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.
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.
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!
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.
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…
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.