Wait, no Belatro?

The Game Room
1

I don’t hang out in this forum so maybe there’s something mysterious and I’m missing it but I just got addicted to this game called Belatro. I thought it was gonna be a little time waster, no big deal and suddenly I’m addicted.

And apparently I’m not alone.

I have a lot of questions about it, even though I’ve been playing it for a bit, and I was really, really hoping that some Dopers would be a source for some info.

But since my searches have brought up a whole lot of nothing I guess maybe I’m out of luck?

2

My understanding is that there are a large number of videos on Youtube of people playing Balatro. I know my favourite Youtuber was an early booster of the game.

3

There’s a pretty obsessive reddit community that’s good readin’ for when you can’t play.

The Balatro Wiki is an invaluable resource.

But if you have specific questions, I’ve played the game quite extensively and might have some answers.

4

Same, I’ve put in quite a few hours into it. I won gold stake for the yellow deck before the change to stakes, and am working now on getting gold for the other decks under the new system.

5

I had to take a break after getting gold stakes on every deck. I know if I install it on my phone I’m never getting anything done again.

6

Once you’ve lost a run, can you start a new one with the Jokers you have in your Collection from the previous run? Or do you have to start all over with none?

7

By the way, Balatro is now a free PlayStation Plus game for the month of May 2025.

8

It’s a roguelite, so you typically start with nothing from your previous run except the permanent unlocks… in this case, that means you can choose a different starting deck (if you’ve unlocked any) and higher difficulty modes. The jokers you got before won’t be there by default, but they can come up again (randomly) in shops and packs.

However…

  1. If you don’t care about achievements, you can use the “Unlock All” button in the profile menu to unlock all the decks. Some of the later ones are much better than the default deck.
  2. Normally each run is random, but you can also specify a “seed” to make it not random… if you do, all the cards/packs/etc will be completely deterministic between the runs of the same seed, so you can essentially “practice” over and over again without the element of randomness. Whenever you lose a round, it’ll give you the option of copying the seed. You can use that seed next time to play the exact same run again, without anything being randomly different (assuming you played the same, that is).

For #2, 2K9H9HN is an especially powerful seed that gives you a negative Perkeo and Triboulet in the first ante. Eventually I had nothing but queens of hearts left in my deck and I played a Flush Five (5 of the same card and suit) every hand, which led to each hand scoring several gazillion points. I eventually lost with a final score of 2.5x10122 points… crazy stuff. You can actually get to infinity points with a seed like that.