One of the most exhilarating feelings in a roguelike is when everything aligns to create a perfect run. In Hades, it’s an incredibly potent combination of abilities; in Dead Cells, it’s an ideal arsenal of weapons; and in Balatro, it’s all about finding the best mix of Jokers. With the right assortment of Jokers, a run in Balatro can occasionally feel almost effortless. You have so many Joker effects occurring that the game starts speeding up the animations, and your score ignites because you aren’t just about to finish the round—you’re about to exceed it, rendering the goal you’re aiming for trivial in comparison.
These runs are magnificent in Balatro and in other roguelikes, but that’s because not every run unfolds in this way. In reality, only a few total runs progress like this. Most runs in Balatro, including many of my successful attempts, feature me just barely clinching each round with my final hand. Each shop or bonus for skipping a blind becomes critically important, as I need another boost in chips or a multiplier; otherwise, my run is likely to collapse and fail. This tenacity is what makes Balatro unique, and there are multiple mechanics that can help you reduce some of the risk in these runs, making it just as viable to fight tooth and nail for a run as it is to completely dominate the game with your setup.
Balatro lets you shape your fate (mostly)
While it’s not uncommon for roguelikes to simplify the process of enhancing the powers or weapons available during a run, Balatro consistently provides you with the opportunity to improve risk-versus-reward evaluations. Each ante presents three blinds, two of which can be completely bypassed. You won’t earn any money or get to visit the shop, but you could receive something else instead. Often, this is as simple as acquiring a pack of cards to bolster your deck, or it could guarantee a Joker of a specific rarity or with a unique bonus type. Importantly, the reward is never a specific Joker—only certain modifiers or rarities. You can never ensure you get the ideal Joker you desire, which emphasizes the need to work with whatever Jokers you obtain. One of my favorite decks to play is the Plasma deck, which combines and averages your chips and multiplier each time you play a hand, transforming 50 chips with a two multiplier into 26 times 26. While this may seem like it makes winning a round easier—and it undeniably does for the first ante or two—this deck also doubles your target score, making it much harder to achieve. A quick method to advance your overall score with this deck is by significantly inflating your chip total, as that number is generally easier to increase compared to the multiplier. Consequently, a foil Joker, which automatically adds 50 chips to each played hand, can provide a substantial boost to your score in a short timeframe, even though the Joker itself does not actually contribute to a run. A guaranteed foil Joker is one of the rewards that might be obtained for skipping a blind, offering a straightforward way to keep a run alive. Even if the effects of the Joker don’t support your setup and you may need to discard it later, it will still help you progress through more rounds, meaning you have more opportunities to obtain the best items in the shop. This level of control over your rewards, however minimal, is critically important in Balatro because it is a game rooted in mathematics. In an action-oriented roguelike, you might compensate for several poor rolls with skill, as long as you possess the abilities to dodge or parry consistently. In contrast, you cannot complete rounds of Balatro merely through skill; you must work with the resources available to you. This crafting feels purposeful and aligns with various aspects of how the game functions. When you encounter a brand new ante, Balatro arms you with an abundance of information. You can clearly see what you need to secure in all three blinds to proceed, what your rewards are for skipping either of the first two blinds, and what the specific conditions are within the third blind. While you may not know precisely what will be in the shop, you do know that there will be two packs, two card slots that could potentially be Jokers, Tarots, or Planets, and a voucher. You also have a fairly good idea of how much these items will cost and how much money you can earn for each blind you complete. All of this information is incredibly valuable, as it enables you to make decisions based on both the short-term and long-term impacts of each item. Certainly, the first Joker in the shop may not be one that you want for the long haul, but any amount of multiplier can be beneficial. A foil Joker adding 50 chips is typically an excellent advantage at the moment, even if the Joker itself focuses on straights while you are building around two pairs. As you raise the stakes and the game becomes more difficult and complex, with the introduction of permanent Jokers that cannot be obtained or destroyed or perishable Jokers that stop working after five rounds, having this insight allows you to assemble more resilient runs. What you can influence here…
