Thanks again. I am getting the hang of it and even got to Ante 7 once.
My favorite Joker so far is Four Fingers. I always buy Celestial cards when I can, especially Two Pair, Straight and Flush.
There are some interesting quirks. Like if you have a high level on Two Pair, choosing a Full House will screw you.
Now I need to learn Tarot cards.
I’m hooked.
Something common to most of my runs is that I tend to make most of my points from Two Pair.
The most powerful hand in the game is the high card, albeit mostly for a different reason than the level of the hand.
Money, money, money.
IMO, the most powerful Tarot cards are Hermit (double money, up to $20) and Temperance (money equal to the value of your jokers). A fun combo is Egg joker plus Temperance - you can earn lots of money this way, even though the Egg takes up a joker slot. I almost never sell an Egg. Add the Swashbuckler Joker (+mult equal to the value of other jokers) and you are well on your way - just need some chips and xMult.
It would have a to be a very specific circumstance (maybe Death on a blue seal) to skip a Hermit or high-value Temperance.
Then Devil, because Gold cards are another source of money.
Then Hung Man (removing cards) and Death (turn a card into a copy of another).
In case you don’t know, you can move the cards around in your hand before playing a hand or a tarot card. This is essential for making Death work right, but can also help improve scoring since cards trigger from left to right.
You can also move your jokers around, so that the +Mult jokers score before the xMult jokers do. Also so that can arrange a Blueprint (copy joker to the right) or Brainstorm (copy joker on far left).
It’s a nice one to have, Particularly at low stakes and especially with the Checkered deck. Throw in Shortcut joker and you can regularly hit straight flushes. (Don’t use the Smeared joker with checkered though. Not only do you not get an advantage, but you will screw yourself with any of the boss’s that nullify specific suits by neutering half your deck.)
The main problem with the checkered deck is at high stakes, unless you have Shortcut and Four Fingers, flushes are frequently a trap. Because they don’t scale very well. You need to get plenty of Jupiters to keep up with the ante scaling.
Or blue seals, of course. The most overpowered card enhancement in the game.
Working on getting gold stickers on as many jokers as I can helps identify which combos are strong enough to carry one or two “bad” jokers. Photograph + Hanging Chad, of course. But lots of interesting interactions can work, with some luck.
Just had a Yellow Deck gold stake run that was carried by Half Joker, Red Card, and Vampire. Hallucination to generate the enhancements tarot cards for the Vampire to eat. Was about to lose at Ante 7 but a late Seeing Double (x2 mult with a club + one other card) and then a Blueprint (replacing Seeing Double and copying the x5 or so Vampire) got me through. Was able to get a gold sticker on Odd Todd (not a weak chips Joker, but not the strongest) and Hallucination.