (but ran out of steam), and I did manage to get the “no boss” legendary. I had Death’ed enough steel Kings to make it fun, but didn’t get a red seal on one until way too late.

24

Well dang - I think I was getting close to building a naneinf hand, and then hit The Plant (rebuff face cards). I had Blueprint, Brainstorm, and DNA, duping a ton of red seal Kings (about half gold, half steel). I had a Troubador (+2 hand size), Mime and 2 Barons. I was only in Ante 12, and hadn’t gotten Director’s Cut (reroll Boss) yet, and I burned all my money to get Luchador (disable Boss).

I also don’t know if getting a disable Hearts boss would have killed me either - I was diversifying my suits when I could, but that could have been a limited factor. Fun run!

25

It’s kind of funny that’s a base of a naneinf hand, but IMO it’s only like 1% of the way there. The Perkeo + cryptid is the 90% of it and the 9% is getting them earlier enough to build up the cryptids.

The closest I’ve ever felt was getting a cryptid in round 2 from a sixth sense and then never seeing a perkeo.

26

I saw Balatro Uni do a non-Legendary naneinf run, and I think that was how he did it, but I think you’re right - so many other things need to go right.

Managed to finally knock off an orange stake and unlocked the Erratic Deck, and got the Completionist achievement. Just 99% more of the game to go…

27

I think the non-legendary option needs the Serpent boss? There are ways to get a ton of discards. Discard 1, then draw 3 = huge hand size.

28

Yes, you need Serpent. But he did it with tons of hands, not tons of discards. Same idea though - play 1, draw 3 till you get your 44 red seal Steel kings.

He used Burglar to get the extra hands (copied multiple times by Brainstorm/Blueprint). I think he started the final round with 20 hands or so (he also had Grabber and Nacho Tong).

ETA: That only works on Plasma deck. With other decks you need many more triggers.

29

Just finished up Completionist+ on what was certainly the last game I’ll ever play on the black deck.

30

It’s a $10 game but with my Apple Arcade subscription it’s free so I’ll give it a go. Wish me luck.

31

I actually finished the exact thing (with the same deck last, of course) just last week. Congrats!!

Of course I still have Jokerless and Golden Needle to do on challenges as well has about 30% of the joker stickers. So C++ seems very far away.

32

Those were my last 2 challenges as well - I somehow knocked them both out the same day. Each them lives and dies by RNG. Jokerless needs blue seals (lots and lots of them), Golden Needle seemingly relies on getting Acrobat as soon as possible (and a lot of blue seals).

33

For some reason the tutorial link doesn’t work on the app I downloaded to my phone. So I went looking at some YouTube tutorials and they may as well be speaking Latin because they are using terminology that must be very familiar to gamers but not to me. The only ELI5 one is nearly two hours long.

34

You don’t really need a tutorial to have fun and learn how the game works. I certainly don’t remember playing one (but maybe I did, it’s been awhile).

The Youtube videos are probably going for special speed-runs or other more difficult challenges. Or maybe referring to specific jokers and effects, possibly by slang names.

The game itself is simple, but the jokers can be complicated. You won’t even have access to the more complicated jokers until after you’ve played a bunch of runs.

All you really need to know to dive in is that you play poker hands to score chips. Each round you have a certain chips goal to beat the round. Chips are scored by taking chips * a multiplier. Each card starts out being worth the number of chips the card is (so a 5 scores 5 chips, a J 10, etc). And each poker hand has a starting “value”, both in chips and multiplier (called “mult” in most guides/videos). So a pair of Jacks would be worth [10 (starting value for a pair) + 10 (Jack #1) + 10 (Jack #2)] x 2 (starting mult for a pair) = 60 chips.

At the end of each round you earn money which you can spend in a shop. These shops let you buy things to make your deck more powerful. The most obvious thing you can buy is jokers, which either let you score more points directly (maybe all hearts give +3 mult, or a straight gives +12 mult), or give you some special ability that either helps you earn money or score points. Learning the jokers and the combinations that work well together, and with specific types of hands, is the entire point of the game.

There are also “planet cards” you can buy to directly boost the starting value of each hand (one type of planet card exists for each possible hand) and “tarot cards” that you can buy to modify the cards in your deck (change suit, make them score more chips, make them wild, etc). Finally there are “spectral cards” which have zany effects and each “ante” has a voucher that gives you some sort of boost (extra hand, extra discard, etc). Oh, and you can skip a round for a bonus “skip tag” effect, but honestly just don’t do that while you are learning - very few of them are worth it and you aren’t likely to know which ones and when.

The number of chips required goes up each round, and you play until you either can’t score enough to beat the round or you finish Ante 8 (each group of three rounds is called an Ante).

If you are just getting started, don’t worry about skipping any rounds, try to find flushes or straights the first couple of rounds, and don’t open any bonus packs until you have $25 in the bank. Try to grab a few scoring jokers in the first few shops.

Really, just play a bit and you will very quickly figure out how it works. Then come back with some questions and I’m sure folks here can help.

ETA: Maybe it’s not obvious why you want to get to $25 as quickly as possible and try to stay above after each shop. After each round you earn $1 for each $5 you have in the bank, with a cap of $5. So by having less than $25 you are missing out on interest each round (and that interest compounds…).

35

I really appreciate all of that. I’ll just jump in

36

That was a really good dive into the basics and a bit more, without getting into the weeds and being overly complicated. I

Hajario, come back with any questions you have. Some YouTubers are REALLY good to watch to learn, but they’re LONG.

37

When I win a round, I have the opportunity to buy a Joker. It looks like there are two available Jokers (plus other cards) each time but all of them are “Not Discovered” so I can’t actually buy them. I have been shown that I have discovered three or four Jokers over time. Do I just have to wait until they make a discovered Joker available to me?

I know that the money only lasts as long as the round and then it’s back to zero. Do you get to keep the Jokers that you buy? As a beginner, shouldn’t I be buying a Joker every chance I get?

38

Oh now I see. You can buy it by long pressing.

39

I don’t know all of the IO options - it depends on the platform you’re playing on. For me on PC you click the joker and then click “Buy”. On iOS it’s dragging it into the “Buy” area that appears when you tap the joker.

“Discovered” just means that you’ve used the Joker in a game before. Some jokers are “locked” until you compete some in-game criteria. If you go to the “collection” on the main menu it will show you the locked jockers, and sometimes what you have to do to unlock them.

This is not true. Any unspent money in a shop stays in your bank, and potentially earns interest. You do not have to spend all of your money - and in fact you probably shouldn’t!

Probably not.

Here’s a quick idea of the first three rounds (first Ante).

Round one: You won’t have any jokers, and you need 300 chips. This can be done with a high flush (more than 30 chips worth of cards) or a high straight (more than 35 chips worth of cards). A Queen-high straight works, or normally a flush with a few face cards. You should be trying to win with only one hand, by using your discards aggressively, typically to find a flush. If you don’t make a flush you will need to play some hands to try to find the flush - so if you end up with only 4 cards of a suit play the other cards as a High Card or Pair to hope you draw the flush. Then play the flush to win.

First shop: If either of the Jokers offered to you are a scoring joker, you should probably buy it. By “scoring joker” I mean one that directly gives you more points per hand. Something like the one that gives +5 per face card played, or +mult to a specific hand type. This will make the next few shops easier. If there are no scoring jokers, but there is a buffoon pack (which has jokers in it), open that and grab the scoring joker there. If you don’t have that option, just go next and save your money.

Round two: You will need two or more hands, unless you got a scoring joker. Again, try to win with in as few hands as possible (each unused hands earns $1 at the end of the round).

Second shop: If you didn’t get a scoring joker, you will need one now. Grab whatever is available, and focus your play around that joker for the next few rounds. Any +mult is great to get through the next few rounds. If you already have a scoring joker, look for ones that add money (Golden Joker is great, as is ToDo List or ones that give money for discarding certain cards). Don’t buy more than the one scoring and one “value generating” joker until you get $25.

Round three: This will have some boss ability that will make it harder. Hopefully you have a scoring joker, in which case you should be fine with two good hands. Make sure to play the hands your Jokers help with.

Thirds shop: Now you should have some money. You can grab a second scoring joker if you want, but don’t open the bonus packs until you have $25 to earn max interest.

Some other general advice:

Another approach if you are given planet cards is to use them to get through Round 1. If you upgrade Straights, for example, you can get through at least Round 3 or 4 with just one straight.

For low stakes you should try to have one scoring joker per Ante you are in minus 1. So by Ante 3 you will need two scoring jokers. By Ante 8 you will likely need all 5 to be scoring, unless you have some of the really strong ones.

Try to spread out what the jokers do. Scaling jokers are better than static ones (i.e. ones where the amount of scoring goes up over time). The ideal setup is to have: one scaling chips joker (Castle, Square, Wee), one scaling mult (Green, Red Card, Supernova), one scaling xMult (this are much rarer, but Constellation is a good example). If you get even two of those three with some static joker for the other you will almost certainly win.

Don’t buy more than you need! Keep track of what your hands are scoring and you can look at “Run Info” to see the next blinds levels. If you are scoring 2000 chips with a pair, and the next boss is only 3000, you don’t need to spend all of your money on scoring - either save it or use it to improve your deck with tarot cards.

There is much, much more - just keep playing!

40

If it’s in the shop, you can buy it (if you have enough money). On iOS, you swipe the card up to the “Buy” box.

Nearly all of the main jokers are available from the beginning. A lot of the locked Jokers get unlocked by doing various normal things while playing. Others you may want to look through the wiki to see if you want to knock a few out.

But mostly you learn by playing. When I first started, I’d look up a particular joker on the wiki to see if there were any good synergies I should keep an eye out for - jokers that work well together are the key to getting through Ante 8 (I.e. one of the most popular and easy combos is Hanging Chad + Photograph).

Note there’s a big difference between “adding Mult” and “multiplying Mult”. That’s something important to keep an eye on.